Tanielu, The Reef King

In The Beginning

Tanielu began life as all other living things do, he was born. He did not come from his mother but rather an egg that was one amongst many on a strand planted beneath a shell hidden in the hollow beneath a reef rock. Tiny at hatching, he watched and learned of life and survival in the way of his kind. He saw fish hunt his siblings who were too bold or slow to notice the danger before it was too late. As time went on, little Tanielu grew both in size and in confidence as he learned every inch of the reef he called home.
He had no other ambitions beyond survival, though he did have a curiosity that drew him ever closer to the strange things that sailed upon the surface. It was an everyday battle to tamp down his curiosity, something he feared would bring an end to him as it had to his siblings. Then, one fateful night as he slept inside a discarded green glass jug he kept hidden beneath the corals, a savage storm blew in.
At first, he slept peacefully even as waves surged above. Then, the currents strengthened and swirled. The sands and debris on the sea floor rose and swished about. The jug rocked, then swayed before it suddenly rode the wild current out from its hiding place in the coral.

Tanielu jolted awake as his jug swirled in the dangerous current's grip. Outside his jug, he watched other creatures of the reef struggle and fight in vain to escape through the blur of swirling sands. Tanielu braced all eight of his tentacles against the glass, holding himself inside the jug as he realized staying inside was safer than going out there.
The water swirled more and more and formed into a spiraling wall that rose higher and higher. Sand, broken coral, denizens of the reef, and Tanielu's jug were carried up as well. Higher and higher they rose until they were well above the surface of the water. Then, it was the winds that grasped his jug. Unlike the others who all gasped for water to breathe, Tanielu did not. His jug, kept mostly upright by his weight as he anchored himself to the bottom, was full of water.
He did not know how long his jug rode the terrible winds before it finally fell back down on the deck of a ship. The jug shattered on impact as it absorbed all the shock of their descent, leaving Tanielu unharmed. The crew aboard that ill-fated ship fought the storm even as it ripped away canvas, ropes, and pieces of timber before finally flinging it upon the rocky shore of a strange uncharted island. Curiosity rose up in Tanielu and, this time, he did not fight it. He followed it towards a terrible and infamous fate.

~Tale of Tanielu written within the pages of a lost, and incomplete, chronicle

by AndreyC

Tanielu

by Dazzlinkat

Tanielu began life as a little reef octopus until, one day, a maelstrom raged over his reef home. This terrible storm brought him and a broken ship to a strange island. What happened to him and the crew during the three years they were on that island is unknown, even to them. Or so they claim and no amount of coercion, magical or otherwise, has managed to reveal anything.
What is known is that Tanielu has embraced a humanoid form where four of his tentacles work together as two legs. His remaining tentacles he uses as four arms. With a container of water to breathe on his back, and when his ship is not shooting its railistas, he weilds a long-handled billhook. This two-handed polearm leaves his remaining two "arms" free to do other... things.
His ship, named The Reef, is said to be able to heal the damage done to its planks and timbers and even sail beneath the waves. This allows Tanielu and his pirates to carry out devastating surprise attacks.

The Reef

by SerenityArt