Waukeen (Wau-KEEN) is an old deity. She appealed to the rising merchant class in Orben, and her worshipers included shopkeepers, members of trading costers, wealthy merchants, caravan guides, itinerant peddlers, moneychangers, and smugglers.

Waukeen is a vibrant and vivacious deity with a will to get things done. She loves wealth not for the sake of money itself but for the comforts, conveniences, and opportunities it brings her and her followers. She likes the fast-paced bargaining and the give-and-take of the marketplace, and legend holds that she has been recognized many times by worshipers just after she and her follower had finished a spirited bargaining session over and item for sale in a town market. (She always won the best deal, but the merchant was usually well satisfied with the terms also.)

Waukeen is willing to try odd methods to accomplish her goals when tried and true ones are just not working. This openness to innovation has led her to embrace many of Gond's "new-fangled gadgets" long before other deities thought them wise. However, while she is open to different methods of problem-solving, she is also stubborn about having her way and very persistent. In fact, it is a combination of these virtues and flaws that led to the dire predicament she is in now.

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Home Plane/Realm

Brightwater/The Marketplace Eternal

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Portfolio

Trade, money, justifiably-acquired wealth

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Favored Weapon

Cloud of Coins (flail)

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Myths

• Waukeen's Adventure

When Ao held his interrogation for the Tablets of Fate, Waukeen feared that they had somehow come into her possession by mistake, for her temples acquired numerous items of power through its daily dealings, some even greater than the tablets themselves, and a full inventory of her holdings would have taken longer than Ao's summons allowed. Rather than leaving her fate to chance, she decided to flee Ao's gaze.

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Being intimately familiar with illicit trade as well as legitimate commerce, Waukeen decided to smuggle herself out of the Prime Material 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 once his anger had abated, or she had discovered she was without unwitting guilt and return freely.

Through a twisted chain of contacts she managed to call in a favor from Celestian, from the sphere of Oerth. He agreed to transport her to the Astral plane as payment for the debt. 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 plane of Orben 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 Orben, 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 on Orben and 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 honoring 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 more powerful celestial 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 Ao's interrogation ended and Myrkul was destroyed, all other faiths resumed getting upper-level spells from their deity, but not the Waukeenar. They continued to be limited to only weak spells and received no inkling of guidance from the Golden Lady. By 33ERM, 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 this before the fevered dreams of Halanna Jashire, a promising young priestess of Waukeen stationed in the Goldspires temple in Mairmithon, 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, made it to the Abyss, and heroically rescued Waukeen from numerous minions of Graz'zt, returning her to her realm.

When she finally strode down a lane between the tents and stalls of the sprawling open-air market that was her House of Barter in the Marketplace Eternal, 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.

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Harlot's Coin Heresy
A heretical schism of Waukeen's faith teaches that Waukeen had gradually sold off pieces of her divinity and virtue to Graz'zt in order to finance her church. They believe that it was for failing to pay her debts to him that Graz'zt imprisoned her during her long absence. These heretics teach that Waukeen earned her freedom only because she finally paid her debt to the demon, resulting in Graz'zt owning the majority of Waukeen's godhood. The heretics therefore believe that all who worshiped Waukeen were really worshiping Graz'zt instead, and they are content with that arrangement.

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History

Waukeen is one of the oldest gods in Orben, though of course not so old as its primordial powers. She emerged during the first trade between the first civilizations, and by staying largely out of ideological and racial struggles has remained above most conflicts, while also profiting from them immensely. This persisted until just before the fall of Aer Arnad with Ao's Interrogation, where Waukeen fled Ao's summons, only to be captured and imprisoned. She returned centuries later, after Lliira had temporarily assumed her portfolio.

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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 rumors 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.

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Relationship with other gods and churches

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 before the fall of Aer Arnad. 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 is one of the first to support Gond and his inventions over the doubts of most other deities. Shaundakul is also an ally of the Merchant's Friend as his portfolio touched hers in areas such as long-range traders, and caravans. Waukeen has no real enemies among the pantheon except Mask, the Master of All Thieves, because larceny is bad for business. She naturally has 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..

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Associated lesser deities

• Lliira, God of Joy

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