Tehialai
Tehialai, called Thief-of-Ships, is a giant crustacean, the ancient teacher and enemy of the Taumata civilisation.1
Appearance
Tehialai wears the hulls of wrecked ships as her shell, after ripping them into shape with her claws.1
History
In the folklore of the people inhabiting the Okaiyo Ocean, Tehialai wandered the ocean until she was found by Kolea, then just a fisherman in the mythical western continent, who allowed her to live in his pond and offered her the fish that came there. In exchange, she taught him her knowledge to discern an island on the horizon, and to create magical fishhooks and tattoos. Every month, Tehialai grew larger, and Kolea dug out his pond a bit more.2
When the astronomers foresaw an incoming catastrophe, Kolea asked for Tehialai's aid in carrying his people on her shell on an exodus from Taumata, but Tehialai refused to help, saying that she could simply hide underwater no matter what happened to the sky.2 Kolea thus made a choice: when Tehialai was gorged and slumbering, he stole her shell, broke it into pieces and turned them into canoes, on which the people of Taumata left their ruined home behind and moved east. An enraged Tehialai followed, trying to reassemble her shell from whichever ships she could catch. However, Kolea had stolen both her shell and the power that dwelled in it, and had also become her equal in navigating the ocean. Finding herself slower and weaker, Tehialai vowed to destroy any ships she saw before retreating into the deeps.3
Since then, every harvest year, the people of the Okaiyo Ocean have been offering Tehialai small, empty boats—just enough for her to patch her shell, but not too small as to encourage her to hunt bigger ships.3
“Tehialai, take this ship and be satisfied with it, that you steal no others this year.
”
References
For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 . “Tehialai” in Monsters of Myth, 106. Paizo Inc., 2021
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 . “Tehialai” in Monsters of Myth, 103. Paizo Inc., 2021
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 . “Tehialai” in Monsters of Myth, 104. Paizo Inc., 2021