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IN CHARACTER

Character Name: Taako Taaco
Canon: The Adventure Zone: Balance (CRAU from Hadriel)
Canon Point: Mid episode 69, the night after the battle but before the epilogue timeskip, +2 years CRAU from Hadriel

In-Game Tattoo Placement: Inner arm, with a single antler; Lup has the other "half" that matches when they intertwine arms.
Current Health/Status: Very alive, and about to be very disappointed.
Age: ~230 years old, physically in his mid to late 20s.
Species: Elf (DND 5E Style)

Content Warnings: Taako's history and personality deals very heavily with death and will include discussions of murder and apocalypse-level destruction. In addition, there will be touches of discussion on mental illness with a focus on panic attacks and anxiety.

History: Here is his wiki page, but since he's a main character and effectively in every episode (and that wiki isn't very descriptive), I'd also think it helpful to include the arc reference guide and transcripts of the episodes since he's from a podcast and an audio medium will take a long-ass time to get through.

CRAU History and Impact: A quick bullet-point history to start, followed by a summary:

Taako arrived at a slightly earlier canonpoint where he didn't remember Lup or the 100 year journey. He was there at first with Magnus and Merle so felt semi-secure until he got into a huge blowout fight with them over an event where he killed a projection of Magnus' wife to save his life. It left him feeling lonely and reaffirming in his head that he didn't need anyone else and other people would only hurt him.

Naturally right after that he disappears on a canon update to regain his memories concurrent with Lup's arrival to the city. She's from an earlier canonpoint, but with the whiplash of his new memories and the events of last month, he finds it in himself to open up and tell her about their future and his fears. It's the first time in a long time he opens up to someone, even if it's someone he used to be the most open with.

When the Null invaded, a great robotic force bent on wiping them all out, Taako went carelessly into the fight and very nearly died after getting completely impaled. Meanwhile his boyfriend Kravitz did die in front of him- this caused death to finally mean something again and to get him to take their situation in this world more seriously. It was also the point he realized that some of his own emotions about his relationship he was keeping from even himself, and he was much more invested in Kravitz than he thought he was.

Lucretia did finally arrive with knowledge of her actions, and while Taako was angry with her, he tried to distance himself. However, Lup tried to bring her to live with them, leading to a crushing breakdown fight that culminated in Taako expressing the deep loneliness he had felt when he was alone. Even if these were the people he was closest to in the world, he feels fundamentally changed by what she did, and that's still a deep wound that pushes him into self-isolation.

During an event that removed a part of every character, Lup ended up losing her sanity and turning into a destructive, senseless lich. Taako was without his magic and powerless to stop her, and had to enlist Kravitz to strike her down and face that this was something that could happen in the future as a direct consequence of the choices they'd previously made. This hit him especially hard because he was very afraid when Lup became a lich about her future, and even being forced to confront this only hardened his resolve to see it solved before it happened in their world.

Due to an event where memories were shared with touch, Taako revealed to Lup that in an earlier event he had killed a version of her when he didn't remember who she was. He was holding it in because he thought she would be afraid of him and the person he was without his memories, but she finally reassured him that he was always her brother. This is when he finally began to feel secure in their connection again and not second-guess if he had drifted too far from her. Not long after this, the gods tried to pit them against each other and they were able to overcome the false emotions to save each other, further exemplifying his commitment to ensure he never loses her again.

After taking inaction on his other emotions for many months, he finally spoke to Kravitz and let him know he was actually committed to their relationship. It's a huge emotional confession for him, from someone who never wants to confront his own feelings and also has fully accepted someone outside of his family for the first time.

When the final battle had been wrought, Taako approached three of his best friends he had made from other worlds and openly offered to take them with him when he went home. They declined, but taking the initiative to let them know they were accepted was incredibly vital to his acceptance of others as people truly in his heart.

Essentially, Taako's journey in Hadriel was about processing his past and emotions, realizing he could let a few others in, and grasp that not only does he want this future that he might actually deserve it. Because he entered the city with false memories of believing no one had ever loved him, much of his progress was learning to trust and accept people truly for the first time. When he and Lup were children, all they had was each other, and even after a hundred years of being with a group of five more left the group of people Taako trusted incredibly limited. Because Hadriel forced him to show others his past, he had to confront many of his feelings for the first time in his life and actually accept some parts of who he is. Ultimately, he now has someone he's openly admitted to loving, friendships he believes in, and a security in knowing that sometimes things do get better if he addresses him. That hasn't changed the core tenants of who he is- he's still naturally defensive and untrustworthy of strangers, and prefers keeping people at arm's length. But his experiences in Hadriel have taught him that even if others see and experience the worst of him, there are people who will stick around and care about him. He still figures he might have tricked a few of them into sticking around, but he's going to run with it while he has it.

Personality: First and foremost, Taako is complicated, mostly by his own design. He frequently thinks one thing and does another, says one thing and means another, and does one thing with intent to do something completely different. On the whole, it boils down to the fact that Taako intentionally keeps himself an enigma to throw others off his trail- including how he thinks about himself, to protect himself from getting hurt.

On the outside, Taako keeps himself to a rather scripted and specific part of what's the most fun and what he wants others to know about him. He primarily does whatever he thinks will be funniest for himself; he'll make jokes, play pranks, and outright insult people if the opportunity is presented. Often times it's nothing personal- if it's funny, it flies, even if it comes slightly at his own expense as he chases humor and a laid-back lifestyle. He's even gone so far with certain people like Leon the Artificer that Leon won't even be in the same room as him after a long-running joke about a fake inability to put a coin in a slot. He can often be greedy, and has been known to hoard money and treasures, going so far as to literally steal the shoes off a corpse's feet that he doesn't even wear and pocketing a significant amount of silverware just because of it's perceived value. He's even been seen to take items without a necessary money value just because he enjoys them, like asking Paloma if he can have one of her crystals for no other reason than 'he wants it'. He also outwardly downplays his own intelligence (claiming to be just a "simple idiot wizard") while talking up his magical skill, primarily to keep people on their toes and to stop them from truly knowing anything about him. While he's not a coward, he frequently prefers to use magic to charm his way out of issues to avoid conflict, and keeps himself as unassuming as possible to downplay his status as a target. He's also plenty vain, caring a lot about his appearance and even burning limited magic just to keep himself looking flawless, such as his continued casting of a spell since the Suffering Game to negate sacrifices he had to give up to get through the dungeon. Ultimately, his outward persona is a contradiction if anyone looks too close- he wants to be thought of as strong, but able to be underestimated. Adored, but not touched. Memorable, but not attached. Luckily, if his plan works, no one can see him close enough to notice those inconsistencies.

That said, internally it becomes a different story. Taako's pushing off of others and aloof nature is due primarily to the fact that he doesn't care too little- he cares too much. Taako's upbringing was rough to say the least- after being passed around a variety of family, he found himself out on the streets with just his sister Lup for almost a hundred years, clawing their way up from nothing through cooking for traveling caravans and running for their lives. This action of only getting affection from others when he has something useful to contribute or do bleeds roughly into what happens with the IPRE's mission, and the way they traverse worlds. After cursing a world to war just to escape the fight of the Hunger they've endured for a hundred years, Taako speaks to Barry, one of the few people he trusts, about his position on the matter:

Taako: You know what’s kinda fucking me up?

Barry: What’s that, Taako? Speaking personally, I would assume a lot of stuff.

Taako: Yeah, it’s weird though. We traveled around for a hundred years, and… didn’t really have a place to call ours. And… now that we’re stuck here… I can’t stop feeling like, we’re technically homeless. Like, think about it for a second. We’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop for so long, over a year now. And we live on a spaceship? It’s still really weird to me (...) I don’t know, it just, seems weird.

Barry: No, I know what you’re talkin’ about, and, you know, we talked about, it’s- it’s not right for us to really live in that world until… I don't know, we see how things play out. I would feel guilty being a citizen in a world that I… poisoned. But like, can I speak frankly? I- You’re my family, Taako, can I speak frankly? I can’t believe that’s what you’re worried about right now.

Taako: Listen, I’m just trying to get by, man. Thanks for the shade, I guess. This has been great. Thanks.

Barry: I don’t mean to, it’s just like… I’m struggling with it too, and I don’t know how- I don’t know how you shut yourself off from that.

Taako: We- I mean- I’m sorry, but I’ve been living a hundred years with me and one year with millions of people, interchangeable. I guess I just got to a point where… I was the one that I could focus on, because, everybody else that I ever met, aside from the six of you, were dust. They were just talking dust, okay, so I started worrying a lot more about me, because what was the fuckin’ point?

Taako knows, when he truly focuses on his emotional state, that if he allows himself to truly feel he'll be completely overwhelmed. From growing up in an environment that taught him the only person he could confide in is Lup, that's all he does- even so from considering himself. Because of this, Taako ends up unable to process a lot of these emotions not out of an inability to do so, but an internal and unspoken fear that he will lose control over himself if he does. His life has been a chaotic mess of trying to keep things stable, and this is his shot at stability for himself.

Outside of just himself as an individual, Taako considers himself more importantly one half of a whole- the other being his twin. While the elves can have different ways of dealing with things, Taako anchors himself to her more than she does to him, and places more value on himself when they're together. While both of the elves make connections within the IPRE, Lup pulls herself to citizens of the world and shows empathy for the crewmates much earlier than Taako does (such as her actions stopping Taako from basically genocide on robot planet, or her willingness to go off alone for months at a time on mushroom planet). She even finds a romantic bond strong enough to become undead- something that scares Taako horribly enough not to follow her, once again driven in motivations by fear and trying to keep control. In addition, he considers himself incomplete without her in his life. Taako thinks of the time he spent without his memories as a person as very little, and makes it very clear when he regains his memories of her: he makes a show of readying to kill Lucretia, telling her you took everything from me, willing to dully follow the apocalypse afterwards- because who is he without her?

However, despite his perceptions of himself, his personality shines distinctly from her in ways best described by their magical proclivities. While Lup's specialization is evocation, Taako's is transmutation. While he does take pride into changing his body into animals and warping himself into different planes, (primarily because it's incredibly easy to break someone of their step that way), it's ironically not him he's interested in changing. Lup prefers to steamroll through the world and break what doesn't bend- Taako, on the other hand, will move the world until it suits his needs. Where Lup is fire, Taako is water; she'll blast a hole, but he'll wear away the path until it's exactly the road he wanted it to be in the first place. He does this countless times over the course of the story as he challenges the narrative of what he's "supposed" to be feeling. When on cycle 8 the planet is vicious, kills one of their crew, and the Hunger comes to wipe an entire civilization- well, Taako uses magic to make a paper mache fake of the Light and tosses it out the window. When he and the crew are captured by the Judges in cycle 65, where they are put on trial for perceived sins, Taako doesn't even admit anything about himself- he pleads "not visible" and tries to literally disappear when confronted with his problems. Once again this brings him in direct comparison to Lup, who offers her sins up freely and seems unashamed of them. They both earn the same result by destabilizing the conversation in their favor, but while Lup overtakes, Taako sneaks under the barrier.

While this more private side of Taako doesn't often appear externally, those who work his way into his inner circle are held close to his heart and his willingness to protect them becomes paramount. Despite himself, and often to his own annoyance at his emotions, Taako attaches himself to people quickly and genuinely wants to be loved, despite how horrifying a prospect that is. For instance, earlier on in the show he once sat out of a fight while Magnus and Merle get attacked at the beginning of the Crystal Kingdom arc. About six months later, when Magnus is knocked out of his body near the end of Suffering Game, Taako doesn't even hesitate to throw his soul from his body in an attempt to save him in an attempt he doesn't even know is going to work. Another example is Taako initially stealing Angus McDonald's silver set, but in seeing how depressed the boy was over it's loss, not only gave him a few pieces of it back but offers to train him in magic as recompence for his own guilt. When he does open up, it is hesitant and sudden, such as his admission to Kravitz during their date about his abandonment issues ("I'm afraid no one else will have me"), and multiple times in descriptive flavor text about his fear of being alone. While being a very private person in thinking that his personal business is his business, it's largely out of a fear of directly confronting emotions as they occur. If he is to let them out, they trickle away as cracks in a dam, patched up hastily until they break again.

In the end, neither of these sides of him are lies- he does enjoy keeping people away to adore him and making connections with those he deems to matter. He loves to keep things for himself while sharing everything with the few people closest to him. And he loves keeping himself tied to Lup while still being very much his own person. Taako wants to be an enigma even to himself- if even he doesn't know where his true self lies, there's nothing that can truly reach and hurt him, and that's the only thing that can protect him from the world.

Abilities/Powers/Weaknesses & Warping: Okay, please bear with me here- I'm gonna go over all of his canon stuff, and then discuss in the way of nerfs, because it'll be easier if I can lay all of this out and how it works and THEN go into the specifics.

First up, powers and magic. Since The Adventure Zone is a Dungeons and Dragons podcast (specifically the 5e edition), a more comprehensive detail of how magic works in the universe can be found in the player's handbook, specifically under the "wizard" class section (page 106, 113 for his school of magic) and the "spellcasting" chapter for general spell rules (page 183). In the shortest sense, in this universe people who can do magic have a certain level of "spell slots" they can use between long rests (~6/8 hours rest; these can be considered roughly once a day). The higher level you are, the more slots you have. Each spell and slot depending on power is given a number from 0-9, 0 being a cantrip that you can cast as many times as you want but the effects are very minor, and 9 having the power to rewrite the planet every once in a while. Spells at level 5 have to be cast out of a lv 5 slot, which limits their use. You can upcast a spell (i.e. cast a level 5 with a level 8 slot) but you can't downcast it (so no level 9 spells out of a level 1 slot). Finally, as to how he has his magic, wizards learn spells out of ability and knowledge and are classified as "prepared spellcasters". This meansthey have a list of spells the entire class can learn and can pick anything from that list as long as it's prepared for the day and you're a high enough level to learn it. Because that is obviously a lot of potential magic, I've compiled a list of spells he has used in the show, which you can find here on this journal, which also goes into detail of how many slots he has a day.

All of that said and while I go into more detail on this magic in the second link, it should be known that while magic can be powerful, most D&D spells are incredibly short lived (most of them last a minute or less) and do not always succeed even in canon- shots can miss, casting can be interrupted, and certain things require materials he may not be able to acquire. For D&D, you can cast out of a "spell focus" to not have to use materials- Taako has one of these- but many spells require additional components, or if his focus were to be damaged he would need to acquire a lot of weird stuff to be able to do this.

Now that I've gotten through all of that, nerfs and warps! Much like his twin Lup, I'd love to see spells backfire more frequently or just absolutely reverse rather than just fail outright. While lower level spells or cantrips may be frequently fine (or fizzle once in a while), higher spells mean a bigger chance for it to go utterly wrong. Since a lot of Taako's magic involves changing things into other things, this could be half done changes, turning things into the opposite of what he's looking for, or having it quite literally blow up in his face. This makes a lot of his high level spells incredibly risky, as he has the potential to do any of this damage to himself instead of a foe.

Next up, racial traits. Being an elf, Taako has a couple of innate abilities, namely that he can see in the dark up to 60 feet like it was dim light, and in dim light like it was bright. He cannot discern color with this vision, only shades of grey. In addition, he has a resistance to being charmed he cannot be put to sleep through magical means. Finally, elves have the ability to go into a 'trance-like state' for 4 hours instead of sleeping that counts him as rested- however, he tends to prefer sleeping and will generally sleep if given the option. I'm not sure this is an ability that requires a nerf, but considering the setting I assume he'll need to sleep at some point regardless of this.

Finally, miscellaneous talents and important information- Taako has been cooking for roughly 200 years (starting at the age of 12) and has managed to make something to eat out of weird shit across the universe in over 100 different worlds. While he prefers to work with finer ingredients, he has an idea on how to make a meal out of nearly anything, and since his last game was also a non-ideal food situation he's gotten damn good at working with very little. He's also fluent in 6 languages for some reason, of which we can confirm Common, Elvish, and a specific planet's animal language. It will not work on any of the animals here.

Inventory:
1. The KrEbStAr (his spell focus/de-facto and will take his weapon slot; it looks like this). It's only special property outside of being a wand is it has a feature called Mulligan's Blessing- if he misses with a spell, he doesn't expend the spell slot to have cast it. This will be on his person on arrival, but since it's his "weapon" I've noted it here.

2. His Hadriel phone.

3. One half of a pair of magic earrings that act like long-distance walkie talkies; sends only to Lup.

4. A sack containing everything he was dragging out of Hadriel at the time he left that wasn't worn on his person. This contains mostly clothing- at least six capes, a number of tank tops and shorts, an assortment of shoes, a bunch of tangled necklaces and fake jewelry and a few dresses. Nestled among them are are his personal cookbook and his few remaining magic items that aren't worn: the Wand of Switcheroo, the Pocket Spa, Immovable Rod, the Band of Projected Thought, and the Hole Thrower. Descriptions of these that don't have individual linked pages can be found here.

5. His spellbook, "Uncle John's Eleven Bathroom Reader". There are a few loose leaf papers shoved into it that look like sheet music, along with just a bunch of weird bits of plastic and a pen sandwiched in there. It looks like a mess.

6. A blessing orb from Hadriel meant to restore memories (purely for sentimental reasons; it won't work here).

Writing Samples: tdm toplevel with quite a few characters, and another tdm thread with El. In addition, just to cover my bases, here's a thread from his previous game with Lup during a CR reversal event.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Player Name: Alex
Player Age: 26
Player Contact: cancerously, discord at cancerously#6043

Other Characters In Game: N/A
In-Game Tag If Accepted: Taako Taaco: Alex
Permissions for Character: Over here!
Are you comfortable with prominent elements of fourth-walling?: Yep! All good here.
What themes of horror/psychological thrillers do you enjoy the most?: Puzzles to solve along the way, mundane breadcrumbs of a story to a fantastical ending you never would imagine to be real (i.e. Get Out, Cabin In The Woods, ect). Reveals that can change character perception about the world or challenge pre-conceived notions of a "world" are also amazing.
Is there anything in particular you absolutely need specific content warnings for?: Trypophobia (if images), but particularly bugs burrowing in and out of skin/any kind of internal parasite. Otherwise I am a-ok.
Additional Information: Nothing right now, thanks so much!