Takoma

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Takoma is an older human in his early 60s, with a severe scar cutting into the top of his nose and across his right eye to the temple. His right eye is milky white due to an opaque cornea caused by the injury that scarred his face: a vicious bite from a Ninki Nanka attack he survived while traveling through the equatorial gulf many years ago. He is skinny and stands tall, but has a slight hunch to his back. He has deep reddish-brown skin and long, curly black hair and a short curly beard, both the hair on his head and on his face are shot through with streaks of white. He is an accomplished alchemist, owing to having spent his youth collecting the secrets of many different tribes, peoples, and cities. Today, though, he is far more interested in the brewing and fermenting of different meads and ales than in the creation of medicines and other chemical transmutations.

Takoma comes off as a stern and grim gentleman at first blush, between his scarred, hardened countenance and his tendency to respond to questions monosyllabically or with quiet grunts rather than full sentences. In truth, he’s a kind-hearted man who cares deeply for his craft, and for the few friends he has made since setting up shop in Palask. His tavern and apothecary shop is called the Wick and Wax Tavern, where he sells his meads, ales, and candles with various clever properties made from the wax of the bees he keeps out back behind the building.

The bee hives are surrounded by an ingenious mesh of alchemically-treated silk, one of the only of its kind in the whole world, which Takoma is both proud of, and exhausted by the mere thought of. The mesh is fine enough and tough enough to keep the bees in, but porous enough to be translucent. He has been approached by some teachers of the Academy to sell them the formula and process notes for both this strange mesh and for many of his other creations. He has thus far rebuffed them, albeit promising to give the Tower of Mysteries all of his alchemical research notes at the time of his death.

Takoma seldom smiles or shows any change in affect whatsoever, but is known to appreciate a particularly good (or especially bad) joke, causing his leathery old face to crease into a broad grin.

A Talented Gentleman

Takoma sells a great many meads and ales of differing flavors and potencies, from relatively weak ones to fruity concoctions that rival other distilled liquors for alcoholic efficacy. These range in price from 5 amber for a cup of his weakest stuff to 250 amber for a large jug of his best. He also makes candles with the following properties:

Item	Description	a
Brightwick Taper	A thin, tall candle that sheds an exceptionally bright flame, yielding light in twice the area of a torch. Burns for 6 total hours before fully melting.	11
Darklight Votive	A short, wide candle that sheds an odd form of light that cannot be seen by creatures further than 30ft from the wick. Illuminates as would a torch; burns for 2 total hours before fully melting.	52
Longburn Pillar	A tall, thick candle that burns with a sweet, citrusy scent for an exceptionally long time. Illuminates as would a torch; burns for a total of 24 hours before fully melting. Due to its smell, creatures attempting to follow you gain a +2 bonus on AWR tests to do so for up to an hour after you pass through an area.	40