Pâté de Rolo

Pâté de Rolo is a puppet created by Laudna made of a raven skull affixed to the body of a dead rat. Pâté is named after the de Rolo family of Whitestone, where Laudna is from. When she puppets Pâté, speaks through him using ventriloquy in a deeper pitched, almost Cockney accent.

Description
Pâté de Rolo is a small puppet created by Laudna made out of the body of a rat and the skull of a raven that died after flying into a wall inside Laudna's home. In official art, the puppet is depicted wearing a red ribbon around its neck. She carries him on her belt.

Laudna puppets him using magical tendrils from her fingers as strings like a marionette. She performs ventriloquy through him using a deeper pitched, almost Cockney accent. She stated that he can be puppeteered a maximum of six inches away from her fingertips, though she is "working on" extending that range.

He is named after the de Rolo family of Whitestone, where Laudna is from. Laudna recalled there being many de Rolos whose names began with the letter P (likely the multiple Percivals) and felt that the puppet looked like dead liver, so she additionally named him Pâté.

History
Before 841 PD, Laudna created Pâté to keep her company alongside "the voice inside her head" to prevent her from going mad in her solitude. She seems proud of the work she did in creating Pâté herself.

Pâté was introduced to the yet-to-be-named Bells Hells in. Though Laudna was excited to show him off, reaction to Pâté among the group was mixed: Fresh Cut Grass and Ashton Greymoore reacted positively, Dorian Storm was polite but disliked him, and Imogen Temult remarked that she had not gotten used to Pâté in the two years she's known Laudna. When Laudna, speaking through Pâté, told the group that he kept her company to maintain her sanity in solitude, Orym whispered to the puppet that he did a good job.

Laudna later excitedly introduced Pâté to Little Mister, Fearne Calloway's monkey-shaped wildfire spirit. Little Mister screeched at Pâté, and Fearne attempted to encourage Little Mister to befriend Pâté by petting Pâté, which only made Little Mister jealous. Later that day, Laudna showed him to Milo Krook. Thrilled, Milo called Laudna "cool" and became inspired to create similar rat-creature hybrid constructs.

Laudna presented Pâté to Chetney Pock O'Pea, who was initially delighted to make the acquaintance but was more hesitant when Laudna proclaimed that he and Pâté were now friends. When the group considered having Chetney pay them for their help by making toys, instead of in gold, Laudna asked if he could make a girlfriend for Pâté. Chetney said he could and, when Laudna through Pâté said he was "quite horny", Chetney added he would consider that in the design. The next day, when Fearne used Wild Shape to become a rat, Pâté said she was "a fresh hunk of meat"; Imogen said this was inappropriate to say, and Laudna admonished Pâté for offending Imogen.

When Laudna returned to Trove of Marwa alone, she offered to take Marwa Endalia's "trash" (valuables without current uses) to make masks for Bells Hells and a tiny bowtie for Pâté in order to pay for a too-expensive purchase. Once she revealed Pâté, Marwa sold her the goods for all her gold and threw in free scraps for such arts and crafts.

After Laudna was killed in the fight with Otohan Thull, Imogen took Pâté. When the party was in the spirit realm trying to free Laudna's soul, Chetney found a rat body and bird skull in a stone hut, and took those materials.

Sashimi
At the Knot Forgotten in Heartmoor Hamlet, Zadro Ichlen presented Imogen with a "creepy marionette" that had a featureless, white porcelain face and "these wide eyelid-less eyes." Imogen immediately bought it for Laudna. When presented with the doll, Laudna declared that she had "seen her in [her] dreams," and that she would be called Sashimi. She is now Pâté's girlfriend, with an apparently active sex life. Chetney gifted Laudna a house for the two of them, so that they could do things "behind closed doors."

Behind the scenes
Pâté was created during the development of Laudna's character design for her official portrait. Artist Hannah Friederichs added scissors, yarn, and other objects hanging off Laudna's belt, prompting Marisha to remember Taliesin's advice on Renaissance Faire costumes: "You need more dead things hanging off of you." Hannah added a dead rat, and Marisha had a raven skull added to make it more "crafty". Marisha settled on Pâté's name well before she decided Laudna's because she wanted to "fuck with Taliesin", and the decision to use Pâté as a puppet was felt out in the moment rather than decided in advance.

Trivia

 * A pâté (French: "paste") is a food made from a seasoned mixture of ground meat and fat, usually slow-cooked and served cold. Given Laudna compared the puppet to liver, pâté de foie gras is made of the livers of fattened ducks or geese and is considered a delicacy associated with the rich and noble.
 * Pâté's raven skull is reminiscent of Percival de Rolo's personally crafted bird-beaked mask and his raven skull clasp crafted using a skull given to him by Keyleth, who like Laudna was played by Marisha.