Elven Pantheon

BelgarathMTH · March 2016

Hello, during my current IWD run, I finally took the time to read all the Librarian's books in the chamber below Larrel.

It gave me my first summary of the top five gods in the elven pantheon, and gave me my first appreciation of these deities. The elven pantheon is so much more concise in portfolio division, and less confusing than the human pantheon. It almost makes me want to play an elf now, although I really don't identify with the attributes and attitude of their race and culture. I'll probably just keep playing a human who appreciates and respects them, such as most of the Fellowship humans (and grudgingly respectful dwarves), in LotR.

Here are the books with the elven deity descriptions:

Spoiler

Here's a book about dwarves from an elven point of view that @Grum would probably enjoy:

Spoiler

I especially like Corellon and Sehanine in this pantheon. They're like the sun and the moon deities, the Male and Female aspects of the highest of divinity, God and Goddess. It's all very interesting to me as a lifelong student of comparative mythology.

By the way, if you love elves and dwarves in high fantasy, the story in Icewind Dale of the Fall of the Severed Hand and Dorn's Deep to the orcs, due to horrible misinformation that led to the breaking of the dwarven-elven alliance, should be of great interest to you. @Grum has addressed some of this IWD lore in his excellent "Dorn's Deep" thread in the IWD forum.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/48818/thoughts-on-dorns-deep#latest

Pteran · March 2016

I've always wanted to go through and read every in-game book! But then I'm like "I only have an hour until bed, and then another full day of work tomorrow.....let's go slaughter some orcs!"

Archaos · March 2016

One thing I really liked and made sense from 4E is that the Elven deities are aspects of the more famous deities.

For example, Sehanine Moonbow was turned into an elven aspect of Selune.
Hanali Cenalil became an aspect of Sune.

My favorite elven deity is Rillifane Rallathil. Not because of BG2's appearance, only.
But because I love Wild Elves and Druids and the two go together perfectly.

And on top of that, they don't share the -2 CON common to all other elves and lore-wise, they will mess you up if you mess with them.
They're not skinny and smartass elves. They're wild, feral, savage and dangerous.

Another detail, is that almost every elven deity, is the patron of an elven race:

Corellon for Sun/Gold Elves.
Sehanine for Moon/Silver Elves.
Solonor for Wood/Copper Elves.
Rillifane for Wild/Green Elves.
Deep Sashelas for Aquatic Elves.
Aerdrie Faenya for Avariel.
Araushnee/Lolth for Drow.

Grum · March 2016

Thank you for posting this, it's great to have these collections in one easy to read place

BelgarathMTH · March 2016

You're welcome, @Grum.

The book about Sheverash also gave me insight about the "true" nature of the Drow in the Forgotten Realms. The elves hate them all for VERY good reason, and one of their gods commands them to exterminate the entire race of them if possible. Their entire existence is an affront to the eleven gods (unless a critical mass of them repent and turn to Ellistrae, as hinted at in BG2).

Shar and Lloth are divine enemies of all that is good and holy in the divine realms. Keldorn is right, and justified to attack Viconia on sight, and so should also any elf who doesn't want to be a traitor to his or her race and his or her gods.

Salvatore and drow-lovers be damned. As should be Drizzt and Viconia, unless they turn to Ellistrae, who is the lone elven divinity who hopes to redeem them from their curse.

(This whole post is the roleplaying of a Lawful Good cleric of Tyr, Oghma, or Lathander, the closest D&D representations of my real life self. Please don't be offended by it if you're a "drow lover", a "Viconia lover" , or a "Drizzt lover". But of course, feel free to roleplay your own D&D character counterpoints.)

Grum · March 2016

That sounds like a fun character to play. Though I'd say a drow who turns to any good deity should be alright. Such as...if a drow grew a beard, drank some ale and started worshipping Moradin, then he'd be alright in my book.

artificial_sunlight · March 2016

I love reading about de FR Gods and own a lot of source books like faits and pantheons. They are full of tales of battles between Gods.

My personal favorite is Fenmarel Mestarine.

But i'm playing a cleric of Urdlen in my current playtrough. It is the only evil gnome deity.

Aerakar · April 2016

My wood elf assassin worships Fenmarel Mestarine. It seemed fitting for him given the deity's penchant for outcasts, spies, poison, etc.

Irennan · April 2016

BelgarathMTH said:
You're welcome, @Grum.

The book about Sheverash also gave me insight about the "true" nature of the Drow in the Forgotten Realms. The elves hate them all for VERY good reason, and one of their gods commands them to exterminate the entire race of them if possible. Their entire existence is an affront to the eleven gods (unless a critical mass of them repent and turn to Ellistrae, as hinted at in BG2).

Ok, this is a lenghty post, so be warned.

Not so fast. It's true that the Lolthite drow have become cruel, sadistic and what you have, but 1)they're also victims of Lolth's BS, 2)who did push them in her arms? This matter is far from being B&W, as for everything in the Realms.

Corellon definitely has some issues, as all of the Seldarine. His indifference (as far as we can tell from ''recent'' events in canon, i.e. anything after the story of the Seldarine and Dark Seldarine told in Elaine Cunningham's Evermeet) towards his daughter's, Eilistraee, effort to undo the huge mistake that he made, and bring the drow together with the elves and the other races, is really mind-blowing.

Many elves aren't keen on accepting drow followers of Eilistraee and are upset by what she stands for, as they like to blame the drow for each and every tragedy that happened to their people, and Eilistraee kind of proves those ideas wrong. Corellon or his clergy do nothing to dispel these mistruths.

His act of cursing a whole people, and then doing absolutely nothing to fix that mistake, or help his daughter is also telling. But if you look at the whole history of elves and drow, in FR the elves are definitely generally not ''good people''. I'll make a brief summary.

It started when Lolth was exiled by Corellon because of her betrayal. Her son, Vhaeraun, was exiled too because he helped his mother, while Eilistraee (whom Lolth tried to frame) chose to be punished too, because she had foreseen that the drow would need her at their side in the time to come.

Eilistraee and Vhaeraun wandered on Toril (the FR world), where dark and wood elven presence could already be found, acting as guides for these elves. Eventually, the dark elves in the south of Faerun (mainly faithful to Vhaeraun and, later, Ghaunadaur, although some were followers of Eilistraee) managed to found a whole kingdom, Ilythiir, which developed into a very advanced nation, but whose leaders/nobles/mages/what you have ultimately became corrupted by the kind of magic and experiments they practiced. Later, some dark and green elves, mainly followers of Eilistraee founding the nation of Miyeritar. It too flourished into one of the greatest centers of arts and magic of Faerun.

Meanwhile, after a cataclysm that damaged their original world, the elves of Faerie fled to Toril. Fast forward centuries of migrations, interaction with other races, conflicts and so on, and Lolth turns her attention to Toril. It happened when the moon elf Kethryllia Amarillis (founder of the house that brought her name) intruded into the Demonweb, reminding the Spider Queen of a way to regain power by having the surface elves worship her once more. During a battle in defense of her city--Sharlarion--while wielding the dagger (imbued with scrying magic) that Ka'Narlist (a mage of Ilythiir) had given to one of the founders of the city long before (and that had become part of the treasures of Sharlarion), Kathryllia chased a demon to the Abyss. Lolth noticed the dagger and followed the magic to Ka'Narlist, deciding that he would make a fine consort. She planned to act through him and gain the worship of the dark elves, to exact revenge on Corellon through his own people.

While Lolth was trying to establish an influence in Toril, in -17,600 DR, the Ever'Sakkatien (the first Sundering, and the first Seldarine-approved massacre) happened.
After being confronted with Ilythiir, the elves decided to create a safe haven for all elven people, where to move their tree of souls. They gathered mages from all elven subraces (excluding the dark elves: even followers of Eilistraee were shunned away) and, with the aid of their gods, performed this (first) Sundering. The ritual brought natural cataclysms that severely damaged Ilythiir and caused the death of an immense number of its inhabitants. IIRC from the novel ''Evermeet: Island of Elves'', they --and the Seldarine-- knew the consequences, but went ahead anyway. With the death of many followers of Vhaeraun (one of the main patrons of the empire), the Masked Lord's influence ebbed, granting Lolth the opportunity to fill the void.

The ''newly'' arrived elves also get their own empires and kingdoms (the whole Faerun is covered by them). One of those, Aryvandaar (a mostly gold elven nation), was the cause of the series of wars that brought to the banishment of the drow. Their rulers, the Vyshaan, started the whole thing by trying to conquer Miyeritar. The dark elves fought to kept their independence and managed to offer a tenacious resistance. Tired of that, the Vyshaan (supposedly influenced by a fallen solar) cast a high magic spell that nuked the place, made it so nothing could ever grow there anymore, and killed the vast majority of its inahbitants (also dealing a great blow to Eilistraee, who basically lost almost all of her people with that). Meanwhile Ilythiir went to war as well: they were reported to use ''dark magic'', but, more importantly, that the cult of Lolth was starting to spread among them (although it is explicitly stated in ''Lost Empires of Faerun'' that it was mostly noble houses and individuals of power that started dealing with her and being ''seduced by fiends''). However, all in all, these wars were full of atrocities committed by (almost) anyone who took part in them.

Ilythiir loses the war. Now, enters Corellon and the Seldarine. The elves gathered at the Elven Court and they concurred with their gods that the Vyshaan had to be brought to justice. However, it was also declared that since some Ilythiiri started to worship Lolth and ''deal with dark powers'' (in a war where everyone did *ugly* things, btw), the whole race had to be banished: not just their rulers/mages/priests, like that which happened for the gold elves of Aryvandaar, the whole damn race (and the ban, for some reason, was extended to the children and to the few remaining followers of his daughter Eilistraee as well). Now, that doesn't really make sense. Lolth was seducing the nobles and powerful individuals of Ilythiir, it is very unlikely that the random commoners, farmers, workers (i.e. the bulk of the population) started trafficking with dark powers and the likes, wanted war, or had any say on, hand in, and perhaps even true knowledge of what their priests and mages were doing. We can't even expect them to have the magical comepetence to do that.

And if worshipping an evil deity was the reason, that doesn't hold in the FR, where everyone worships multiple deities, including the evil ones (for prayers regarding particular situations, like someone praying to Talona to not get sick). In that case, Corellon's choice only made the situation worse. Instead of taking his children to him, of helping his daughter take care of the drow, and try steer them away from the ''evil ways'', he cursed a whole culture (even the ones who weren't capable of agreeing/understanding with definitions of good/evil, like the children) and rejected them.

With that act, he basically pushed the dark elves, who were shunned by the Seldarine, towards seeking guidance and totally giving themselves (and their future, not yet born descendents, since those were cursed too for some reason) to Lolth, Ghaunadaur and the likes. Most drow couldn't see such a guidance in Eilistraee, because she had been drastically weakened by the death of the vast majority of her followers at the hands of the Vyshaan (and it took millennia for her faith to re-emerge). Also Corellon/the Seldarine cursed the surviving Miyeritari as well, which was a massive slap in his daughter's face. The elves said that cursing the innocents was a mistake, but they never cared to take a single step to fix it, or even to open up to the drow who choose to walk away from Lolth. So, to me, Corellon's choice to curse the whole drow because some of them were dealing with Lolth looks very much like an act of pride and jealousy, rather than justice.

After the curse, after millennia, Corellon seems to be totally fine with the situation. Since that time (and currently as well) Eilistraee has been working to be a mother goddess to her people and bring them the hope of a new life. She fights to lead them back to the lands of light, help them flourish and prosper in harmony with other races, free from Lolth's tyranny and the conflicts that dominate their lives. She has to face a lot of hardships, because her power is actually little, and she is contrasted by forces much more powerful than her. While Eilistraee never gave up fighting for her people, it took her a lot of time to rebuild some resemblance of influence, after the Aryvandaari had destroyed that with the Dark Disaster, and all of this while Corellon and his church didn't seem to move a single finger to help them.

Furthermore, as I said, many elves still have problems with the idea that Eilistraee and her followers exist and many priests of the Seldarine do absolutely nothing to debunk the myth that the drow are guilty of everything bad that happened to the elven people: they are happy with letting the truth be forgotten (in fact talking about this period of their history is taboo among elves). Add to this the fact that the followers of the Eilistraee tried to bring knowledge of the goddess and her ideals to Evermeet (the elven island, where they even have an ambassador) and they were denied the possibility of doing so.

Recently (1370s), even as Eilistraee fought to take the drow from Lolth, even as she, Corellon's own daughter (whom he says to love) put her life at risk, he did absolutely nothing to help her. He only allowed her uncursed followers into his place in Arvandor at the end (and only after they were uncursed by a mage follower of the Dark Maiden and his cabal, because their choice to walk a different, better path, obviously wasn't enough for him), when his daughter disappeared (and his act changed basically nothing for the drow, as they were already allowed in Eilistraee's realm in Arvandor). His servants even went as far as saying that Eilistraee was then redundant, because the ''willing had been saved, and the unwilling cast down'', which utter BS and makes no sense at all, no matter how you look at that.

In the current time (1480s), now that Eilistraee has returned to her followers, I really wonder how Corellon will act in their regards. But he seems to refuse to understand that ''drow'' no longer is a curse. Drow are born like that, it's their identity, part of who they are, and they should be accepted for their choices. Like everyone else (and I think this is the main reason why the relationship between Eilistraee and Corellon is described as strained in ''Demihuman Deities'').

So, in FR the situation is not black and white, where the drow are evil and wrong, and the elves good and right. IMO, it makes for a really interesting picture, especially if we add the involvement, personalities and roles of other deities, and the fact that Corellon, Lolth, Eilistraee, Vhaeraun --and even Selvetarm, to an extent-- are all tied by family bonds (and it is one of the reasons why I'm glad that the Dark Seldarine is back).

BelgarathMTH · April 2016

@Irennan , Thanks for adding so much lore information to the discussion. That took a lot of work and thoughtfulness on your part to put it all together for us.

In Keldorn's and other elves' and surfacers' defense, though, I would point out that they are very unlikely to know any of this theological history about the split between the elves, the drow, and their gods.

The civilization we see in the Forgotten Realms is centuries away from universal literacy. Even the best of people are limited in their reading, and therefore their knowledge, especially about obscure points of theology. Thus, my character in IWD (and I as the player) was surprised and fascinated to learn in-game even the small amount of knowledge about the elven gods that was available in Larrel's library.

Also, consider human (or "elven", or "dwarven") nature. Even in our "advanced" present day Western civilization in real life, very few people are able to address religion from a detached, analytical, scholarly state of mind, as you have in your post. I'd guess that fewer than eight in ten, or maybe nine in ten people can discuss religion without becoming highly emotional, and often down right irrational about it.

Does that make them bad or "evil" people? I suppose we could fairly say that those who commit murder in the name of their religion are committing evil acts by today's real life standards, but for most people who get irrational and emotional about their religion, no, I don't think they're necessarily bad or evil as long as they don't resort to violence.

Now, in the Forgotten Realms, Keldorn and many others do resort to violence in the name of their religions. But this is an imaginary world very different from our own real world. Gods are demonstrably real, and they give magic powers to their followers. They expect absolute devotion to their commands from their followers, in return for providing not only magic powers to the most faithful, but for providing a demonstrably real afterlife to all the worthy faithful. Their status and power among the other gods are dependent on their having as many worshipers as possible. A god with no worshipers dies.

Any elf following Corellon is expected to kill any drow on sight, if possible, and to make war against them and hate them just as their god does. This is a fact of life in the Forgotten Realms, and works similarly throughout the pantheons of all races. So, right and wrong for a D&D character really is black and white - the D&D character's guidelines for living and making moral choices is determined by the god they worship.

So, in D&D morality (which is very, *very* different from real life morality, and should not be confused with real life morality), it is absolutely the good and right thing to do for a follower of Helm, Tyr, Torm, Ilmater, or Corellon to kill a drow on sight. These gods proclaim it so.

If your character disagrees with them, then that character would simply follow and worship some other god that is not one of these five gods, and to seek that god's blessing and protection.

Being non-religious isn't really an option in this world, with these characters. People who fail to gain the acceptance and blessings of a god wind up in the Wall of the Faithless, a horrible fate.

Bottom line: D&D is not real life. It's an imaginary world with its own rules about the nature of reality, and about good and evil.

Again, I really appreciate all the Forgotten Realms lore you have provided to enrich the thread.

Zanso · April 2016

Lolth is also part of the "elven pantheon"

although not officially part of it, she is still only worshiped by elves (drow to be specific). There are some other dark elf gods too, but you gonna have to do your own research on that

Irennan · April 2016

You make good points. Most elves (even more so humans and other races) wouldn't know about this matter, because those who know, including the gods, try their best to hide the horrors perpetuated by their ancestors, and blame the drow for that. Victors write history. If confronted with a priestess of Eilistraee, if they were told the truth, it would probably be handwaved as a pathetic attempt at corrupting them. It would take something really massive (like exposure to an Eilistraeean community) to make them think ''hey, perhaps these drow are not wrong''.

However, I don't fully agree with you on blindly following a deity. Even in the Realms, a follower might embrace a part of what a deity stands for, while not feeling aligned with the rest. An elf might worship Corellon because they are a bard, or an artist, but they might very well not follow the ''kill all orcs and drow, because they are orcs and drow'' part. It happens with all the deities, and it is why there are elven followers of Eilistraee that still worship the Seldarine--fully possilbe, given the polytheism in FR--(meaning that they have not changed god). People are still people, even in the Realms, just because there is a game mechanic called alignment, or that someone follows a god, it doesn't mean that they must fully adhere to everything those things stand for.

Either way, as you say, my statement was from an ''objective'' (as in, our) PoV, and it was mostly aimed to say that drow vs elves is far from being evil vs good. The Realms are nuanced, gods make a lot of mistakes (Corellon's definitely was, and he is keeping doing that, given how he acts with his daughter and the drow in general--as a god, he should know better IMO) and so on. Quite honestly, this setting clashes with many D&D stereotypes regarding morality.

Moradin · April 2016

This thread is interesting to me beyond measure. I wish @Viconia_DeVir would still roam the forums! I would very much like her thoughts on this!

Irennan · April 2016

Zanso said:
Lolth is also part of the "elven pantheon" although not officially part of it, she is still only worshiped by elves (drow to be specific). There are some other dark elf gods too, but you gonna have to do your own research on that

Yes, but she was exiled from the Seldarine. The drow deities are no longer part of the elven pantheon, but of a different one named Dark Seldarine.

-9k DR to 1368 DR: it consisted of Lolth, Eilistraee, Vhaeraun, Selvetarm, Kiaransalee, Ghaunadaur, Zinzerena.
1369 to 1375: Lolth, Eilistraee, Kiaransalee, Ghaunadaur, Vhaeraun, Selvetarm
1376 to 1377: Lolth, Eilistraee, Ghaunadaur, Kiaransalee
1378-1379: Lolth, Eilistraee, Ghaunadaur
1380-1479: Lolth
1480s-current time (circa 1491): Lolth, Eilistraee and Vhaeraun (now allied), Kiaransalee, Selvetarm (Ghaunadaur left the pantheon, is now considered a Great Old One entity).

Irennan · April 2016

Archaos said:
One thing I really liked and made sense from 4E is that the Elven deities are aspects of the more famous deities.

You may like that, and more power to you, but it doesn't make sense. It's 100% a retcon. The Seldarine are interloper deites, that came to Toril from another world (Faerie/Tintageer) when their followers moved there after a cataclysm ended their original home. There's no way they could be human deties in disguise. If anything it would make more sense if the human deities were aspects of the elven ones, given that the latter are far more ancient.

It also doesn't necessarily make sense from a thematic viewpoint. Dreams, death, love, beauty etc... all of these concepts are highly subjective and their meaning for a race/culture can be wildly different than it is for another race. Different deities reflect different cultures.

It is simpler, more ''elegant'' design (highly subjective) if you will, but it doesn't make sense historically, and doesn't necessarily make sense thematically.

scriver · April 2016

In my opinion the whole "diminish separate gods to aspects of other gods" schtick was one of the worst parts of 4th ed.

After ruining the fun of Tieflings and Genasi and introducing dragonborn, of course.

Irennan · April 2016

It has been undone in 5e, as all the Seldarine are listed as separate deities (although it's hard to tell if they are actually there as entities on their own, or simply being worshiped as such, differently from formerly dead gods being back).

[Deleted User] · April 2016

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Irennan · April 2016

subtledoctor said:

show previous quotes
Irennan said:

Archaos said:
One thing I really liked and made sense from 4E is that the Elven deities are aspects of the more famous deities.
You may like that, and more power to you, but it doesn't make sense. It's 100% a retcon. The Seldarine are interloper deites, that came to Toril from another world (Faerie/Tintageer) when their followers moved there after a cataclysm ended their original home.
Which is, itself, 100% a retcon...

How? Is there any previous lore that was negated by this? This lore dates back to ''Evermeet: Island of Elves'', by Elaine Cunningham, in 1998, and--that I know--first detailed how the (non dark) elves arrived in Toril. Later books, like the ''Grand History of the Realms'', embrace it, until 4e retcons it out of the wazoo.

[Deleted User] · April 2016

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Irennan · April 2016

subtledoctor said:

show previous quotes
Irennan said:

subtledoctor said:

Irennan said:

Archaos said:
One thing I really liked and made sense from 4E is that the Elven deities are aspects of the more famous deities.
You may like that, and more power to you, but it doesn't make sense. It's 100% a retcon. The Seldarine are interloper deites, that came to Toril from another world (Faerie/Tintageer) when their followers moved there after a cataclysm ended their original home.
Which is, itself, 100% a retcon...
How? Is there any previous lore that was negated by this? This lore dates back to ''Evermeet: Island of Elves'', by Elaine Cunningham, in 1998, and--that I know--first detailed how the (non dark) elves arrived in Toril. Later books, like the ''Grand History of the Realms'', embrace it, until 4e retcons it out of the wazoo.
Well, it more or less directly contradicts established 2E canon, which is that there are elves on all sorts of Prime worlds, dozens or hundreds, and the Seldarine tend to (most of) those communities from Arvandor, a realm in Arborea, one of the outer planes on the Great Wheel. It's not that they had one world, and then they moved to Toril; Toril is just one world among many, not very special in its own right.

Of course you have to question how far you take it; you could also consider canon the idea that the elves control an interstellar armada of giant butterfly spaceships, and Evermeet is one of their military headquarters.

But for purposes of BG, given that PS:T is its contemporary game with a similar rule set and they have various little connections to each other, I think you have to consider Planescape to be canon, even if you deny the co-existence of Spelljammer and the other 2E settings.

I've never heard of "Tintageer" but I suppose it could be retconned as a crystal sphere from which some or most elves originated, or as a region of Arvandor, or something like that.

tl;dr: your 3E canon that was retconned by 4E, was in fact just a retcon of the 2E canon before it. Which itself retconned the 1E canon. Etc., etc., etc.

(Though, credit 2E for having the courtesy not to outright contradict any previous canon, but instead present a particular interpretation of the established cosmology. The 3E/4E/etc. retcons were just rude, imho, and 2E will always have a place in my heart for this reason. I don't know or care what WotC is doing with the cosmology now, but it would be nice if they follow the example of 2E's more generous vision.)

Oh, then the history of the Seldarine/elves in the Realms is not a retcon. Tintageer is a region of Faerie, which was a crystal sphere (a different ''world'' from Toril). Toril only had dark/green elves before the ones from Tintageer arrived, and they didn't worship the Seldarine (although it seemed to me, from that novel, that Eilistraee might have already had some worshipers in that world, when she was still part of the Seldarine, since at some point she prepared some poison for the dark elves to use in hunting). The faith of the elven pantheon was brought by the Tintageerian (?) people. When Araushnee (Lolth) went there seeking allies for her betrayal (long before the elves from Faerie moved there), she didn't even realize that the world had elves until she felt them. Eilistraee and Vhaeraun started to gain followers there only during their wandering in that world (and that was like in -30k DR). Either way, 4e would be a retcon of the version that you described as well, sicne the elven deities still are much older than the human ones.

Btw, this is all 2e canon, not 3e.

Grum · April 2016

Irennan said:

show previous quotes
BelgarathMTH said:
You're welcome, @Grum.

The book about Sheverash also gave me insight about the "true" nature of the Drow in the Forgotten Realms. The elves hate them all for VERY good reason, and one of their gods commands them to exterminate the entire race of them if possible. Their entire existence is an affront to the eleven gods (unless a critical mass of them repent and turn to Ellistrae, as hinted at in BG2).

Ok, this is a lenghty post, so be warned.

Not so fast. It's true that the Lolthite drow have become cruel, sadistic and what you have, but 1)they're also victims of Lolth's BS, 2)who did push them in her arms? This matter is far from being B&W, as for everything in the Realms.

Corellon definitely has some issues, as all of the Seldarine. His indifference (as far as we can tell from ''recent'' events in canon, i.e. anything after the story of the Seldarine and Dark Seldarine told in Elaine Cunningham's Evermeet) towards his daughter's, Eilistraee, effort to undo the huge mistake that he made, and bring the drow together with the elves and the other races, is really mind-blowing.

Many elves aren't keen on accepting drow followers of Eilistraee and are upset by what she stands for, as they like to blame the drow for each and every tragedy that happened to their people, and Eilistraee kind of proves those ideas wrong. Corellon or his clergy do nothing to dispel these mistruths.

His act of cursing a whole people, and then doing absolutely nothing to fix that mistake, or help his daughter is also telling. But if you look at the whole history of elves and drow, in FR the elves are definitely generally not ''good people''. I'll make a brief summary.

It started when Lolth was exiled by Corellon because of her betrayal. Her son, Vhaeraun, was exiled too because he helped his mother, while Eilistraee (whom Lolth tried to frame) chose to be punished too, because she had foreseen that the drow would need her at their side in the time to come.

Eilistraee and Vhaeraun wandered on Toril (the FR world), where dark and wood elven presence could already be found, acting as guides for these elves. Eventually, the dark elves in the south of Faerun (mainly faithful to Vhaeraun and, later, Ghaunadaur, although some were followers of Eilistraee) managed to found a whole kingdom, Ilythiir, which developed into a very advanced nation, but whose leaders/nobles/mages/what you have ultimately became corrupted by the kind of magic and experiments they practiced. Later, some dark and green elves, mainly followers of Eilistraee founding the nation of Miyeritar. It too flourished into one of the greatest centers of arts and magic of Faerun.

Meanwhile, after a cataclysm that damaged their original world, the elves of Faerie fled to Toril. Fast forward centuries of migrations, interaction with other races, conflicts and so on, and Lolth turns her attention to Toril. It happened when the moon elf Kethryllia Amarillis (founder of the house that brought her name) intruded into the Demonweb, reminding the Spider Queen of a way to regain power by having the surface elves worship her once more. During a battle in defense of her city--Sharlarion--while wielding the dagger (imbued with scrying magic) that Ka'Narlist (a mage of Ilythiir) had given to one of the founders of the city long before (and that had become part of the treasures of Sharlarion), Kathryllia chased a demon to the Abyss. Lolth noticed the dagger and followed the magic to Ka'Narlist, deciding that he would make a fine consort. She planned to act through him and gain the worship of the dark elves, to exact revenge on Corellon through his own people.

While Lolth was trying to establish an influence in Toril, in -17,600 DR, the Ever'Sakkatien (the first Sundering, and the first Seldarine-approved massacre) happened.
After being confronted with Ilythiir, the elves decided to create a safe haven for all elven people, where to move their tree of souls. They gathered mages from all elven subraces (excluding the dark elves: even followers of Eilistraee were shunned away) and, with the aid of their gods, performed this (first) Sundering. The ritual brought natural cataclysms that severely damaged Ilythiir and caused the death of an immense number of its inhabitants. IIRC from the novel ''Evermeet: Island of Elves'', they --and the Seldarine-- knew the consequences, but went ahead anyway. With the death of many followers of Vhaeraun (one of the main patrons of the empire), the Masked Lord's influence ebbed, granting Lolth the opportunity to fill the void.

The ''newly'' arrived elves also get their own empires and kingdoms (the whole Faerun is covered by them). One of those, Aryvandaar (a mostly gold elven nation), was the cause of the series of wars that brought to the banishment of the drow. Their rulers, the Vyshaan, started the whole thing by trying to conquer Miyeritar. The dark elves fought to kept their independence and managed to offer a tenacious resistance. Tired of that, the Vyshaan (supposedly influenced by a fallen solar) cast a high magic spell that nuked the place, made it so nothing could ever grow there anymore, and killed the vast majority of its inahbitants (also dealing a great blow to Eilistraee, who basically lost almost all of her people with that). Meanwhile Ilythiir went to war as well: they were reported to use ''dark magic'', but, more importantly, that the cult of Lolth was starting to spread among them (although it is explicitly stated in ''Lost Empires of Faerun'' that it was mostly noble houses and individuals of power that started dealing with her and being ''seduced by fiends''). However, all in all, these wars were full of atrocities committed by (almost) anyone who took part in them.

Ilythiir loses the war. Now, enters Corellon and the Seldarine. The elves gathered at the Elven Court and they concurred with their gods that the Vyshaan had to be brought to justice. However, it was also declared that since some Ilythiiri started to worship Lolth and ''deal with dark powers'' (in a war where everyone did *ugly* things, btw), the whole race had to be banished: not just their rulers/mages/priests, like that which happened for the gold elves of Aryvandaar, the whole damn race (and the ban, for some reason, was extended to the children and to the few remaining followers of his daughter Eilistraee as well). Now, that doesn't really make sense. Lolth was seducing the nobles and powerful individuals of Ilythiir, it is very unlikely that the random commoners, farmers, workers (i.e. the bulk of the population) started trafficking with dark powers and the likes, wanted war, or had any say on, hand in, and perhaps even true knowledge of what their priests and mages were doing. We can't even expect them to have the magical comepetence to do that.

And if worshipping an evil deity was the reason, that doesn't hold in the FR, where everyone worships multiple deities, including the evil ones (for prayers regarding particular situations, like someone praying to Talona to not get sick). In that case, Corellon's choice only made the situation worse. Instead of taking his children to him, of helping his daughter take care of the drow, and try steer them away from the ''evil ways'', he cursed a whole culture (even the ones who weren't capable of agreeing/understanding with definitions of good/evil, like the children) and rejected them.

With that act, he basically pushed the dark elves, who were shunned by the Seldarine, towards seeking guidance and totally giving themselves (and their future, not yet born descendents, since those were cursed too for some reason) to Lolth, Ghaunadaur and the likes. Most drow couldn't see such a guidance in Eilistraee, because she had been drastically weakened by the death of the vast majority of her followers at the hands of the Vyshaan (and it took millennia for her faith to re-emerge). Also Corellon/the Seldarine cursed the surviving Miyeritari as well, which was a massive slap in his daughter's face. The elves said that cursing the innocents was a mistake, but they never cared to take a single step to fix it, or even to open up to the drow who choose to walk away from Lolth. So, to me, Corellon's choice to curse the whole drow because some of them were dealing with Lolth looks very much like an act of pride and jealousy, rather than justice.

After the curse, after millennia, Corellon seems to be totally fine with the situation. Since that time (and currently as well) Eilistraee has been working to be a mother goddess to her people and bring them the hope of a new life. She fights to lead them back to the lands of light, help them flourish and prosper in harmony with other races, free from Lolth's tyranny and the conflicts that dominate their lives. She has to face a lot of hardships, because her power is actually little, and she is contrasted by forces much more powerful than her. While Eilistraee never gave up fighting for her people, it took her a lot of time to rebuild some resemblance of influence, after the Aryvandaari had destroyed that with the Dark Disaster, and all of this while Corellon and his church didn't seem to move a single finger to help them.

Furthermore, as I said, many elves still have problems with the idea that Eilistraee and her followers exist and many priests of the Seldarine do absolutely nothing to debunk the myth that the drow are guilty of everything bad that happened to the elven people: they are happy with letting the truth be forgotten (in fact talking about this period of their history is taboo among elves). Add to this the fact that the followers of the Eilistraee tried to bring knowledge of the goddess and her ideals to Evermeet (the elven island, where they even have an ambassador) and they were denied the possibility of doing so.

Recently (1370s), even as Eilistraee fought to take the drow from Lolth, even as she, Corellon's own daughter (whom he says to love) put her life at risk, he did absolutely nothing to help her. He only allowed her uncursed followers into his place in Arvandor at the end (and only after they were uncursed by a mage follower of the Dark Maiden and his cabal, because their choice to walk a different, better path, obviously wasn't enough for him), when his daughter disappeared (and his act changed basically nothing for the drow, as they were already allowed in Eilistraee's realm in Arvandor). His servants even went as far as saying that Eilistraee was then redundant, because the ''willing had been saved, and the unwilling cast down'', which utter BS and makes no sense at all, no matter how you look at that.

In the current time (1480s), now that Eilistraee has returned to her followers, I really wonder how Corellon will act in their regards. But he seems to refuse to understand that ''drow'' no longer is a curse. Drow are born like that, it's their identity, part of who they are, and they should be accepted for their choices. Like everyone else (and I think this is the main reason why the relationship between Eilistraee and Corellon is described as strained in ''Demihuman Deities'').

So, in FR the situation is not black and white, where the drow are evil and wrong, and the elves good and right. IMO, it makes for a really interesting picture, especially if we add the involvement, personalities and roles of other deities, and the fact that Corellon, Lolth, Eilistraee, Vhaeraun --and even Selvetarm, to an extent-- are all tied by family bonds (and it is one of the reasons why I'm glad that the Dark Seldarine is back).

The dwarf summary:

Elves are jerks. Their gods are jerks too. We aren't surprised.

Pteran · April 2016

Grum said:

show previous quotes
Irennan said:

BelgarathMTH said:
You're welcome, @Grum.

The book about Sheverash also gave me insight about the "true" nature of the Drow in the Forgotten Realms. The elves hate them all for VERY good reason, and one of their gods commands them to exterminate the entire race of them if possible. Their entire existence is an affront to the eleven gods (unless a critical mass of them repent and turn to Ellistrae, as hinted at in BG2).

Ok, this is a lenghty post, so be warned.

Not so fast. It's true that the Lolthite drow have become cruel, sadistic and what you have, but 1)they're also victims of Lolth's BS, 2)who did push them in her arms? This matter is far from being B&W, as for everything in the Realms.

Corellon definitely has some issues, as all of the Seldarine. His indifference (as far as we can tell from ''recent'' events in canon, i.e. anything after the story of the Seldarine and Dark Seldarine told in Elaine Cunningham's Evermeet) towards his daughter's, Eilistraee, effort to undo the huge mistake that he made, and bring the drow together with the elves and the other races, is really mind-blowing.

Many elves aren't keen on accepting drow followers of Eilistraee and are upset by what she stands for, as they like to blame the drow for each and every tragedy that happened to their people, and Eilistraee kind of proves those ideas wrong. Corellon or his clergy do nothing to dispel these mistruths.

His act of cursing a whole people, and then doing absolutely nothing to fix that mistake, or help his daughter is also telling. But if you look at the whole history of elves and drow, in FR the elves are definitely generally not ''good people''. I'll make a brief summary.

It started when Lolth was exiled by Corellon because of her betrayal. Her son, Vhaeraun, was exiled too because he helped his mother, while Eilistraee (whom Lolth tried to frame) chose to be punished too, because she had foreseen that the drow would need her at their side in the time to come.

Eilistraee and Vhaeraun wandered on Toril (the FR world), where dark and wood elven presence could already be found, acting as guides for these elves. Eventually, the dark elves in the south of Faerun (mainly faithful to Vhaeraun and, later, Ghaunadaur, although some were followers of Eilistraee) managed to found a whole kingdom, Ilythiir, which developed into a very advanced nation, but whose leaders/nobles/mages/what you have ultimately became corrupted by the kind of magic and experiments they practiced. Later, some dark and green elves, mainly followers of Eilistraee founding the nation of Miyeritar. It too flourished into one of the greatest centers of arts and magic of Faerun.

Meanwhile, after a cataclysm that damaged their original world, the elves of Faerie fled to Toril. Fast forward centuries of migrations, interaction with other races, conflicts and so on, and Lolth turns her attention to Toril. It happened when the moon elf Kethryllia Amarillis (founder of the house that brought her name) intruded into the Demonweb, reminding the Spider Queen of a way to regain power by having the surface elves worship her once more. During a battle in defense of her city--Sharlarion--while wielding the dagger (imbued with scrying magic) that Ka'Narlist (a mage of Ilythiir) had given to one of the founders of the city long before (and that had become part of the treasures of Sharlarion), Kathryllia chased a demon to the Abyss. Lolth noticed the dagger and followed the magic to Ka'Narlist, deciding that he would make a fine consort. She planned to act through him and gain the worship of the dark elves, to exact revenge on Corellon through his own people.

While Lolth was trying to establish an influence in Toril, in -17,600 DR, the Ever'Sakkatien (the first Sundering, and the first Seldarine-approved massacre) happened.
After being confronted with Ilythiir, the elves decided to create a safe haven for all elven people, where to move their tree of souls. They gathered mages from all elven subraces (excluding the dark elves: even followers of Eilistraee were shunned away) and, with the aid of their gods, performed this (first) Sundering. The ritual brought natural cataclysms that severely damaged Ilythiir and caused the death of an immense number of its inhabitants. IIRC from the novel ''Evermeet: Island of Elves'', they --and the Seldarine-- knew the consequences, but went ahead anyway. With the death of many followers of Vhaeraun (one of the main patrons of the empire), the Masked Lord's influence ebbed, granting Lolth the opportunity to fill the void.

The ''newly'' arrived elves also get their own empires and kingdoms (the whole Faerun is covered by them). One of those, Aryvandaar (a mostly gold elven nation), was the cause of the series of wars that brought to the banishment of the drow. Their rulers, the Vyshaan, started the whole thing by trying to conquer Miyeritar. The dark elves fought to kept their independence and managed to offer a tenacious resistance. Tired of that, the Vyshaan (supposedly influenced by a fallen solar) cast a high magic spell that nuked the place, made it so nothing could ever grow there anymore, and killed the vast majority of its inahbitants (also dealing a great blow to Eilistraee, who basically lost almost all of her people with that). Meanwhile Ilythiir went to war as well: they were reported to use ''dark magic'', but, more importantly, that the cult of Lolth was starting to spread among them (although it is explicitly stated in ''Lost Empires of Faerun'' that it was mostly noble houses and individuals of power that started dealing with her and being ''seduced by fiends''). However, all in all, these wars were full of atrocities committed by (almost) anyone who took part in them.

Ilythiir loses the war. Now, enters Corellon and the Seldarine. The elves gathered at the Elven Court and they concurred with their gods that the Vyshaan had to be brought to justice. However, it was also declared that since some Ilythiiri started to worship Lolth and ''deal with dark powers'' (in a war where everyone did *ugly* things, btw), the whole race had to be banished: not just their rulers/mages/priests, like that which happened for the gold elves of Aryvandaar, the whole damn race (and the ban, for some reason, was extended to the children and to the few remaining followers of his daughter Eilistraee as well). Now, that doesn't really make sense. Lolth was seducing the nobles and powerful individuals of Ilythiir, it is very unlikely that the random commoners, farmers, workers (i.e. the bulk of the population) started trafficking with dark powers and the likes, wanted war, or had any say on, hand in, and perhaps even true knowledge of what their priests and mages were doing. We can't even expect them to have the magical comepetence to do that.

And if worshipping an evil deity was the reason, that doesn't hold in the FR, where everyone worships multiple deities, including the evil ones (for prayers regarding particular situations, like someone praying to Talona to not get sick). In that case, Corellon's choice only made the situation worse. Instead of taking his children to him, of helping his daughter take care of the drow, and try steer them away from the ''evil ways'', he cursed a whole culture (even the ones who weren't capable of agreeing/understanding with definitions of good/evil, like the children) and rejected them.

With that act, he basically pushed the dark elves, who were shunned by the Seldarine, towards seeking guidance and totally giving themselves (and their future, not yet born descendents, since those were cursed too for some reason) to Lolth, Ghaunadaur and the likes. Most drow couldn't see such a guidance in Eilistraee, because she had been drastically weakened by the death of the vast majority of her followers at the hands of the Vyshaan (and it took millennia for her faith to re-emerge). Also Corellon/the Seldarine cursed the surviving Miyeritari as well, which was a massive slap in his daughter's face. The elves said that cursing the innocents was a mistake, but they never cared to take a single step to fix it, or even to open up to the drow who choose to walk away from Lolth. So, to me, Corellon's choice to curse the whole drow because some of them were dealing with Lolth looks very much like an act of pride and jealousy, rather than justice.

After the curse, after millennia, Corellon seems to be totally fine with the situation. Since that time (and currently as well) Eilistraee has been working to be a mother goddess to her people and bring them the hope of a new life. She fights to lead them back to the lands of light, help them flourish and prosper in harmony with other races, free from Lolth's tyranny and the conflicts that dominate their lives. She has to face a lot of hardships, because her power is actually little, and she is contrasted by forces much more powerful than her. While Eilistraee never gave up fighting for her people, it took her a lot of time to rebuild some resemblance of influence, after the Aryvandaari had destroyed that with the Dark Disaster, and all of this while Corellon and his church didn't seem to move a single finger to help them.

Furthermore, as I said, many elves still have problems with the idea that Eilistraee and her followers exist and many priests of the Seldarine do absolutely nothing to debunk the myth that the drow are guilty of everything bad that happened to the elven people: they are happy with letting the truth be forgotten (in fact talking about this period of their history is taboo among elves). Add to this the fact that the followers of the Eilistraee tried to bring knowledge of the goddess and her ideals to Evermeet (the elven island, where they even have an ambassador) and they were denied the possibility of doing so.

Recently (1370s), even as Eilistraee fought to take the drow from Lolth, even as she, Corellon's own daughter (whom he says to love) put her life at risk, he did absolutely nothing to help her. He only allowed her uncursed followers into his place in Arvandor at the end (and only after they were uncursed by a mage follower of the Dark Maiden and his cabal, because their choice to walk a different, better path, obviously wasn't enough for him), when his daughter disappeared (and his act changed basically nothing for the drow, as they were already allowed in Eilistraee's realm in Arvandor). His servants even went as far as saying that Eilistraee was then redundant, because the ''willing had been saved, and the unwilling cast down'', which utter BS and makes no sense at all, no matter how you look at that.

In the current time (1480s), now that Eilistraee has returned to her followers, I really wonder how Corellon will act in their regards. But he seems to refuse to understand that ''drow'' no longer is a curse. Drow are born like that, it's their identity, part of who they are, and they should be accepted for their choices. Like everyone else (and I think this is the main reason why the relationship between Eilistraee and Corellon is described as strained in ''Demihuman Deities'').

So, in FR the situation is not black and white, where the drow are evil and wrong, and the elves good and right. IMO, it makes for a really interesting picture, especially if we add the involvement, personalities and roles of other deities, and the fact that Corellon, Lolth, Eilistraee, Vhaeraun --and even Selvetarm, to an extent-- are all tied by family bonds (and it is one of the reasons why I'm glad that the Dark Seldarine is back).
The dwarf summary:

Elves are jerks. Their gods are jerks too. We aren't surprised.

Lol that sounds about right.

In defense of the general populace of the BG/IWD games, all of this craziness happened tens of thousands of years ago. That would be like someone expecting us to know the inner workings of the societies around before the last ice age.

I could probably spend a long time studying what little evidence remains, and still not be able to tell you "Tribe A was good and Tribe B was evil. Tribes A and C teamed up to overthrow Tribe B."

Elven Pantheon

Comments