Is she dead or not?

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.

Moderators: Shir'le E. Illios, Bhaern Quel

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Irennan
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Re: Is she dead or not?

Post by Irennan »

Damn, nice try with that deceptive look, but...

The joke's on you! You've just swallowed their illusion-coated salt doppelgangers!

Yeah I know, life's harsh...
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Re: Is she dead or not?

Post by Ghaunadan_Lost »

...Dangit!

I'm always the last one to find out about these things!
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Re: Is she dead or not?

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[quote="Shir'le E. Illios":ibjfaoxk][quote="Bhaern Quel":ibjfaoxk]Many that post here refused to accept the 4th Edition lore, some I am sure did not buy anything of 4th Edition prints.[/quote:ibjfaoxk]
[i:ibjfaoxk]<raises hand>[/i:ibjfaoxk] Like me. I reject the entire Lady Penitent series (the Masked Lady might've been interesting and something we could've worked with, but we can't really work with "she's dead"), I disregard anything 4E and refuse to spent any money on anything that I know WotC is involved in. My own personal boycott of sorts. I know it won't make any damn of a difference, but it makes me feel a bit better.

And that's alright. I don't play tabletop anymore anyway and this way I'm saving myself a lot of money (I had no problem buying rulebooks despite not playing the game itself much beyond computer games).

There are some rumors that most all deities are coming back in the next edition, but I'm not convinced. I got the impression that they're going for a "they all might be alive so use them as you desire, we're just not going to say anything official on exactly which ones". And that simply isn't good enough. I've got that now (I can just say "hey, she's alive still"). I want her to officially be alive because then we might get additional official material about her again. Like picking up the 3E source book Champions of Valor and being pleasantly surprised that Eilistraee (and, more importantly, her followers) are mentioned several times in the book with some additional lore and rules. I want her to officially be back alive for community building as well so that someone [i:ibjfaoxk]else[/i:ibjfaoxk] might pick up the game, pick up a book mentioning her, and think "hey, that's a pretty interesting deity" looking for more information and then perhaps ending up in our little community here. I want her to officially be back alive so that when I talk with other D&D fans I don't first have to explain how my personal setting is different from the canon setting. When I join other players I don't want them to scratch their head and ask "wait, how can you be a priestess of Eilistraee when she's dead?". I want her to officially be back alive so that when new computer games are released (like the upcoming Neverwinter) I can play it without feeling like I'm breaking the lore of the game. I want to be able to be surprised when playing games like Hordes of the Underdark and running into followers of Eilistraee.

I can do anything in my own settings that I want. I don't need WotC for that and never did. If that's the stance they're taking then I don't need them at all anymore. They're not adding any value at all for me. If they want me to be part of their community and pay for their products then they will have to come to me and facilitate all the things I mentioned above. They need to provide the added benefit by saying "yes, she's officially alive and we're going to produce more material for her". And I'm not convinced that they will do that in 5E as they seem to be wanting to play everything in the middle and try and please everyone, maintain every setting they have. And that simply doesn't work.

So in answer to your original question: yes she is alive (for me), but that isn't the question to ask. The question is whether WotC is alive (for me) as Eilistraee will always be.


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le[/quote:ibjfaoxk]

I'm in really late for an answer but I agree with you ;)
I've a group of role player and discussing with them we are agree that we'll only play what like to us, not what like to others!!!! I've created also a drow Eilistraee priestess' that is loved by them why I should kill her deities for wotc sake????
The first three (but more the first two I should write) fr edition where the ones most engaging as story and environment so we stopped the canonical story to 1372, playing our own future.
IF and only IF the 5.0 fr edition would put back not only Eilistraee but also Mystra and some other deleted details, then we could reconsider to play again with canonical wotc history ;)
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Re: Is she dead or not?

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[quote="Kris":s2dseg0t]Hello. I have only recently read the 4th edition rules and lore after reading The Lady Penitent trilogy and I'm quite confused. Eilistraee is (or should I say "was") one of my favorite deities, but as far as I undestand she's currently dead, right? (just like the rest of the Drow pantheon, except for Lolth) It would be a great shame, drows and their deities are my favorite thing in the FR...[/quote:s2dseg0t]

WotC did kill lots of deities. But deities die and get reborn (or replaced) all the time in the Forgotten Realms. :roll:

There are even "official rules" for bringing back deities. It takes a year and a day for a church to import a new deity into Realmspace (or another crystal sphere) according to [i:s2dseg0t]CGR1 The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook[/i:s2dseg0t] from the Spelljammer product line and Jeff Grubb co-wrote a novel called Finder's Bane which included a mortal woman who was attempting to facilitate the return of a god.

I've not kept track of things, but as a goddess Eilistraee had the power to create avatars, Chosen of Eilistraee, magical artifacts, empower clerics and do lots of other things that touched the mortal world. Any of those things could have involved Eilistraee putting part of herself into an avatar, mortal or magic item. Any of those things could either be used to recreate Eilistraee or allow a devoted follower of Eilistraee to become the adopted daughter of Corellon Larethian and take her place as the new Lady of the Dance.

There are a ton of drow ([url=http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_elf:s2dseg0t]Miyeritari[/url:s2dseg0t]) who were returned to the condition that the drow were in before the race was tainted with Wendonai's blood. They now have brown-skin and black-hair and lack darkvision, but they were all Eilistraee worshippers before they were redeemed. I don't see why they would turn their backs on Eilistraee [i:s2dseg0t]after[/i:s2dseg0t] her body was killed.

The Miyeritari could be up to all sorts of things trying to locate part of Eilistraee, so that they can bring her back or create a replacement version of her. They might not know how to bring her back and it could take them a long time to learn or stumble onto a way to do it. The story of uncorrupted drow (who would presumably finally be free of the sort of stuff that Lolth imposes on the race) could actually be pretty interesting. But the 4th Edition time-jump (that occurred as part of the backstory of the Spellplague) has moved the setting so far into the future that it is pretty much disconnected from the 3rd Edition and 2nd Edition parts of Toril and Realmspace that I am [i:s2dseg0t]more[/i:s2dseg0t] interested in. So I've not really bought much 4e material (just two non-core books) and do not really know much about 4e.

I do not "hate" 4e as some fans do, but I do find it to be mostly useless to me, because it is just too far into the future. So I use (and will continue to use) 3rd Edition. And for that reason, Eilistraee is still alive to me. Not because I deny that 4e happened, but because I treat it as a "possible future". Maybe some Miyeritari could return from the future Realms and warn Eilistraee about the events leading up to her death. Maybe a very powerful Miyeritari worshipper could knock out Eilistraee, steal some of her power, disguise herself as Eilistraee and then take her place (risking what Eilistraee originally risked to try save her deity). In a game set in the 3e Era anything like that is possible. Who knows? Maybe the Sundering might even have some sort of plot-twist similar to that. :devil:

[quote="Kris":s2dseg0t]Excuse me if the answer is obvious, but I keep finding so much misleading information on the Internet right now.[/quote:s2dseg0t]

Back when 4th Edition was out, Wizards of the Coast said that they would be bringing back one campaign setting per year. I think that was an attempt to get fans of those out of print settings to buy the core 4e books and wait for their settings to get printed. In the end they only actually brought back Dark Sun.

Now that 5th Edition is coming out, Wizards of the Coast are saying that they are going to restore the Forgotten Realms to a condition it was in before 4th Edition. I am not entirely sure what this is, but I'm guessing that they are hoping that the fans who have ranted about the Spellplague since 4th Edition came out are all going to run out and buy the core rulebooks and wait to see what WotC does for the Realms.

I'm sure that WotC has got plenty of people who want to deliver. So we could well see the return of the dead gods (including Eilistraee). But WotC also has the habbit of randomly sacking people. So a promise made now might not actually be deliverable in a year's time. The only thing we really know is that the current management think that the 4th Edition Realms was a mistake and that they hope to connect with the 1e, 2e and 3e Realms fans.

I'm not suggesting that "it is all a trick", because WotC want to actually make products that people want to buy, but they were also making products that they believed that fans would want to buy during 4th Edition and that did not turn out as well as they had hoped. (As well as alienating some Forgotten Realms fans with their "Points of Light" changes, they also shut down Living Greyhawk and alienated the Greyhawk fans by telling them to play Living Forgotten Realms instead.) In a way I kind of feel sorry for the 4e fans now, even though I never bothered to learn how to play it, because WotC have dumped the core 4e world (Nentir Vale) and are going to use the radical events of the Sundering to remove the radical events of the Spellplague. However, it just seems to me that there is an endless cycle of blame being used to justify a switch to "new D&D". I don't see this 5th Edition "revamp" of the Realms as any different from the "Too many settings killed TSR" mantra that got thrown at 2nd Edition, back when 3rd Edition was first launched.

What I would really love to see from WotC is an end to the "blame the old stuff" culture and a move to a culture where new D&D products enhance the experience of fans of old D&D products as well as working for fans of their new fangled rules.

I'm going to wait and see. I won't be learning the 5th Edition rules (I'm sticking with 3rd Edition) but if they do manage to turn the 5th Edition Era Forgotten Realms into something more acceptable to me there might be a [i:s2dseg0t]few[/i:s2dseg0t] non-core books I might want to pick up at some point. As a fan of Realmspace, Al-Qadim, Maztica and Kara-Tur I would actually be interested in buying 5e Realms books that document parts of the world that have not been used in the past. Or if they did something like an Underdark for Kara-Tur with drow ninjas that would be something I might buy too. But I am more interested in grabbing old 2e material (and working how to make that work with the 3e rules) right now.

But from what I've seen of what WotC say they might do and what actually happens, I'm not really going to have a fully formed opinion on 5th Edition...until 6th Edition is published! :devil:
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Re: Is she dead or not?

Post by Irennan »

[quote="Dostrealt":ecpwrdsl][quote="Kris":ecpwrdsl]Hello. I have only recently read the 4th edition rules and lore after reading The Lady Penitent trilogy and I'm quite confused. Eilistraee is (or should I say "was") one of my favorite deities, but as far as I undestand she's currently dead, right? (just like the rest of the Drow pantheon, except for Lolth) It would be a great shame, drows and their deities are my favorite thing in the FR...[/quote:ecpwrdsl]

WotC did kill lots of deities. But deities die and get reborn (or replaced) all the time in the Forgotten Realms. :roll:

There are even "official rules" for bringing back deities. It takes a year and a day for a church to import a new deity into Realmspace (or another crystal sphere) according to [i:ecpwrdsl]CGR1 The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook[/i:ecpwrdsl] from the Spelljammer product line and Jeff Grubb co-wrote a novel called Finder's Bane which included a mortal woman who was attempting to facilitate the return of a god.

I've not kept track of things, but as a goddess Eilistraee had the power to create avatars, Chosen of Eilistraee, magical artifacts, empower clerics and do lots of other things that touched the mortal world. Any of those things could have involved Eilistraee putting part of herself into an avatar, mortal or magic item. Any of those things could either be used to recreate Eilistraee or allow a devoted follower of Eilistraee to become the adopted daughter of Corellon Larethian and take her place as the new Lady of the Dance.

There are a ton of drow ([url=http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_elf:ecpwrdsl]Miyeritari[/url:ecpwrdsl]) who were returned to the condition that the drow were in before the race was tainted with Wendonai's blood. They now have brown-skin and black-hair and lack darkvision, but they were all Eilistraee worshippers before they were redeemed. I don't see why they would turn their backs on Eilistraee [i:ecpwrdsl]after[/i:ecpwrdsl] her body was killed.

The Miyeritari could be up to all sorts of things trying to locate part of Eilistraee, so that they can bring her back or create a replacement version of her. They might not know how to bring her back and it could take them a long time to learn or stumble onto a way to do it. The story of uncorrupted drow (who would presumably finally be free of the sort of stuff that Lolth imposes on the race) could actually be pretty interesting. But the 4th Edition time-jump (that occurred as part of the backstory of the Spellplague) has moved the setting so far into the future that it is pretty much disconnected from the 3rd Edition and 2nd Edition parts of Toril and Realmspace that I am [i:ecpwrdsl]more[/i:ecpwrdsl] interested in. So I've not really bought much 4e material (just two non-core books) and do not really know much about 4e.

I do not "hate" 4e as some fans do, but I do find it to be mostly useless to me, because it is just too far into the future. So I use (and will continue to use) 3rd Edition. And for that reason, Eilistraee is still alive to me. Not because I deny that 4e happened, but because I treat it as a "possible future". Maybe some Miyeritari could return from the future Realms and warn Eilistraee about the events leading up to her death. Maybe a very powerful Miyeritari worshipper could knock out Eilistraee, steal some of her power, disguise herself as Eilistraee and then take her place (risking what Eilistraee originally risked to try save her deity). In a game set in the 3e Era anything like that is possible. Who knows? Maybe the Sundering might even have some sort of plot-twist similar to that. :devil:

[/quote:ecpwrdsl]

There is also the fact that the ending of LP is very muddy, and purposefully so. Basically what was killed is an avatar of Eilistraee, not the goddess herself, and the crescent blade appeared to have lost its uber-slaying power (which idk how a lesser deity managed to infuse in it, tbh) at some point (I guess that Eilistraee undid them, as the sword couldn't even destroy Cavatina). The author made it clear that she was tasked by WotC to remove the Dark Seldarine, but tried to do so while leaving large room for their return (or to make it uncertain whether they actually died, or not). It's entirely possible that Corellon gathered his children into his arms again. For all we know, they are healing, relearning, reconnecting etc. in Arvandor...


The main issue with those events is not how to bring Eilistraee back, because that's easy, but that what she did and -according to some interpretations- sacrificed for is mostly out of her character, even going against what she stands for and wishes for the drow, and severly hindering her quest.

This matter has already been widely discussed: going on a crusade to slay Lolth, changing skin color and removing some random curse that [i:ecpwrdsl]never had any concrete effect on drow lives, to begin with[/i:ecpwrdsl] (it does not limit their choice or influence their behaviour, as we can see from every previous novel/source) has nothing to do with the redemption that Eilistraee is about, one based on freedom of choice and understanding, and that has to come from the individual (and her followers were already redeemed, by their choice). She knows that drow can take back the reins of their destiny -and can do it as drow- and don't need or even want to change part of their identity (or get their 'original sin' removed) in order to do so. Inspiring, leading them to such an achievement is what she fights for, but her actions in the novels defeat that purpose (especially, but not exclusively, because the vast majority of drow, the ones who need her the most, were let down, something that the Dark Maiden would never, never do. There isn't even any possibility of contact between them and Eilistraee's followers, as drow would never listen to an elf and miyeritari would likely be attacked on sight) and sets a huge obstacle to her quest (which is what WotC wanted to achieve with the novels), unless she is still alive.
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Re: Is she dead or not?

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[quote="Irennan":39fvghpc]This matter has already been widely discussed: going on a crusade to slay Lolth, changing skin color and removing some random curse that [i:39fvghpc]never had any concrete effect on drow lives, to begin with[/i:39fvghpc] (it does not limit their choice or influence their behaviour, as we can see from every previous novel/source) has nothing to do with the redemption that Eilistraee is about, one based on freedom of choice and understanding, and that has to come from the individual (and her followers were already redeemed, by their choice). She knows that drow can take back the reins of their destiny -and can do it as drow- and don't need or even want to change part of their identity (or get their 'original sin' removed) in order to do so. Inspiring, leading them to such an achievement is what she fights for, but her actions in the novels defeat that purpose (especially, but not exclusively, because the vast majority of drow, the ones who need her the most, were let down, something that the Dark Maiden would never, never do. There isn't even any possibility of contact between them and Eilistraee's followers, as drow would never listen to an elf and miyeritari would likely be attacked on sight) and sets a huge obstacle to her quest (which is what WotC wanted to achieve with the novels), unless she is still alive.[/quote:39fvghpc]

If the drow were originally brown-skinned and black-haired elves that were able to walk around in the sun without ill effects, then allowing them to turn back into a "surface race" would be some sort of "redemption". (Statistically, they are better off with dark vision, but if they want to remain on the surface for ever I can see some advantage to returning to their original form.)

I do agree with you that it seems to break Eilistraee mission, as the Dark Elves would then look different to the drow. We know that they could dye their skin black and dye their hair white, as non-drow worshipers of Eilistraee did before. So I guess they could still try to hook up with the drow they want to rescue. But the loss of dark-vision would make it harder for them to go underground to do that.

I'm also not sure that there would be a way to convert other good drow into their race. I guess we would just have brown former drow welcoming good black drow into their homes.
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Re: Is she dead or not?

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[quote:128tqd3g]If the drow were originally brown-skinned and black-haired elves that were able to walk around in the sun without ill effects, then allowing them to turn back into a "surface race" would be some sort of "redemption". (Statistically, they are better off with dark vision, but if they want to remain on the surface for ever I can see some advantage to returning to their original form.)[/quote:128tqd3g]

Also, It's not simply about that. Yes it's an advantage but:

1)Some years (very short time from a drow PoV) on the surface can cause Sunlight adaptation. Also I don't recall her followers having problems adapting to the surface or being unhappy with their life, they don't /need/ that and surely wouldn't want to exchange their goddess for it.

2)No Darkvision and Brown skin= we forgo our quest (I don't think drow would be stupid enough to mistake some makeup -as good as it can be- for actual skin, especially when confronted with the lack of darkvison and innate drow magical skills. I think that the reason for using the makeup during rituals like the run is related to wanting to feel 'integrated' or to some kind of easy disguise that however would not be able to deceive a closer inspection). There's also the fact that drow are very religious people, they are brainwashed to the point of believing that Lolth -in her own way- cares about them. If you can't offer them a deity that does care and thinks that every single one of them matters, then they would be very discouraged to accept the change (and Corellon is not suited for this, like at all. He doesn't care about drow -his heralds said that the not changed ones were unwilling and to be cast down- and he is the antichrist to them, the one who betrayed their people, the cause of all their troubles -and this is actually true, in many ways-).

3)So Eilistraee gave everything up for something like this? Really? Not something she would do- other drow (the vas majority) need her more than her people want/need this race change.

4)As I said, it's not about that. Redemption means making up for ones' past actions and choosing a different life (as in ideals of life, not -for exampe- settling on the surface). Eilistraee symbolizes that even in the deepest darkness there's still hope for a change (redemption), that people can still find the courage and strength to [i:128tqd3g]choose[/i:128tqd3g] to live differently, to make the world a better place. What happened was some magic that transformed a few drow, nothing to do with redemption or Eilistraee and more to do with removal of something akin to an original sin (and her followers had already redeemed themselves, no need for this).

Furthermore, drow are proud of what they are. Eilistraeens drow are all about building their and their people's place in the world as drow, they want to show that the drow can prosper and grow and live like other races. This change completely ruins this part of the character. I'll paste what I said in another topic, as it explains better what I mean.


[quote:128tqd3g]The issue is that they completely missed the point on what Eilistraee wishes for the drow. She wants and try to make them understand that they have the freedom to choose their own life, that it is possible to be masters/mistresses of themselves, to live out of Lolth's clutches (unlike she wants drow to believe). It's mental, not some magical BS about erasing random curses and innate ebilness.

Eilistraee and her followers are about the struggle for this freedom, making a people out of the drow (as in united, protecting each other, working together to overcome difficulties, instead of backstabbing, brainwashed, paranoid), fighting until they manage to build a place in the world (both figuratively and materially speaking) which the dark elves can belong to and be free in. There is the will to show that the drow can achieve great things, can build, create and flourish despite all the hardship they get; the will to ignite the change and give back their people the life they were robbed of. All of this is about the drow-ness, and about what drow can accomplish. Turning them into brownies just ruins this identity and is out of character: they don't want to be something different -being proud of their identity- they want a better future for all dark elves. What happened in the books is like having a story about black people fighting for their rights in which the protagonists turn into some other ethnicity at the end. It makes no sense.
Then there's the 'sacrifice' that the Dark Maiden supposedly did in order to achieve this unwanted/unnecessary (even tyrannical)* transformation: by doing so, she basically turned her back to the vast majority of drow, letting them in Lolth's hands (but hey, according to some angel the unchanged drow were 'unwilling' and to be 'cast down', so it's k), which is totally out of character for Eilistraee (also, this is her quest, she gave so much for it and has never given up fighting for it despite all the hardships, why would she abandon it to anyone else -even Corellon- to achieve something that she and her people don't need or even want -and that actually goes against what they fight for-? The Deus Ex Machina is strong here)

*Eilistraee -who values so much and protects freedom of choice, life and self-expression for any creature- would never force such a change upon them. However this is what happened, they had no choice, no say on such a drastic change for their life.[/quote:128tqd3g]

You can really tell that these books were only a huge device to remove any good and free drow who cares enough for his/her people to actually try to build a future for them from the setting, without caring about the lore. Even Vhaerunites were 'changed' as followers of the Masked Lady...
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