Prefall EIlistraee, vhauren, and Aurashnee worship

Since the Chosen of Eilistraee is a religious oriented player group, naturally there is a place to have theological discussions. That is in-game religions; please leave real-world religion out of it. Debate the fine points of a certain dogma, how a church can enforce worship while staying true to its tenets or simply why one deity is better than another one is. All are free to talk about it here.

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Kirintha the Fair
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Prefall EIlistraee, vhauren, and Aurashnee worship

Post by Kirintha the Fair »

What do you think Worship of Aurashnee, and prefall Eilistraee and Vhauren wa slike?
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Re: Prefall EIlistraee, vhauren, and Aurashnee worship

Post by Shriastae Tivale »

Now [i:1fpwzves]that[/i:1fpwzves] is an interesting question indeed.

We're given extremely little information about what Aurashnee was like before she went all evil and started a blood war. Chances are she was something like "patron of elven rogues" or to that effect. According to [i:1fpwzves]drow[/i:1fpwzves] history, her time as Aurashnee is barely a footnote, if it's mentioned at all. Elven history...I'd have to look it up. Vhauren seems a bit of the same - both are known primarily as evil deities and don't like to mention the time that they weren't.

Eilistraee, on the other hand, we know plenty about. Essentially she was a daddy's girl for Corellon Letharian, and fell with her mother in order to have a chance to "redeem" the drow. Her purview really hasn't changed much - she just added "redemption" to it.
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Re: Prefall EIlistraee, vhauren, and Aurashnee worship

Post by Shir'le E. Illios »

Just to be sure that we're on the same line, I'm taking it that by "prefall" you're referring to the period before the drow deities were exiled from Arvandor and Araushnee became Lolth.

In most any creation myth (particularly in this case the elven one) it usually starts with the gods and how they create the races and work closely with them until some cataclysm. Then time forwards a lot and the focus comes more on the races themselves with the deities being far more distant. So in all that there's generally a question of how worship and religion develops.

In that sense I think that what we think of as "worship" and religion now didn't really exist in that form yet. You have to imagine that the elves were pretty much akin to cavemen at that stage. And 'worship' is probably closer to that scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey than them paying direct homage to specific deities. I don't think that they were worshiping "Corellon Larethian", "Eilistraee", "Araushnee", etc. Instead there were these being that were beyond their understanding, which interacted directly with them much like a farmer might interact with his cows. As such I think that they worshiped the deities as a whole and the distinctions between them came much later (as deities started to focus more on specific groups of elves and the elves started to evolve in mind and understanding).

On top of that Araushnee never cared much for the dark elves and saw them as an insult (and probably the final drop that caused her to revolt against the other deities).

I think that the first references to more structured dark elf worship came in the form of statues to Ghaunadaur, but that was well post-fall. Eilistraee and Vhaeraun where worshiped then too. Lolth wasn't yet (she wasn't a deity at that time) and only came in later. (And I think Selvetarm wasn't born yet and Kiaransalee probably came much later, probably post-Descent).

Long story short though I don't think that there ever was any structured worship of pre-fall Araushnee, Eilistraee and Vhaeraun as I would imagine that the elves wouldn't have the comprehension to distinguish between the deities yet.


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Re: Prefall EIlistraee, vhauren, and Aurashnee worship

Post by Unen_Stealthfoot »

Wait, I totally thought that Arushnee's revolt more or less coincided with the crown wars? Did I miss something?
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Re: Prefall EIlistraee, vhauren, and Aurashnee worship

Post by Bhaern Quel »

The Crown wars came after the battle I believe however the time of deities does not flow the way time flows for mortals.

Araushnee was was once a lesser power of the Seldarine and the
consort of Corellon Larethian. She was the patron of artisans, the
goddess of elven destiny, and-later, by Corellon's decree-the keeper of
those elves who shared her darkly beautiful features. The Weaver of
Destiny bore Corel-lon twin godlings-Vhaeraun and Eilistraee-before she
turned against her lover and betrayed him.

As an Abyssal Lord, Araushnee assumed the name Lolth and conquered a
considerable portion of that foul plane, driving off Ghaunadaur and
subjugating Kiaransalee in the process. The Spider Queen then turned
her attentions toward corrupting the mortal children of the Seldarine
and reclaiming her divinity. Lolth's attentions were drawn once again
to Abeir-Toril by the intrusion of the moon elven heroine Kethryllia
Amarillis into her domain, and the Spider Queen immediately began to
cultivate followers among the most cruel and corrupt of Corellon's
children in Faerun. In the centuries that followed, Lolth made great
inroads among the warlike Ilythiiri, who had long since spread across
the South conquering their kin- folk under the careful guidance of
Vhaeraun, and to a lesser extent, Ghau- nadaur. Lolth's machinations
among the elves culminated in the Crown Wars, and eventually, the
descent of the drow into the Underdark, but by that time she had
enmeshed most of the dark-skinned Ilythiiri, now drow, in her webs and
engendered the death of countless elves and the destruction of much of
elven civilization in Faerun.

On Aheir-Toril, the Dark Maiden strove for centuries against the hatred of
Vhaeraun and his corrupting influence on the Ilythiiri (southern,
darkskinned elves). Eilistraee's power ebbed with the death of many of
her faithful in the Dark Disaster, and the rise of Lolth and Ghaunadaur
among the dark elves marginalized the influence of the Lady of the
Dance for millennia.

Vhaeraun is the brother of Eilistraee and the son of Araushnee, who was
cast out and became Lolth, and Corellon Larethian. The Masked Lord was
cast out of the Seldarine and banished from Arvandor, along with his
mother and sister, when his complicity was revealed in Araushnee's plot
to destroy Corellon.

That is about the best I can come to prefall, the children likely were lessor deities, no idea for sure what portfolios they had before the deity war.
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Re: Prefall EIlistraee, vhauren, and Aurashnee worship

Post by Shir'le E. Illios »

I can only echo what Bhaern said. It's always been my understanding that Araushnee's fall was [i:1dwn7ijh]well[/i:1dwn7ijh] before the Crown Wars. The way I see it the whole story about the deities (*including the war between the Seldarine and the anti-Seldarine) are all on the level of creation-myth while the Crown Wars fall more under ancient history. Creation myth happened so long ago that nobody is even sure if it happened, or happened on a different plane or something outside of time while of ancient history there is at least some indication and historical record of when it happened.

Part of the thing that probably confuses it is that the deities and their stories are generally given a very humanoid (elven) appearance which is somewhat of a misrepresentation of the 'truth'. But I mean, how [i:1dwn7ijh]do[/i:1dwn7ijh] you talk about things that don't follow the rules of space and time as we understand them.


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Re: Prefall EIlistraee, vhauren, and Aurashnee worship

Post by Kaote Bruchedaine »

Not exactly on subject, but close.

As I recall Lolth's rebellion was the last of the 'great elven wars' was it not? Seems as if the near success of the Drow terrified the other elves into giving up large wars for good.
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Re: Prefall EIlistraee, vhauren, and Aurashnee worship

Post by Shir'le E. Illios »

I think that you're talking about the [url=http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/C ... e:1m0rlzwi]Crown Wars[/url:1m0rlzwi], but that's completely separate from Lolth's rebellion. Lolth's rebellion was a war between deities in ages far enough past that it was (probably) even before the elves came to Faerun. The Crawn Wars were great world wars between the mortal elves during the early centuries on Faerun.

There were five crown wars all told and the Descend of the Drow (where the dark elves became drow and were forced underground through magic) was during the Fourth Crown War. So there was one more Crown War after that which didn't involve dark elves at all.

The wiki page I linked above has a bit more details. Though of course considering how ancient these events are (and how the elves tend to prefer to forget the whole thing) details tend to be sketchy and could well be wrong.


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Re: Prefall EIlistraee, vhauren, and Aurashnee worship

Post by Irennan »

[quote="Kaote Bruchedaine":a4jxiz5d]

As I recall Lolth's rebellion was the last of the 'great elven wars' was it not? Seems as if the near success of the Drow terrified the other elves into giving up large wars for good.[/quote:a4jxiz5d]

It was quite the contrary. The sun elves of Aryvandaar started the whole mess that led to the ''Descent'' by trying to conquer the dark/green elven realm of Miyeritar (one of the most advanced among the Tel'Quessir nations at the time, rivaling Aryvandaar itself in art and magic, mostly devoted to Eilistraee and Sehanine) -and ending up committing genocide through a high magic spell known as the Dark Disaster (and at the same time weakening Eilistraee and her church to the point of almost non-relevance due to the loss of so many followers)-

The Crown Wars themselves are a huge event in the history of the Realms, ''Lost Empires of Faerun'' includes details on them, but the FR wiki does so as well.
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