Keptolo
Source: Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes p. 54
- Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Category: The Dark Seldarine
- Domains: Nature, Trickery
- Pantheon: Drow
- Province: Beauty, hedonism, fertility
- Symbol: Mushroom
A quote from Tezzeryn, Head Consort of House Bhaerynden, instructing his son
Keptolo shows the way. Feed the vanity of your mistress, and all her treasures shall be yours. Be careful whom you offend, and keep an expendable companion nearby to hold culpable for your crimes. Gossip can be as deadly as the venom on an assassin’s blade. Use the poison of words to destroy your rivals, that you may claim for yourself all they once presumed was theirs.
The ideal of what a male drow can become, Keptolo is handsome, stylish, witty, hedonistic, an outrageous flatterer, and sought after as a lover. He is also dangerous in his aspects as a subtle assassin and a whisperer of rumors. For those attributes, he is worshiped by ambitious males who hope to emulate him. Some succeed admirably and achieve great things beyond the reach of most males, but many more succumb to excesses of the flesh, dissipation, and disease, or they are ruined or murdered by a rival-who is also a true disciple of Keptolo.
In most myths, Keptolo resides in the Demonweb Pits alongside Lolth, whom he serves as consort, more than a plaything but much less than an equal. Keptolo is a bitter enemy of Zinzerena, who deceives and uses him as a tool in many of the stories about the Dark Seldarine.