Waukeen (wau-KEEN or wah-KEEN)

Waukeen was a lesser deity of the Achroian pantheon known as the Merchant's Friend, Liberty's Maiden, and the Golden Lady. Her portfolio included everything related to commerce and the accumulation of wealth through free and fair trade, as well as the beneficial use of wealth to improve civilization. Those that venerated and appeased her included merchants from lowly peddlers to the wealthy owners of trading companies, investors, accountants, entrepreneurs, caravan guides, warehouse owners, philanthropists, deal-makers, moneylenders, and so on. Waukeen was also the goddess of illicit trade and the patron of many smugglers, fences, black marketeers, and "businessmen" on the shady side of commerce. Collectively, her worshipers were known as Waukeenar.

Personality

Waukeen was an active and enthusiastic deity who enjoyed the ebb and flow of goods via commerce and the rapid pace of business in a thriving marketplace full of spirited bargaining so much so that rumours of her presence at particularly intense negotiations involving one of her worshipers became legendary. Her side always got the best bargain, but the other party usually walked away also feeling satisfied about the terms of the deal. Waukeen was driven to accomplish a goal and move on to the next one and, rather than being frustrated when the usual business practices failed to work out a solution, she was willing to try alternate methods. This manifested itself in her church sometimes allowing the ends to justify the means. Her stubbornness and dogged persistence occasionally got her in predicaments and likely led to her imprisonment during the Time of Troubles.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Waukeen was a relatively late addition to the Achorian pantheon, joining sometime after Tyr. Her popularity grew with the expansion of trade and the thriving merchant class across the Realms where the combination of generosity, risk taking, and shrewd business sense made her church enviably wealthy and widely admired. Then came the Time of Troubles, when she nearly lost her admirers, her church, her divinity, her freedom, and her life.
When Lord Ao cast nearly all the Faerûnian deities into mortal avatar form and scattered them across the surface of Toril, Waukeen was among them, and like the majority of the fallen gods, wanted most to return home (and the sooner she could reclaim her realm and marshal her resources, the quicker she could influence unfolding events in her favor). As luck would have it, the first being she met was the avatar of Lliira and the two goddesses decided to stick together while they worked out a plan of action.
The Golden Lady first advocated a straightforward approach: to climb the Celestial Stairway from its landing in Shadowdale and bribe Helm with his heart's desire to allow the two goddesses back into the Outer planes. Not known for her ambition, Lliira went along with the brash young deity's plan. They travelled to Shadowdale and began climbing the Staircase when Helm appeared and threatened them. Alas, nothing that Waukeen or the Lady of Joy offered Helm could entice the God of Guardians to shirk his duty, so they retreated to the Cormanthor forest rather than face his wrath.
Being intimately familiar with illicit trade as well as legitimate commerce, Waukeen decided to smuggle herself back to the Outlands by way of the Astral plane and a circuitous route through the Lower Planes by making deals, calling in favors, and bribery. By doing so, she hoped to avoid detection by Ao's servants and sneak back into her realm.
Through a twisted chain of contacts she managed to call in a favor from Celestian, the God of Wanderers from the sphere of Oerth. He agreed to transport her to the Astral plane as payment for the debt, but would not go so far as to include Lliira in the bargain, for fear of the added risk. When it came time to complete the deal however, he found that he could not budge her off her Prime Material Plane. Lord Ao had bound the gods to the material plane with an unbreakable bond. Out of options, Waukeen gambled that it was her divinity that was tied to the plane and not the vessel carrying it, so Lliira graciously agreed to hold Waukeen's power and portfolio in stewardship until Waukeen could reclaim it. Once the transferal of her divinity to Lliira was complete, Waukeen became an ordinary human woman, but still armed with an extraordinary body of knowledge and formidable spellcasting powers. Celestian was then able to shift her into the Astral plane for the next leg of her journey.
Once free of the material plane, Waukeen contacted some minions of an extremely powerful Abyssal lord named Graz'zt and negotiated (or had previously arranged for) safe passage through the Abyss to the Outlands. In return, Graz'zt was to receive the location of a number of secret treasure hoards across the planes, and even more useful information about the financial dealings of Graz'zt's rival demon lords, information that could give him an advantage in the eternal Blood War between the demons and the devils. The Merchant's Friend was escorted to the Dark Prince's vast realm Azzagrat, which spanned the 45th, 46th, and 47th layers of the Abyss, to the sprawling city of Zelatar, and finally to the sixty-six ivory towers of the Argent Palace; Graz'zt's seat of power.
Graz'zt of course never planned on honouring the deal struck with Waukeen. Once she arrived in the heart of his realm he had no trouble detaining the mortal form of the Golden Lady and told her she would be his "guest" while they renegotiated the deal previously agreed upon, knowing full well she would not alter a closed contract. This manufactured impasse gave the Dark Prince time to work on his master plan: to find a way for his daughter Thraxxia to possess, control, or impersonate Waukeen well enough to fool the gods and elevate Thraxxia to be the new goddess of wealth.
Until his plan came to fruition, Graz'zt had to keep Waukeen alive and under his control. He knew it was only a matter of time before her worshipers discovered her whereabouts and sent out rescue parties, so he began moving her back and forth between the Argent Palace and the city of Samora where his trusted servant, the succubus Maretta, Lady of the Counting-House, lived. The truth was that most of the heavily guarded and slow moving caravans were decoys designed to lure potential rescuers out into the open and be destroyed. But on one occasion Waukeen managed to bribe a guard and escape into the Viper Forest called Zrintor, only to be recaptured later by a search party that could not be bribed into assisting her; they had witnessed the fate of the traitorous demon at the hands of Graz'zt and their fear outweighed their greed.
Luck was apparently on the side of the demon lord because no one, not even Lliira, knew what happened to Waukeen after she disappeared into the Abyss. All attempts at divination failed to reveal anything clear or useful. When the Godswar ended, all other faiths resumed getting upper-level spells from their deity, but not the Waukeenar. They continued to be limited to first and second level spells and received no inkling of guidance from the Golden Lady. The church of Waukeen was falling apart and Lliira decided to intervene to save what was left of it or there would have been nothing for the Merchant's Friend to return to. She sent her prophet to all of Waukeen's temples and announced that she would act as regent for Waukeen's portfolio and answer prayers for spells. Many of the distraught Waukeenar interpreted this to mean that their goddess was truly dead.
It was twelve long years after the Godswar before the fevered dreams of Halanna Jashire, a promising young priestess of Waukeen stationed in the Goldspires temple in Athkatla, the capital of Amn, gave hope to the anguished members of the Golden Lady's church that their missing deity was alive and being held by the Abyssal lord Graz'zt. A daring band of adventurers set out climbing the Celestial Staircase, made it to the Abyss, and heroically rescued Waukeen from numerous minions of Graz'zt, returning her via the Staircase to her realm in the Outlands.
When she finally strode down a lane between the tents and stalls of the sprawling open-air market that was her House of Barter, the cacophony of commerce fell silent as they slowly realized who walked among them. In front of her golden palace, Waukeen was joyfully met by her seneschal, a gynosphinx named Keelira, who proclaimed the return of the Goddess of Wealth in a voice like thunder as the crowd erupted in ecstatic celebration. Keelira was sent to fetch Lliira, and soon the Mistress of the Revels returned Waukeen's mantle of divinity. And there was much rejoicing.
On the Golden Lady revealed to her church and all of the planes that she had returned from her long absence, and that date became yet another festival celebrated by the worshipers of Waukeen.
After the exuberance of the celebrations died down, there began a period of recovery for the church of Waukeen. During her long absence, referred to as the Interdeium of Waukeen, the church suffered an alarming amount of attrition and had to be built back up. Not one to avoid hard work, Waukeen set about revitalizing her faithful and combating the wild rumours and speculation that her disappearance and unusual return had generated, including the belief that she was dead. One of the most damaging allegations was known as the Harlot's Coin Heresy inculcated by the League of Six-Fingered Gentlemen, a group that had insinuated itself into the church hierarchy. Their doctrine was that Waukeen had traded or sold much of her divine power to Graz'zt and that she was now just a figurehead.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Waukeen's closest ally was Lliira, who was the trustee of Waukeen's portfolio while she made her ill-fated attempt to get back to her realm in the Outlands during the Time of Troubles. However, when Lliira started answering the prayers of Waukeen's followers during her long incarceration, many of the Waukeenar assumed their goddess was dead and switched allegiances and rededicated their temples to Lliira. After Waukeen returned to power, she was jealous and upset that so many of her faithful did not return to her service, and this slightly soured the friendship between the two goddesses.
The Golden Lady was one of the first to support Gond and his inventions over the doubts of most other deities. Shaundakul was also an ally of the Merchant's Friend as his portfolio touched hers in areas such as long-range traders, and caravans. Waukeen had no real enemies among the pantheon except Mask, the Master of All Thieves, because larceny is bad for business. She naturally had an unending hatred and thirst for revenge against the demon lord Graz'zt who broke a deal, took advantage of her weakened state, and held her captive during the Avatar Crisis.

Divine Classification

Lesser deity

Religions
Achrorian pantheon
Alignment
Neutral
Honorary & Occupational Titles
Liberty's Maiden
the Golden Lady
Merchantsfriend
Merchants' Friend
Merchant's Friend
Our Lady of Gold
The Coinmaiden
Domains
Knowledge, Trickery
Portfolio
Trade, money, wealth