That's somewhat more complex than this. You interpret this by the eyes of a player, of someone of the real world. Not from a faerunian perspective
1- Most inhabitants of Faerun doesn't have a D&D player's knowledge
For exemple, some people of Faerun, that you hear talked about in Rasaad's quest line, believe that Selune and Shar are the two face of the same goddess. That's called the "Dark Moon heresy" Players know that is a false, but people of Faerun doesn't know what is true or not... they don't have a "rulebook" in the hand saying "here are the facts"... they hear things, so out of the reach of simple mortals like them that they can't nor verify or infirm clearly.
The same way, -we- know that Lolth is a fucking bitch that doesn't give a damn to her pretended 'favored', like it can be seen in the Legend of Drizzt, when the Spider Queen push the Matron Benrae to a war to the surface, not saying she doesn't expect her to win, but just want the house of her "most favored" to suffer severe loss so their position would be endangered, and the strife for the ultimate power in the City of Spiders blaze again. If the priestress knew that, they would probably get a huge hit on their faith... but Lolth does it this way especialy such she cannot be involved in the fall of the house who served her the best.
So... likewise, many followers of Shar don't realize how destructive the way of their goddess could be. For exemple, some of her believers a just thugs that operate the night, and for who Darkness=Security and Light=Danger It is enough for them to pray Shar... if you told them about things like "extinguish the sun", they would just laugh and answer "Yes yes, and I'm going to learn I'm the king of a lost kingdom tomorrow"
2- Not everyone is endangered by Shar's objective
Shar can turn people into Shadows. It has been seen several times. Shadovars are also people who pary Shar and live on the Shadow Plane (which is very close to the way the goddess want to turn Faerun) without problems.... etc
For a believer, even if they would understand the consequences of Shar's plans, they would also believe that their goddess would reward their loyalty by making them able to survive such a destiny... if they are already immune to it
And this is not truly an incoherent belief: As pointed out, in many ways, Shar is much more compassionate than Lolth is. There are good odds that she would indeed turn most of them into shadow-beings before shutting down the sun and stars.
3- "Doom will come after me"
Many evil people don't give a damn to the calamities that could strike the world after their deaths. They just want get the most they can while they are alive.
And there are a lot of rewards to serve a goddess like Shar... Access to the Shadow Weave, powers of the Shadow Plane, influence, wealth... even if some people know that she could destroy almost all life... she's aiming to do such since millenias, so why think she'll suceed during their life time? And why should they care? Not their problem!
Lolth reward less and make the life of her followers way harder than Shar does. Even if the finality Shar is more harmful to the world, if you only think about yourself, you'll better pray Shar than Lolth without a doubt.
4- That's better this way
Also, yes, there are people that just hate the current world so much they would be really happy to see it destroyed. People who have suffered horrible abuses, wounds, losses, and that nobody among the "good" cults helped.
For a girl that has been beaten and raped at the age of 11 by a whole camp of bandits, left for dead with so many internal wounds that she would could bear a child, only to find she got a sexual disease ravaging her skin and destroying her beauty forever, casted away by her own family in shame, forced to constantly a hood to not see the looks of disgust and pity of people when they see her face... the gentle arms of Shar and her conforting darkness that allow her to walk without hiding her face are a blessing...
And if she knows than in addition, her godess plan to destroy that fucking world that turned her into a paria, abandonned her, made her suffer so much... destroy all the false pretenses of those "people of good" that never were there when she needed it or litteraly turned their back to her... then that is -truly- a motive to love her even more
5- Death is not the end
And finaly, you forget the most important point: in the Forgotten Realms, death is not the end. All faithful people have a really high chance to have their soul welcomed by their deity, and reborn in her plane as her servants.
What is for us an unproved affirmation of religions is for people of Faerun a proven fact: They can travel through the Astral Plane and see the soul of the dead rejoinging the plane of her deity. They can sometimes see a Resurrection, and hear the freshly returned to life talk about his short time in the kingdom of its God. They can cast Necromancy spells and talk to the dead from those places. Those are difficult things to do, but still possible, and each of them make one thing certain: Death is not the end.
Would Shar win, followers of many other faiths could truly disapper, because she would consume their deity, their planes, and destroy their inhabitants for good.... but Shar followers, on the other side, would "just" die, rejoin her, and assist to her Ultimate Glory by her side.
What is to be scared in that? Ennemies of Shar should be the one shiver and recoil! Her Time will come ! And disbeliever will suffer their well-deserved punishment! Faithfuls will be rewarded and live forever Inside her Saint Darkness!
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Hope it makes you understand better why many many many people pray Shar
Even though @Moonheart has a nice explanation I do not Think you have to make up complicated or fabricated reasons to understand why Shar has many followers. Just look around you irl. Shar does not want you to tell everyone that you follow her, she just wants you to do her bidding silently (for the most part) and gives you plenty of rewards for doing so.
How do you Think ppl generally climb into the upper hierarchies when it comes to politics, being a CEO or lawyer? Would you guess most of them are "good" or "evil" when it comes to DnD settings? You have plenty of people who work really hard to sell cigarettes, you have CEOs who decide that they should stop making a medicine that is really good for a limited few because of less profit, you have lawyers who bend the law because it is their job to do so, you have politicians who doesn't care about the Environment or refugees because RIGHT NOW it won't help them get re-elected. There are so many examples that it should make people cry. This behaviour also destroys the World, just not right now. Kind of like what Shar has in mind.
its kind amazing - you may only wonder why ppl will wanna join the cult of shar.
There are many reasons to worship Shar, or other evil deities. Most of them provide something useful, something appealing. Then there are the wackos, like Lolth, who have followers mostly because of strict brainwashing, indoctrination and oppression. But she really doesn't offer anything to those who worship her, and treats her followers as puppets to be cast aside whenever she tires of them, even if they have proven to be valuable assets. In short Lolth, treats her followers like crap.
OTOH, Shar's the deity of nihilism, but also the goddess of avengers and loss. The mother who lost her only son to a crusade might cling to Shar's altar, praying for justice. The wife of a murdered husband and mother of a slaughtered son kisses the Dark Moon of Shar and picks up a sword, trusting in the goddess to lead her to the guilty.
Shar is indeed evil, but she should can be horrifying in how kind she is. Why do you oppose her? All she wishes is to bring the true peace. Really, she offers to soothe people's pain, and then turns it in hatred towards the unjust world, full of suffering and loss.
This is only since the start of D&D5, that Ao decided that her daughter had gone overboard, and decided "The Sundering", forcibly separating Abeil from Toril again. He also resurected Mystra and some old gods, including Elistraee, to help her to support the Weave so the death of one goddess alone would never cause such devastation again.
The details of the Sundering are not completly novelized yet, so we don't know how much Shar has lost during this event. Appearently, her Shadow Plane suffered greatly from the process... but she is still refered as a Greater Deity, so Ao probably didn't remove any of her powers. Lolth had been affected too, unwilingly, because the resurrection of Elistraee is a huge torn returning in her flank.... especialy since, based on what has leaked so far, it seems that Ellistraee could have been granted greater powers than the once she had before, by Ao.
And the details of the Sundering won't get novelized either, as far as I can see. The best we know is in the ''Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide'' which basically gives a portayal of the status quo of the Realms.
Mmm so Eilistraee reappearance was not a resurrection, but the consequence of her return to her full power due to Mystra's resurrection. That's weird, but if it's coming from E.G. I guess unless an official counter-annoucement is made, we can say it's canon.
Will be useful to know if I ever play some roleplay with followers of Eillistraee.... but the most important is: she's back. We have missed her so much!
Mmm so Eilistraee reappearance was not a resurrection, but the consequence of her return to her full power due to Mystra's resurrection. That's weird, but if it's coming from E.G. I guess unless an official counter-annoucement is made, we can say it's canon.
Will be useful to know if I ever play some roleplay with followers of Eillistraee.... but the most important is: she's back. We have missed her so much!
It's not weird, at all, IMO. Ed explains why--Mystra helped Eilistraee to avoid death before the Spellplague (and it makes sense, since they have been friends for a long time). It also explains why, in Spellstorm, Elminster says that Eilistraee is one of the deities with whom Mystra's currently sharing the Weave. It doesn't even contradict other canon: in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, it is said that many deities returned to life during the Sundering, and then the book lists the currently active deities (Eilistraee included), but it never specifies how it happened. In fact, the book says that mortals often think that a deity is gone when they no longer receive spells, but that's not always the case.
Besides, in all honesty, Eilistraee's survival perfectly fits what we know from D&D/FR canon. Think about it:
1) The blade that was supposed to have killed her needed to hit the deities themselves in order to kill, and Halisstra didn't even strike at Eilistraee-Masked Lady herself, but at Qilué while she was being possessed, so only whatever part of power Eilistraee channeled in her was taken away (and it would have been immensely stupid to channel all of her power, if that is even possible without destroying/overloading the mortal vessel. Besides ''On Hallowed Ground'' also explains the rule that deities can directly manifest on the prime only through avatars, a rule that is valid through all spheres).
2) Even setting that aside, as said in ''On Hallowed Ground'', deities can only be killed on their home plane, or by being starved of followers (yes, ''Faiths and Avatars'' points that the use of artifacts has a chance to go around this, but again, the sword needed to be used against the deity herself, like with Selvetarm, and that didn't happen). When Qilué was killed, she basically was an avatar of Eilistraee, I guess one very powerful, since Eilistraee was trying to break Lolth's hold on Halisstra through her. As Ed explains, Qilué's death was a huge blow for the Dark Dancer, dragging a lot of her power in the Weave along the priestess' soul, and reducing her in a state similar to Mystra's before her return, either way making her a non factor for a century, and forcing her to become non-active. This would also explain her absence.
3) There are also other factors, like Eilistraee's realm not being destroyed, and the fact that the Crescent Blade was -after all- an artifact created by a lesser goddess, its power couldn't have been enough to destroy deities more powerful than that (like the merged Eilistraee-Vhaeraun were, in fact IIRC the plan was to strike at Lolth while she was ''helpless'' in her slumber, but the sword needed to be used before her awakening). And in the worst of the cases, the Crescent Blade lost all its powers of inflicting permanent death/soul destruction, since it was destroyed and then reforged and if even Cavatina's soul survived it, a goddess' soul would have no problem doing so. Lisa Smedman left many loopholes to allow the return of Eilistraee and Vhaeraun (or their survival), she said that herself, because she didn't like at all what WotC was doing with the drow pantheon.
Either way, Ed's explanation surely is 100000 times better than ''lulz, Ao did it'' (which is the answer to everything, as of late), and it allows for many more plot hooks to be used. Like some priestesses coming to know that Eilistraee survived, and choosing to stay loyal to her in a time of dire need, and endure the hardships of the 1400s DR while keeping their work for the Dark Maiden's goal.
And yes, in the end, all that matters is that Eilistraee's back, but if we can get something better than handwaving it as Ao's work, all the better IMO.
I agree this is better than the Ao explanation, and yes, it was stated as a possible loophole by Smedman.
I just find it strange on some details... for exemple: why exactly a part of the divine essence that possessed a mortal suddently sip into the weave because the said mortal was slain by a vorpal strike?
I agree this is better than the Ao explanation, and yes, it was stated as a possible loophole by Smedman.
I just find it strange on some details... for exemple: why exactly a part of the divine essence that possessed a mortal suddently sip into the weave because the said mortal was slain by a vorpal strike?
I'm spliting hair, however, here, I admit.
You're not splitting hair, it's a valid point. Ed explained it (although not in that passage). It's because Qilué is Mystra's chosen, and when they die, they become ''Voices in the Weave''. Their souls join Mystra in that way, and she can still tap into their experiences and power and knowledge (it's said in Spellstorm, for example). In truth, they still serve magic, even in death. Since Eilistraee had poured a lot of her power in Qilué, her soul dragged that part of the Dark Maiden's essence into the Weave. If you have any other doubts, I'll try to clarify.
Mmm yes, sounds like an explanation. But I see some other weird points:
- Ao resurrected Mystra, thus, resurrected the Weave. However, that doesn't explain why the essence that was with Qilué spirit suddently "escaped" the Weave...
- Also, how does it relate to the fact that Vhaeraun was released from the Weave? Eilistraee should have re-appeared as the Masked Lady once she got back her full essence, but she didn't
Mmm yes, sounds like an explanation. But I see some other weird points:
- Ao resurrected Mystra, thus, resurrected the Weave. However, that doesn't explain why the essence that was with Qilué spirit suddently "escaped" the Weave...
- Also, how does it relate to the fact that Vhaeraun was released from the Weave? Eilistraee should have re-appeared as the Masked Lady once she got back her full essence, but she didn't
-From ''Elminster Enraged'', we know that Ao didn't resurrect Mystra. Mystra planned the Spellplague, because the Weave had to be renewed, after so much reckless spellacasting--for a time spanning since after Karsus' folly until the late Age of Upheaval--had worn it down. It had to be unraveled and then rebuilt, and since Mystra *is* the Weave, she had to be ''rebooted'' with it. As Ed said, Mystra saw the Spellplague and sort of let it happen. However, she didn't die. Much like Eilistraee, she survived, but was extremely weakened (and hid inside a bear... yes, a bear). When the time was right, Elminster felt her, and Mystra told him to gather as much Silver Fire and blue-fire Spellplague thingy as he could, and bring it to her. Elminster did so (he also brought the Simbul's Silver Fire, that she had willingly given to him to heal him at some point) and Mystra could then act again, and start to set things right, beginning with the restoration of the Weave. Her having foreseen the Spellplague is also what allowed her to save Eilistraee and Vhaeraun.
-From the Ed's lore that I've linked, Qilué's spirit is still in the Weave, that we know. Eilistraee-Masked Lady's power was however separated from Qilué by Mystra and then split between Eilistraee and Vhaeraun, and each of them was given what rightfully belonged to them. That's why Eilistraee is the Dark Maiden and Vhaeraun the Masked Lord again in the current era.
In short, Ao's action was that to separate Abeir and Toril again, resurrect a lot of deities, and then seal their portfolios and prevent them from meddling too much, by rewriting the Tablets of Fate. However, Mystra, Mask, Helm, Bhaal and (according to Ed) Eilistraee and Vhaeraun didn't require his intervention to return to life.
EDIT: If you're wodering why Mystra did all that for Eilistraee and Vhaeraun, there are 2 reasons.
1) Mystra and Eilistraee have been friends since Qilué's birth
2) It is explained in ''Silverfall'' that Mystra's goal is to nurture magic wherever it is found, including creatures of magic like the drow. She wants the drow to flourish, but that's not possible under Lolth. Her dogma forces a lot of talent and potential for actual magic development to be squandered in trivial matters like attempting to backstab each other to gain ''status'' in the eyes of Lolth. Lolth's dogma of hoarding all the power for oneself also violently clashes with Mystra's goal of letting magic and its power spread and be easily accessible by as many as possible. That some of the potentially greatest spellcasters in Toril are brainwashed by this idea, becoming enemies of the development of magic, and that their skills are wasted, doesn't seem to sit well with Mystra. It's then natural that she values Lolth's enemies that actually work to let the drow flourish as good allies to have.
Ed has the singular ability to weave all FR lore together and create something that makes sense and that is interesting even out of the most nonsensical situations.
Well, after all, he's the one who have the most of FR lore in his head.... something hard to gather for players, alas.
That's pretty different of what was advertised at first, but I do prefer this version, indeed.
What difference do you see?
''The death of Qilué Veladorn robbed her of some of her divine essence for a time (it leaked into the Weave, and only returned to her when Mystra herself recovered and could direct it back to its rightful home), but Eilistraee wasn’t slain, merely reduced to manifestations.''
Once Mystra recovered, she directed the Masked Lady's power that leaked into the Weave to its rightful owners (that would be Eilistraee and Vhaeraun). The reason why it leaked into the Weave is not explictly explained in that passage, but--as I've said--it's only because Ed had already explained it elsewhere.
If you're talking about Mystra, it's too explained elsewhere, but Ed gives some hints in the passage that I linked: ''In this dream, Mystra slowly convinced Vhaeraun to cooperate in a pact with herself and Eilistraee so that they could all survive what was to come: the Sundering, wherein both Eilistraee and Mystra would be “slain,” magic would go wild, and the worlds of Abeir and Toril would pass through each other and then be sundered.''
The Sundering and the Spellplague are seen as a single event here, but something that Mystra has foreseen and that has led her to plan accordingly.
Hey, misuderstandings happen. I thought that when Moonheart said ''That's pretty different of what was advertised at first'' he meant that my explanation was different from what Ed said in the post that I had linked before. I surely didn't mean to be a wiseass.
@Irennan I wasn't calling you a wiseass, sorry I miscommunicated. I was actually genuinely impressed by your knowledge of FR lore. The reference in my post above was a quote from Quayle. Just being silly, didn't mean anything by it other than we both play BG, so we can both appreciate this quote. Not everyone gets that quote, unless of course they have watched the Simpsons (or in this case, played BG). Sorry.
Hey, misuderstandings happen. I thought that when Moonheart said ''That's pretty different of what was advertised at first'' he meant that my explanation was different from what Ed said in the post that I had linked before.
No, I was meaning that what Ed explained is different from what WotC advertized first.
@Irennan I wasn't calling you a wiseass, sorry I miscommunicated. I was actually genuinely impressed by your knowledge of FR lore. The reference in my post above was a quote from Quayle. Just being silly, didn't mean anything by it other than we both play BG, so we can both appreciate this quote. Not everyone gets that quote, unless of course they have watched the Simpsons (or in this case, played BG). Sorry.
No, no, don't worry. I googled SMRT and I found that it was a derogatory form of ''smart'', so it was a misunderstanding on my part, again
Hey, misuderstandings happen. I thought that when Moonheart said ''That's pretty different of what was advertised at first'' he meant that my explanation was different from what Ed said in the post that I had linked before.
No, I was meaning that what Ed explained is different from what WotC advertized first.
Yeah, I saw that. But then, WotC just said that Eilistraee has returned during the Sundering, and that Mystra is sharing the Weave with her. They didn't specify how all of that happened (they never explicitly said that Ao resurrected her, just that she's currently active), so Ed's explanation puts the puzzle pieces together. The two versions aren't incompatible, one is simply more in-depth than the other.
@Irennan I wasn't calling you a wiseass, sorry I miscommunicated. I was actually genuinely impressed by your knowledge of FR lore. The reference in my post above was a quote from Quayle. Just being silly, didn't mean anything by it other than we both play BG, so we can both appreciate this quote. Not everyone gets that quote, unless of course they have watched the Simpsons (or in this case, played BG). Sorry.
Quayle quotes Homer Simpson? Guess I can give him a slot on my next run through BG1...never tried him before.
@Pteran Shamelessly quoting myself in this thread, "You know you're playing too much baldurs gate when..." 992. When encountering a pop-culture reference in real life, your first thought is, "Wow, they must have played Baldur's Gate," instead of realizing that the writers/programmers of Baldur's Gate were using that pop-culture reference This happens to me all the time. Actually, it happened to me with Quayle, too. https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/30774/you-know-youre-playing-too-much-baldurs-gate-when/p29
Comments
1- Most inhabitants of Faerun doesn't have a D&D player's knowledge
For exemple, some people of Faerun, that you hear talked about in Rasaad's quest line, believe that Selune and Shar are the two face of the same goddess. That's called the "Dark Moon heresy"
Players know that is a false, but people of Faerun doesn't know what is true or not... they don't have a "rulebook" in the hand saying "here are the facts"... they hear things, so out of the reach of simple mortals like them that they can't nor verify or infirm clearly.
The same way, -we- know that Lolth is a fucking bitch that doesn't give a damn to her pretended 'favored', like it can be seen in the Legend of Drizzt, when the Spider Queen push the Matron Benrae to a war to the surface, not saying she doesn't expect her to win, but just want the house of her "most favored" to suffer severe loss so their position would be endangered, and the strife for the ultimate power in the City of Spiders blaze again.
If the priestress knew that, they would probably get a huge hit on their faith... but Lolth does it this way especialy such she cannot be involved in the fall of the house who served her the best.
So... likewise, many followers of Shar don't realize how destructive the way of their goddess could be. For exemple, some of her believers a just thugs that operate the night, and for who Darkness=Security and Light=Danger
It is enough for them to pray Shar... if you told them about things like "extinguish the sun", they would just laugh and answer "Yes yes, and I'm going to learn I'm the king of a lost kingdom tomorrow"
2- Not everyone is endangered by Shar's objective
Shar can turn people into Shadows. It has been seen several times. Shadovars are also people who pary Shar and live on the Shadow Plane (which is very close to the way the goddess want to turn Faerun) without problems.... etc
For a believer, even if they would understand the consequences of Shar's plans, they would also believe that their goddess would reward their loyalty by making them able to survive such a destiny... if they are already immune to it
And this is not truly an incoherent belief: As pointed out, in many ways, Shar is much more compassionate than Lolth is. There are good odds that she would indeed turn most of them into shadow-beings before shutting down the sun and stars.
3- "Doom will come after me"
Many evil people don't give a damn to the calamities that could strike the world after their deaths. They just want get the most they can while they are alive.
And there are a lot of rewards to serve a goddess like Shar... Access to the Shadow Weave, powers of the Shadow Plane, influence, wealth... even if some people know that she could destroy almost all life... she's aiming to do such since millenias, so why think she'll suceed during their life time? And why should they care? Not their problem!
Lolth reward less and make the life of her followers way harder than Shar does. Even if the finality Shar is more harmful to the world, if you only think about yourself, you'll better pray Shar than Lolth without a doubt.
4- That's better this way
Also, yes, there are people that just hate the current world so much they would be really happy to see it destroyed. People who have suffered horrible abuses, wounds, losses, and that nobody among the "good" cults helped.
For a girl that has been beaten and raped at the age of 11 by a whole camp of bandits, left for dead with so many internal wounds that she would could bear a child, only to find she got a sexual disease ravaging her skin and destroying her beauty forever, casted away by her own family in shame, forced to constantly a hood to not see the looks of disgust and pity of people when they see her face... the gentle arms of Shar and her conforting darkness that allow her to walk without hiding her face are a blessing...
And if she knows than in addition, her godess plan to destroy that fucking world that turned her into a paria, abandonned her, made her suffer so much... destroy all the false pretenses of those "people of good" that never were there when she needed it or litteraly turned their back to her... then that is -truly- a motive to love her even more
5- Death is not the end
And finaly, you forget the most important point: in the Forgotten Realms, death is not the end.
All faithful people have a really high chance to have their soul welcomed by their deity, and reborn in her plane as her servants.
What is for us an unproved affirmation of religions is for people of Faerun a proven fact: They can travel through the Astral Plane and see the soul of the dead rejoinging the plane of her deity. They can sometimes see a Resurrection, and hear the freshly returned to life talk about his short time in the kingdom of its God. They can cast Necromancy spells and talk to the dead from those places.
Those are difficult things to do, but still possible, and each of them make one thing certain: Death is not the end.
Would Shar win, followers of many other faiths could truly disapper, because she would consume their deity, their planes, and destroy their inhabitants for good.... but Shar followers, on the other side, would "just" die, rejoin her, and assist to her Ultimate Glory by her side.
What is to be scared in that? Ennemies of Shar should be the one shiver and recoil!
Her Time will come ! And disbeliever will suffer their well-deserved punishment!
Faithfuls will be rewarded and live forever Inside her Saint Darkness!
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Hope it makes you understand better why many many many people pray Shar
How do you Think ppl generally climb into the upper hierarchies when it comes to politics, being a CEO or lawyer? Would you guess most of them are "good" or "evil" when it comes to DnD settings? You have plenty of people who work really hard to sell cigarettes, you have CEOs who decide that they should stop making a medicine that is really good for a limited few because of less profit, you have lawyers who bend the law because it is their job to do so, you have politicians who doesn't care about the Environment or refugees because RIGHT NOW it won't help them get re-elected. There are so many examples that it should make people cry. This behaviour also destroys the World, just not right now. Kind of like what Shar has in mind.
TLDR; People follow Shar in OUR setting...
but.. is the marchent as you say it, gotta b evil in order to make money? :X
OTOH, Shar's the deity of nihilism, but also the goddess of avengers and loss. The mother who lost her only son to a crusade might cling to Shar's altar, praying for justice. The wife of a murdered husband and mother of a slaughtered son kisses the Dark Moon of Shar and picks up a sword, trusting in the goddess to lead her to the guilty.
Shar is indeed evil, but she should can be horrifying in how kind she is. Why do you oppose her? All she wishes is to bring the true peace. Really, she offers to soothe people's pain, and then turns it in hatred towards the unjust world, full of suffering and loss. And the details of the Sundering won't get novelized either, as far as I can see. The best we know is in the ''Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide'' which basically gives a portayal of the status quo of the Realms.
Post-Sundering Eilistraee has the same powers that she had in the 1375 DR. However, she's now friends with Vhaeraun, so that could be problematic for Lolth. Ed Greenwood explained it here: http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=19841&whichpage=22#476639
That's weird, but if it's coming from E.G. I guess unless an official counter-annoucement is made, we can say it's canon.
Will be useful to know if I ever play some roleplay with followers of Eillistraee.... but the most important is: she's back. We have missed her so much!
Besides, in all honesty, Eilistraee's survival perfectly fits what we know from D&D/FR canon. Think about it:
1) The blade that was supposed to have killed her needed to hit the deities themselves in order to kill, and Halisstra didn't even strike at Eilistraee-Masked Lady herself, but at Qilué while she was being possessed, so only whatever part of power Eilistraee channeled in her was taken away (and it would have been immensely stupid to channel all of her power, if that is even possible without destroying/overloading the mortal vessel. Besides ''On Hallowed Ground'' also explains the rule that deities can directly manifest on the prime only through avatars, a rule that is valid through all spheres).
2) Even setting that aside, as said in ''On Hallowed Ground'', deities can only be killed on their home plane, or by being starved of followers (yes, ''Faiths and Avatars'' points that the use of artifacts has a chance to go around this, but again, the sword needed to be used against the deity herself, like with Selvetarm, and that didn't happen). When Qilué was killed, she basically was an avatar of Eilistraee, I guess one very powerful, since Eilistraee was trying to break Lolth's hold on Halisstra through her. As Ed explains, Qilué's death was a huge blow for the Dark Dancer, dragging a lot of her power in the Weave along the priestess' soul, and reducing her in a state similar to Mystra's before her return, either way making her a non factor for a century, and forcing her to become non-active. This would also explain her absence.
3) There are also other factors, like Eilistraee's realm not being destroyed, and the fact that the Crescent Blade was -after all- an artifact created by a lesser goddess, its power couldn't have been enough to destroy deities more powerful than that (like the merged Eilistraee-Vhaeraun were, in fact IIRC the plan was to strike at Lolth while she was ''helpless'' in her slumber, but the sword needed to be used before her awakening). And in the worst of the cases, the Crescent Blade lost all its powers of inflicting permanent death/soul destruction, since it was destroyed and then reforged and if even Cavatina's soul survived it, a goddess' soul would have no problem doing so.
Lisa Smedman left many loopholes to allow the return of Eilistraee and Vhaeraun (or their survival), she said that herself, because she didn't like at all what WotC was doing with the drow pantheon.
Either way, Ed's explanation surely is 100000 times better than ''lulz, Ao did it'' (which is the answer to everything, as of late), and it allows for many more plot hooks to be used. Like some priestesses coming to know that Eilistraee survived, and choosing to stay loyal to her in a time of dire need, and endure the hardships of the 1400s DR while keeping their work for the Dark Maiden's goal.
And yes, in the end, all that matters is that Eilistraee's back, but if we can get something better than handwaving it as Ao's work, all the better IMO.
I just find it strange on some details... for exemple: why exactly a part of the divine essence that possessed a mortal suddently sip into the weave because the said mortal was slain by a vorpal strike?
I'm spliting hair, however, here, I admit.
- Ao resurrected Mystra, thus, resurrected the Weave. However, that doesn't explain why the essence that was with Qilué spirit suddently "escaped" the Weave...
- Also, how does it relate to the fact that Vhaeraun was released from the Weave? Eilistraee should have re-appeared as the Masked Lady once she got back her full essence, but she didn't
-From the Ed's lore that I've linked, Qilué's spirit is still in the Weave, that we know. Eilistraee-Masked Lady's power was however separated from Qilué by Mystra and then split between Eilistraee and Vhaeraun, and each of them was given what rightfully belonged to them. That's why Eilistraee is the Dark Maiden and Vhaeraun the Masked Lord again in the current era.
In short, Ao's action was that to separate Abeir and Toril again, resurrect a lot of deities, and then seal their portfolios and prevent them from meddling too much, by rewriting the Tablets of Fate. However, Mystra, Mask, Helm, Bhaal and (according to Ed) Eilistraee and Vhaeraun didn't require his intervention to return to life.
EDIT: If you're wodering why Mystra did all that for Eilistraee and Vhaeraun, there are 2 reasons.
1) Mystra and Eilistraee have been friends since Qilué's birth
2) It is explained in ''Silverfall'' that Mystra's goal is to nurture magic wherever it is found, including creatures of magic like the drow. She wants the drow to flourish, but that's not possible under Lolth. Her dogma forces a lot of talent and potential for actual magic development to be squandered in trivial matters like attempting to backstab each other to gain ''status'' in the eyes of Lolth. Lolth's dogma of hoarding all the power for oneself also violently clashes with Mystra's goal of letting magic and its power spread and be easily accessible by as many as possible. That some of the potentially greatest spellcasters in Toril are brainwashed by this idea, becoming enemies of the development of magic, and that their skills are wasted, doesn't seem to sit well with Mystra. It's then natural that she values Lolth's enemies that actually work to let the drow flourish as good allies to have.
Ed has the singular ability to weave all FR lore together and create something that makes sense and that is interesting even out of the most nonsensical situations.
That's pretty different of what was advertised at first, but I do prefer this version, indeed.
''The death of Qilué Veladorn robbed her of some of her divine essence for a time (it leaked into the Weave, and only returned to her when Mystra herself recovered and could direct it back to its rightful home), but Eilistraee wasn’t slain, merely reduced to manifestations.''
Once Mystra recovered, she directed the Masked Lady's power that leaked into the Weave to its rightful owners (that would be Eilistraee and Vhaeraun). The reason why it leaked into the Weave is not explictly explained in that passage, but--as I've said--it's only because Ed had already explained it elsewhere.
If you're talking about Mystra, it's too explained elsewhere, but Ed gives some hints in the passage that I linked:
''In this dream, Mystra slowly convinced Vhaeraun to cooperate in a pact with herself and Eilistraee so that they could all survive what was to come: the Sundering, wherein both Eilistraee and Mystra would be “slain,” magic would go wild, and the worlds of Abeir and Toril would pass through each other and then be sundered.''
The Sundering and the Spellplague are seen as a single event here, but something that Mystra has foreseen and that has led her to plan accordingly.
Anyway, I hope that your doubts are resolved
You are S-M-R-T...I mean, S-M-A-R-T!
I wasn't calling you a wiseass, sorry I miscommunicated. I was actually genuinely impressed by your knowledge of FR lore.
The reference in my post above was a quote from Quayle. Just being silly, didn't mean anything by it other than we both play BG, so we can both appreciate this quote. Not everyone gets that quote, unless of course they have watched the Simpsons (or in this case, played BG).
Sorry.
Shamelessly quoting myself in this thread, "You know you're playing too much baldurs gate when..."
992. When encountering a pop-culture reference in real life, your first thought is, "Wow, they must have played Baldur's Gate," instead of realizing that the writers/programmers of Baldur's Gate were using that pop-culture reference
This happens to me all the time. Actually, it happened to me with Quayle, too.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/30774/you-know-youre-playing-too-much-baldurs-gate-when/p29