[quote="Dragonessa":2owi5hjj]So, first off, am I remotely correct here? (Things get very confusing for me as there seem to be a million different versions in just as many books.)[/quote:2owi5hjj]
You’re close, but you got a few things wrong.
First off, the first thing that happened was Lolth and the other drow deities (Eilistraee and Vhaeraun, Ghaunadaur wasn’t technically a drow deity and Kiaransalee and Selvetarm didn’t exist yet) getting banished from Arvandor. This was because Lolth (then still known as Araushnee) led an army of “anti-Seldarine” against the elven deities (the Seldarine). Araushnee was made a demon and cast out, together with her son Vhaeraun who had aided her and her daughter Eilistraee who had unwittingly aided her and chose voluntary banishment for the good of the drow race. Araushnee renamed herself to Lolth and settled in the Abyss (in the Demonweb Pits to be precise) to establish her stronghold and become a deity again. Pretty much the only thing of consequence for the dark elves here is that Lolth had been given control of their destiny and that the dark elves had been given dark skin by Corellon Larethian as a way to honour the beauty of his wife and children.
For the dark elves things really start much later. When all the elves ended up on Toril they formed numerous civilizations, including Ilythiir (made up (mostly) of dark elves) and Miyeritar (also containing a good portion of dark elves next to green elves). But things went wrong between these civilizations and they had a number of huge wars, called the Crown Wars. What started them is unclear (some say that the dark elves were already evil by this point and secretly worked to start wars between the other elves), but the first move was Aryvandaar (another civilization mostly made up of gold elves I think) attacking Miyeritar. There would be five Crown Wars when all is said and done, taking several thousand years.
During this the Ilythiiri dark elves descended into evil by worshipping evil deities, particularly Ghaunadaur and Vhaeraun (Lolth was busy in the Abyss at the time; I think she surfaced somewhere during the Third or Fourth Crown War). Eilistraee worked to try and stop this evil (and I think she got a strong foothold with the Miyeritari dark elves). But her power was pretty much shattered when, during the Third Crown War, the Dark Disaster destroyed Miyeritar, killing many of her followers (it’s likely that the Aryvandaar high mages were responsible for this). The Ilythiiri dark elves struck back hard for this (during the Fourth Crown War), revealing the evil powers they got from their evil deities and thus exposing them as evil to the other elves. In response to this the elven priests and high mages used Corellon’s magic to the dark elves into drow and force them into the Underdark, banishing them. The Fifth and last Crown War erupted after they were banished (showing that elves don’t need dark elves to wage war
).
Some Lady Penitent spoilers
[hide:2owi5hjj]We’ve recently found out that what they did to banish the dark elves was most likely create faerzress, which in turn created the Underdark, and then bind the dark elves to faerzress to bind them to the Underdark and pull them in. Either way it seems that the elven high mages over-extended themselves (as they usually do) and they didn’t just banish the evil Ilythiiri dark elves, but all of them (including the surviving Miyeritari dark elves). We’ve also recently found out that part of what made the Ilythiiri evil in the first place was Lolth having some demon run experiments with the dark elves and infecting them with a demonic taint.[/hide:2owi5hjj]
The dark elves, driven underground, formed a new civilization in the great cavern of Bhaerynden after driving out the dwarf population. But their continual internal power struggles erupted with a number of great magical explosions and the cavern collapsed, forming the Great Rift. The drow scattered throughout the Underdark and formed the cities we know today (like Menzoberranzan). And it’d pretty much be like that for thousands of years until the present day where Lolth Silence, the subsequent war between the drow deities and the (coming) Spellplague are likely to change things around drastically (for one, half the drow deities are dead
).
Ok, that was a bit more detailed than I’d planned (and likely more detailed than you wanted to hear). Yet if you want even more detail you can find a [url=
http://www.eilistraee.com/temple/drow_h ... p:2owi5hjj]detailed timeline here[/url:2owi5hjj].
[quote="Dragonessa":2owi5hjj]Second, how did Eilistraee get cleared of wrong doing?[/quote:2owi5hjj]
We're not sure. We're not even sure she has been. All we know that in 2[sup:2owi5hjj]nd[/sup:2owi5hjj] ed. AD&D she was considered banished and had her plane somewhere with a Norse god and in 3E D&D she suddenly was on good terms with all of the Seldarine and had moved back to Arvandor.
[quote="Dragonessa":2owi5hjj] Third, is Corellon really as big of a loser as he seems?
[/quote:2owi5hjj]
Well, I wouldn't call him a loser, he did defeat Gruumsh and all that after all. Maybe just a bit of a douche-bag. But then he is Eilistraee's father and she's still pretty much daddy's girl I think, so can't really say too much bad things about him.
Also, it's not two but three goddesses in one who replaced Araushnee as Corellon's consort. Angharradh is a cmposite goddess made up of the goddesses Aerdrie Faenya, Hanali Selanil and Sehanine Moonbow. Yeah, I'm not quite sure how that works either. But Corellon must be doing something right with that many women apparently falling for him.
Love -x-x-x-
Shir'le
Don't everyone run screaming away now! 
)