Tabula Smaragdina

Tabula Smaragdina (タブラ・スマラグディナ) is a guild member of Ainz Ooal Gown and regarded as one of the Forty-One Supreme Beings by the NPCs of the Great Tomb of Nazarick. He is the creator of Albedo, Nigredo, and Rubedo.

Appearance
Tabula's appearance is that of a humanoid with a head resembling that of a distorted squid. He wears a shiny, form-fitting black leather outfit studded with silver jewelry and several belts wrapped around it. His black cape was also closed in front of it as if to conceal its body.

While so, the right side of his head was shown to be half-covered in twisted, tattooed letters. He has two cloudy pupil-less, blue-white eyes as well as six twitching tentacles that are sprouted from his mouth dangled down to his thighs.

His skin was like that of a corpse, with purple blotches amidst a ghastly white color. He was covered in some sort of sticky slime that gave off a bizarre sheen. Additionally, webs of skin grew between the long digits of his four-fingered hands.

Personality
Tabula Smaragdina has a strong personality, in various ways. During normal discussions, he would speak coherently as a rational man. However, as the talk became more in-depth, various parts of his true nature that are hard to associate with would begin to surface. Tabula was the kind of setting maniac who produced extremely long design documents for his creations upon writing them.

Tabula has two passions in life: "gap moe," which is the cute contradiction between the actions of someone and his or her usual character, and horror films, of which he has extensive knowledge, from the classics to the latest, that surprised even his fellow guild members. He was described to always talk about things none of his friends are able to understand clearly. He was highly perceptive to recognize the name such as Nazarick to not have any correlation to mythology, Latin, or Greek. Tabula seems to also know how not all names in the DMMORPG, YGGDRASIL are from mythology or based on it.

In addition to that, he was said to have somewhat of a bizarre fascination for the occult. It even went as far as to drive him into naming his three NPC creations after alchemic ingredients. He is analytical to the point where Ainz seems to acknowledge that Tabula is the one person in the guild with the most knowledge about the occult books and that it influences his naming sense during the making of a guild NPC. For instance, Ainz had once acquired some brief information about runes from Tabula during past conversations they shared together.

Background
Tabula Smaragdina attended the weekly clan meeting for Nine's Own Goal. He was intrigued by Nishikienrai's news of an unexplored dungeon and was surprised that it was located in the Grenbera Swamp as many did an aerial reconnaissance of the place and found nothing. He hypothesized that the Great Tomb of Nazarick could only be found on foot. After the Clan was to be reorganized as a Guild, Momonga was also designated as Guildmaster. Tabula conferred with Punitto Moe and Bellriver, each sending emails to Momonga stating that no one else was suitable, else the Guild would tear itself apart. Once Momonga accepted, the clan members attempted to create a new name. Tabula suggested the idea of naming their new guild to be Knights Templar, however, it was rejected like many others until the name Ainz Ooal Gown was chosen.

Later on, Tabula joined his guildmates in an expedition to the Great Tomb of Nazarick. While in the marching as a rearguard in the swamp, he attempted to discern where the name Nazarick originated in human mythology but was unable to come to an answer. At the doorstep of the tomb, he was hesitant to divide their group into parties, wanting to wait until they got deeper into the tomb. The guild then by majority vote agreed to Tabula's suggestion and continued on. Tabula turned out to be correct as it was discovered that the tomb is a simultaneous attack dungeon. At that point, he was assigned to a team and entered the depths of the tomb.

Tabula and his group managed to make it to the last level where they waited for Momonga's groups after they successfully killed the Asura. Tabula celebrated with his Guild at the conquest and the acquisition of the Great Tomb of Nazarick as they took a photo of their victory.

As a member of Ainz Ooal Gown, he was one of the intellectual elites in the guild. According to Momonga, Tabula Smaragdina was quite versed in the knowledge of occult lore. Additionally, he has a love for gap moe and watching horror movies. Based on his knowledge and taste, he would use it to help him with the creation of his own NPCs. His creations Albedo and Nigredo embodied respectively these two hobbies. Tabula Smaragdina have also apparently collected the manuscript of copyright-expired works from the real world and convert them over into YGGDRASIL book format. Tabula often tends to store these materials in the library of Ashurbanipal in the Great Tomb of Nazarick on the 10th Floor.

On the other hand, Tabula had a hand in designing about 20% of the smaller mechanisms throughout the Great Tomb of Nazarick. His abnormally intricate designs consumed much of Nazarick's free data capacity, which caused the other members to complain about being unable to indulge themselves. Thus, he took responsibility for his actions and paid for many cash items to expand said data capacity.

Among such creations was Photo Studio Tabula, which he made for Bukubukuchagama after he learned about her hobby of photography.

The Undead King Arc
Prior to YGGDRASIL's silent shutdown at the end of the game, Momonga recalls all the good times the members of the Ainz Ooal Gown including Tabula Smaragdina. In the lamentation of his fellow guildmates' departure a few minutes before him, the Great Tomb of Nazarick and all of its NPCs were transported to the New World.

At the same time, Ainz learned that his NPC, Albedo is equipped with a World Item without permission, suspecting that it was Tabula who gave it to her. In the end, Momonga felt that he should respect the wishes of his comrade who had given such an item to Albedo, and so he did not take further action.

When Ainz says that he feels bad for altering Albedo’s setting and tarnishing Tabula’s creation, Albedo only replies that Tabula would definitely give his blessing with the feelings of seeing his daughter off to marriage.

The Emissary of the King Arc
Upon realizing that Albedo did not have appropriate quarters which was her room, Ainz became apologetic about it. He also believed the blame lies with Tabula for not preparing one for Albedo in the first place since he is the one who created her. In the end, he did not blame Tabula due to their sudden transportation into the New World, expecting him to account for this possibility and design a room for her would have been too much even for his obsessive-compulsive disorder. Ainz even noted although Tabula Smaragdina was a setting maniac who produced extremely long design documents for his creations, he presumed that his friend's imagination was probably within normal parameters.

On the other hand, Albedo is willing to let Ainz see the items her creator Tabula imparted to her through an unknown bag. Since Tabula Smaragdina was a fan of horror movies, Ainz did not know what he would expect to find inside the bag he gave to Albedo. For that reason, Ainz had a mix of fear and curiosity which piqued his interest to keep searching the content inside, hoping it to be special rare items. However, one of those items Ainz discovered from Albedo's bag was nothing but her underwear that he mistakenly thought to be a handkerchief.

The Dark Warrior Arc
Recalling the fact of how he had tamper Albedo's character setting, Ainz can't help but ponder what would his friend Tabula Smaragdina think about what the former had done.

The Bloody Valkyrie Arc
When Ainz and Albedo visit Nigredo in the Frozen Prison, he is impressed by Tabula’s work, as his guild member manually placed many Carrion Babies there. Ainz wonders how much money Tabula must have spent in the end, as he configured many monsters.

Ainz reminisces about Tabula one more time when he enters the Treasury, saying he was a perfectionist. He reminds us that Tabula was one of the people responsible for designing Ainz Ooal Gown’s mechanisms. He also remembers that he wasn’t a bad person and had a strong personality, in various ways.

Upon meeting Pandora's Actor unknowingly for the first time, Albedo mistakes the Doppelgänger for her creator Tabula Smaragdina. However, she shortly retracts her words and questions the unknown NPC who it was in disguise. Albedo declares to the impostor that even if it takes on the form of Tabula, she would not easily mistake her own creator for anyone else.

The Show Must Go On! Arc
For the sake of building a theatre play in the Great Tomb of Nazarick, Albedo obtained a script about "Romeo and Juliet" in the library, Ashurbanipal to help her on the way. According to Albedo, the script seems to have been brought over from the World of 2138 which Ainz used to reside in originally. Upon learning of this piece of information from Albedo, Ainz realized that such a script found in Nazarick's library had to be one of Tabula's doing bringing it there without him noticing until now. In the end, Ainz noted that Tabula was always the kind of detail maniac to have done something like that.

The Invaders of the Large Tomb Arc
When Albedo considers forming a secret unit in search for the remaining Supreme Beings, she suggests to Ainz the conditions for doing so mean keeping the subject a top-notch secret from the other Floor Guardians. Hence, Ainz inquires Albedo whether she can behave accordingly if Tabula was found to which the latter believes that it won't be a problem as someone holds the position of Overseer.

The Ruler of Conspiracy Arc
When Albedo told Ainz about a remedy that is effective against illness, the latter begins to wonder whether this knowledge she knows of came from Tabula Smaragdina who programmed her. In the end, the remedy was said to be a kiss suggested by Albedo. When Albedo implores Ainz to give her a kiss as a remedy, he felt it was wrong to ignore the wishes of Tabula Smaragdina’s daughter and as a result, kissed the Overseer on her cheek.

After Ainz gave the Book of the Dead to Fluder Paradyne, he showed him some page of its lore and then mentions his guild member, Tabula. In particular, Ainz thought that if Tabula was present with them right now, he would be able to explain the meaning behind this book's lore to Fluder.

The Craftsman of Dwarf Arc
When Ainz shared with Gondo Firebeard what he knew about runes, most of the things he mentioned were what he learned from his friend Tabula. However, Ainz had forgotten many things from what he learned from Tabula.

The Witch of the Falling Kingdom Arc
For the sake of repaying Tabula's kindness along with Ankoro Mocchi Mochi, Ainz has chosen to utilize that as a reason for considering Pestonya's suggestion of sparing some humans alive from the Re-Estize Kingdom.

Abilities and Powers
In terms of pure destructive power, Tabula is a stronger magic caster than Momonga.

Main Equipment

 * Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown: It allows the user to freely teleport between every room inside Nazarick. Every member of Ainz Ooal Gown was required to wear this ring.

Momonga
Tabula would constantly feed Momonga useless trivia on mythology. Tabula thought that if anyone but Momonga became the Guildmaster of Ainz Ooal Gown, the guild would surely tear itself apart. Therefore, he even considered the idea of joining a different guild with Momonga.

Punitto Moe
Tabula and Punitto Moe shared the same opinion that if someone other than Momonga became the Guildmaster of Ainz Ooal Gown, the guild would surely tear itself apart. Therefore, they wanted to join a different guild with Momonga.

Bellriver
Tabula seems to get along well with Bellriver as the two agreed that if someone other than Momonga became the Guildmaster of Ainz Ooal Gown, the guild would soon fall apart. Reasonably so, they are hoping to join a different guild in the event that Momonga were to ever leave Ainz Ooal Gown.

Touch Me
Tabula considered naming the guild, Knights Templar based on how he viewed Touch Me. He describes Touch Me to be the kind of person who was a lot like Hugues de Payens.

Albedo
Tabula is the creator of Albedo and her sisters. Thus, he commands the most respect and loyalty from Albedo than all the other guild members, except for Momonga who altered her settings to be in love with him as a joke. He put great detail in her setting, however, neglected to provide her own quarters. In addition, Tabula gave Albedo a limited amount of styles of clothing for her wardrobe, though he did provide her with numerous sets of lingerie to wear.

Nigredo
Tabula is Nigredo's creator thus he commands the most respect and loyalty from Nigredo than all the other guild members.

Rubedo
Tabula is Rubedo's creator thus he commands the most respect and loyalty from Rubedo than all the other guild members.

Trivia

 * In the Web Novel, he is the creator of CZ2128_Delta.
 * His name is a reference to the Emerald Tablet.
 * He is responsible for the design of Treasury security systems. And also some features in the Frozen Prison and the short-lived Shazai Kaiken.
 * Pandora's Actor transformed into Tabula Smaragdina when he was first introduced.
 * His appearance is reminiscent of the Illithid, also known as the Mind Flayer, from Dungeons and Dragons and sources that draw on it for inspiration. As is the racial description, seeing as Illithids in most D&D inspired settings are described as creatures that feed on the brains of other creatures (most notably other races).

Quotes

 * (Spoken his hypothesis after Punitto Moe's): "Perhaps the Great Tomb of Nazarick only appears to people who've traversed the poison swamp on foot? Or perhaps it's only visible under a certain altitude."
 * (To his Guild Members about their unnamed guild): "If that's the case, how about the Knights Templar? After all, Touch-san is kind of like Hugues de Payens. Well...though we are missing one person."
 * (Disagreeing with Punitto Moe): "Hang on! Don't you think it's a little early for that? I think we should stay in our current movement parties and go as deep as possible before changing up. If we break up now, we'll need to dispel our whole-party spells...In addition, we should be able to go through the dungeon in this state, with only a little more trouble with the mid bosses, right?"
 * (To Momonga): "Ah, Momonga-san, this looks like a simultaneous attack dungeon. And it looks to be the hardest kind, the sort that needs five parties to progress. Then again, we should probably be glad it's not one of those dungeons that needs 36-man parties (a legion) and allows two guilds to cooperate on invading them. Those are just crazy."

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Tabula Smaragdina