The Faith of Eilistraee - Forgotten Realms Lore
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ย. 2018
- Eilistraee is the drow goddess of song, dance, swordwork, hunting, moonlight, goodness, and beauty
She is the patroness and protector of the few dark elves who longed to return to the surface.
She was often referred to as The Dark Maiden, the Lady of the Dance, Lady Silverhair, and sometimes The Dark Dancer.
And as always, follow the holy words of Oghma - "Like, Share, Subscribe."
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![Who is Eilistraee? [D&D Gods of Nature]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-r7nydJRskE/mqdefault.jpg)
I've always wanted to see Eilistraee cast down the dark gods of the Drow and become a greater god. It's take a while but with her popularity growing even among non-drow it might be sooner than we think
I think she needs to remain a minor one, if only to keep the "drow"ness of D&D. If we want to keep them as antagonists, we cannot have a large part of them be nice.
She could gain prominence, and, say, rally like one quarter/one third of the drow under her ideals. Frankly, the drow are badly written as antagonists: not only they are comically evil ("I eat kittens and kick puppies!" levels of comically evil), they have 0 reasons to want to keep living under Lolth, because life under Lolth is utterly, absolutely miserable for the vast part of the drow, and her idea of society is a parody that would have collapsed in no time if not for plot armor (especially in a hostile environment like the Underdark). At this point the drow follow Lolth only because the author says so, not because the context gives them reasons to want to (and after 10k years of misery and stagnation, you'd guess things would start to change).
@@transient_moonlight You know...I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks that the drow's villainy is cartoonish at this point. Though most evil deities are megalomaniacs, Llolth's is beyond ridiculous. "Yeah, you worship me and sacrifice to and for me, you conquer civilizations in my name...but that don't mean shit to me, so I'm gonna just fuck off for a year and during that time I'm taking every power I blessed you with and not even talk to you."
"Because fuck you, that's why."
"Fuck you and goodnight."
Hell, even the rest of the drow pantheon don't do that.
Orcus--not giving a fuck about those devoted to him--at least honors pacts that have been struck with him.
It's already bad that she's the epitome of an Indian-giver, but to have your society mimick that for ten millennia? Yeah, that's practically unsustainable and only exists because--as you've put it--the writers say so. No god in any realm would sustain a great number of followers, let alone swell in number over a long period of time. There's chaotic evil, and then there's stupid. Llolth's MO is the latter. I've always found the drow's devotion to Lloth a bit unrealistic...and to say that no real change during Llolth's 10k rule takes place is hard to believe. At the very least the other drow deities would have a bigger following than they do currently, including Elistraee. I've a hard time believing that those who forsake Lloth are very few in number and occurance, considering that Vhaeraun is second under his mother when it comes to his church. Like a great proportion of drow males follow him covertly or overtly--and that alone would make the foundations of the matriarchy crumble long beforehand. I just can't buy how Llolth still remains the HNIC, with all that going on. Am I missing something? Cuz I don't exactly know how Llolth was able to stay in power for so long. Her MO lore goes as such:
1. Llolth plots shit.
2. Llolth forcibly recruits staff to execute plot shit.
3. Llolth gets foiled like Dr. Claw in Inspector Gadget or Mum-Ra from the Thundercats.
4. Rinse and repeat.
How this--along with swelling numbers of the Church of Vhaeraun and followers of Ghaunadaur--DIDN'T fundamentally change drow society in a more dramatic way is beyond me.
The question is how to write such a natural progression--given the circumstances--without fucking up the lore?
The lore is already fucked up by nonsense and bias. The revolution should have happened well before the SIlence, because most drow do nothing but bleeding and suffering and withering under Lolth, without gaining ANY benefits, and while having alternatives that go out of their way to reach to them and provide them a better future. AT very least, it should have happened during the Silence, but the writers were happy to make this story--in which Lolth's plan makes 0 logical sense, btw--so "epic", promoting it as some world changing stuff, only to have everything go back exactly to where it was before it started (and while they were at it, Smedman/Athans warped the protrayal of Eilistraee's followers into some misandric militarist BS, that goes against all the character stands for and is in stark contradiction with all the lore that came before. The writers also had Vhaeraun lose a fight that he should have won by far, and made the drow deities in general look like incompetent losers). Not that it matters now, sincle the results of the Silence re: gods were undone by the Sundering (and effectively retconned for practical purposes).
Tommaso Sammarco They’re too preoccupied with gaining power for themselves and other evil stuff to realize that Lolth is the source of their problems.
my male cleric of Eilistralee is very happy that the goddess now accepts males in her priesthood. he's very devout, and even though is not really necessary, he'll probably dance the Changedance somewhere in the future.
I am sure she is happy to have him :)
My other idea include a half-elf (half drow for RP of course) whose mother was an Eilistraee cultist and father being a bard or a ranger.
He was orphaned and brought up by her mother's cult (He may have a happy-ish childhood but felt lonely as the only half-human among the Drow cult; but still working on it. But he is pretty naivete due to being sheltered due to secretive nature of the cult).
Not sure if he should be secretive about his heritage, but your average villagers--deities forbid dwarves--wouldn't take kindly to a Drow, let alone ask who the Dark Maiden is.
She always did accept males it was just harder for them to join
@@GreenGhostGalahad In AD&D 2e, she pretty much accepts female priests only. That said, at that point in Faerun's history, there _were_ male drow working with the clergy.
@@Ragitsu yea in 2nd edition she did but that slacked off in 3rd. Every character I've ever played has either been a follower of hers or involved in her faith in some way.
"Why would I chose worship Elistraee"
* show picture Elistraee *
Why indeed?
Everyone forgets Hanali Celanil.
Because dark elven waifu fetish, thats why.
My Drow Bard might be asexual, but he claims Eilistraee is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen!
@@irishspartanstudios You can appreciate beauty without being romantically/sexually attracted to an object of beauty...yeah?
@@Ragitsu Indeed! That's what I was going for.
I love Eilistraee she is amazing!
Welp, found my future bard's deity
Ditto
I really like how you make your videos from the point of view of an in-universe character. Just a little info: as of 5e/post-Sundering, Eilistraee has gained the portfolio of freedom in addition to the others. She seems to have quite a lot of them.
She has to wear all the White Hats in her family, which is why there are a lot of them.
@@GrassPokeKing Doubt it. She has many portfolios, but they all share the theme of beauty, freedom of expression, and nurturing. Even hunting and swordwork don't refer to her being a sword fighter or a huntress, but to her teaching her people how to survive in a world that has become hostile to them. Moonlight has been given to her by association--she is mostly seen by the drow at night, because that's whn they generally come out (source for all of this: Ed Greenwood).
If she had to wear the white hats, she'd be the "general good morality gal", with justice, loyalty, courage and stuff in in her portfolio. Instead, she's about rediscovering the beauty of life, creating beauty, and shedding one's shackles. Which is perfect for her idea of teaching the drow to live anew, rather than leading them to repent or whatever. In fact, the fun part is that she doesn't have redemption in her portfolio, because she isn't about redemption as much as the drow conquering back their own future and happiness, and empowering them to forge their own path.
Besides adding the portfolio of freedom (and with so many can she still be considered a minor power among the gods?) to her many others, and none of these should be downplayed or assumed to be similar, but in addition to all this Mystra has decided upon her own return to share the very Weave itself (the ultimate source of all magic in the Realms) with Azuth and Eilistraee.
Now tell me Eilistraee can't kick Lloth's scrawny spider ass... go ahead, try to say it with a straight face!
I have a drow paladin dedicated to Eilistraee. This video is perfect to help explain her devotion to the Dark Dancer and add flavor to the campaign. Thank you!
Exactly the reason why we make these videos, players to have better background for their characters and DMs to bring more flavor the the game :)
As another one to guide a paladin of Eilistraee (a half-drow) through the underdark currently, I salute you.
I just build a drow paladin for a campaign I will be playing soon. Which oath did you guys pick?
Oath of Vengeance. Fits perfectly to the backstory of my character plus its ability 'Vow of Emnity' is fantastic in combination with the Elven Accuracy Feat. (It's a DEX based paladin)
@@earlrobinsoniii1829 Personally I think Ancients, Vengeance, Devotion, and Redemption can all work very well for her.
You could definitely spin some of the other oaths to fit as well, though I think outbreaker and Crown would be a bit more difficult.
The only one I don't see working for her is Oath of Conquest. Eilistraee's not about subjugation, she's about fighting subjugation.
personally, I have a wild magic sorcerer I'm going to multiclass to paladin, and I'm going with Devotion, bc that's what works for them.
In short, have fun with it! and go with what feels right! just remember that Eilistraee wants you to be compassionate, while standing against tyranny
Thanks so much for this! I love these concise lore-dumps, for myself and my players. I have a Drow character who flees the Underdark and is unknowingly drawn to Eilistraee, and this has been a really helpful resource!
I am glad we could help :)
I love the way you read this character, which also gives me the headcanon that drow's voices always sound kind of sinister no matter what they say or prove with their actions- "no, I'm not gonna fuck you on this deal, I sweeaaaarrr~~~!- goddammit I did it again!"
The way I see it is that Eilistraee was a victim of circumstance since her own mother (and to no lesser extent brother) tried to frame her in the (attempted) murder of her father; I so badly want to give her a hug.
Another great video as usual.
Ah yes. Moon Mommy Goddess
Have 2 Drow characters right now. One's a cleric of Eilistraee who's hiding in Waterdeep from his abusive mother(matron).
The other is a warlock who's very sweet and pure so the Dark Maiden is like "daw baby"
Both are such sweet boys and I imagine the Dark Dancer is fond of them both =)
Edit: it was late when I made this lol
Sounds dope! Seriously, a very interesting backstory for the characters! And while a bit strange, "Moon Mommy Goddess" is an apt description of Eilistraee. She IS the adopted mother goddess the Drow need.
Nice fun concept. I have two drow characters as well a cleric of elirstraee who is incredibly naive about the surface world bless her heart and a drow wizard who simply just rebelled against loith for not being recognized for his work and eventually turned to elirstraee who works to free other drow from loith. Kinda two sides of the same coin
A little bonus information on the Church:
As one might notice in the titles of the different priests of Eilistraee;
ranking members of the church was mainly women.
Male drow could join the faith, but they typically didn't get much
status within the faith. Indeed, male drow would be encouraged
to, at one point in their lives, undergo a ritual to transform them
into women so that they could better relate to their goddess.
However, after-and-possibly-because-of her time merged with
her brother Vhaeraun, Eilistraee has opened up her church to
show a greater equality between the sexes in its ranks.
For Eilistraee, it used to be that, due to her nature, one could only fully feel her "divine dance" as a female. She was already trying to work around that and to get males to become priests during the early 1370s. After that, she wasn't actually merged with her brother, but she held his portfolio (which includes drow males) for a little while and that, I believe, has given her some insight that she needed.
I agree with this perspective.
Due to this lore-transition, in my "Out of the Abyss" campaign, one of my Players played a male drow of Eilistraee who eventually took up the position of her first male Chosen, but despite this representing pretty much every aspect of her faith.
Awesome video, as always. Will recommend you to my dnd group to watch, keep up the good work!
I was just playing Baldur's Gate EE a few hours ago. Makes me smile to hear the background music.
We had a discussion when this was being made, use some generic "woods" music, or use the BG music that is woods focused. We went with BG music, because we want to as "Forgotten Realms" as possible.
Nice video, thanks 👌😁
I am very happy you did Elistraee! She is my favorite deity in all of Forgotten Realms (Selune being a close second). I have used the Evensong ritual in RP on WoW. Not much difference between Elistraee and Elune.
Vhaeraun is more similar to Eilistraee than we think. I think Vhaeraun could also see some sort of redemption… and he makes more sense as neutral than evil, to me. He’s amazing. I wish he and Eilistraee had more spotlight.
He's an interesting and complex character but sometimes I feel like he really gets a tiny bit too much "Draco in Leather Pants" type apologia in terms of his current alignment. I'd peg him NE rather than CE but I think evil alignment in general is just about right for where he's at right now. Just because he has the potential to be better doesn't mean he's there yet.
@@00rasen True! I also think Neutral Evil would be a fantastic fit.
I'm currently playing a Protector Aasimar Paladin of Devotion of Tyr but I wanted to see how I could create a dexterity-based un-/lightly armoured paladin of Eilistraee.
With a very high Dex and Cha scores, I rolled a 4th level Swashbuckler Rogue / 4th level Paladin of Redemption to keep the theme of a sword dancer who prefers peace over violence. The paladin's Defense Fight Style, the Defensive Duelist and Dual Wielder feats, and her high Dexterity score gives her a high AC even wearing no armour. The Entertainer background gives her Acrobatics and Performance skill proficiency for her being a dancer.
I liked the succinctness of this history lesson. You go any more?
Very nice, and I don't even have English fluency
CLOAKWOOD FOREST! I'd recognize that music anywhere.
One of my favorite deities
Great video. Love that Eilistraee is getting some attention. I would tone the goth voice down a bit though - I would imagine that voice over fits a Lloth video better and one for Eilistraee have a bit of hopefulness or revelry in it.
The narrator is probably still a Drow, now you cant get more gothic than that with tipped ears :)
I've missed your videos
Im currently running a Drow Paladin of Eilistraee, and all I can think at the end of this video is I can hear him saying these things as a decree to release fellow dark elves from the underdark, one way or another
Cool voice dude
You'd think the guy would wait for his blocked nose to clear up before recording this.
Do more in depth videos on the various races! Similar to the Duegar video
Might have something like that in the works, more Duergar to come as well :)
My favorite goddess in Faerun. I’m actually starting a campaign centered around her
Ooh! That's interesting!
Love the video❤️💯. Do I take it your going to do videos on each of the 9 Dark Seldarine🤗🤗. I hopes so 🕸🕷👍🏼👍🏼💯
There is more Dark Seldarine in the works, so at least 2 more, not sure if we will tackle all 9.
Forgotten Realms History I kinda hoped you might do all of them since your videos are so well done and.narrated beautifully🕸🕷👍🏼👍🏼💯
Eilistraee is a hero! All dark elves should support her!
Not all can, and even less choose to. Those who don't want to support her do so out of fear or lust for power, fear of Lolth in particular and the power it gives them. And these power hungry priestesses would gladly crack their snake headed whips in threat. Others are simply too far into the dark, in the clutches of Eilistraee's brother Vaeron or the other gods of the Dark Zeldarean pantheon.
Creative
I wonder how Drizzit views Eilistraee and have her clergy and Drizzit ever met?
According to "Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes" most Drow have never even heard of the goddess Eilistraee, as her faith is that severely suppressed.
Other sources additionally describe "Eilistraee's Call" as being something all Drow experience, but most barely even understand and soon forget about.
With these facts in mind, it would appear that Drizzt likely knows nothing of Eilistraee's existence as a goddess. He has, to my knowlegde, never mentioned her, nor called out for other Drow to follow her lead. I am additionally also pretty sure that no worshiper of Eilistraee has ever shown up in any of Drizzt's novels.
The closest Drizzt has ever been connected with worshipers of Eilistraee to my knowledge is through his associations with Alustriel Silverhand, her sister Qilué Veladorn being the former Chosen of Eilistraee. Drizzt has however never met Qilué.
To my knowledge, Drizzt interacting with followers of Eilistraee is still a plot-angle Salvatore has yet to explore.
Thats what I thought. It would be nice that if he does meat some of her clergy they show him, "Because of your adventures here have begun to trickle down to the Underdark and has helped your lost brothers and sister seek a life without the Spider Queen. Don't ever doubt that your actions have had no impact."
More than anything, I'd be curious if Drizzt would take up the faith of Eilistraee
now, since he has mostly abandoned the faith of Mielikki in recent books.
I don't think that they would presure him to join he has done enough on his own.
I don't think they'd pressure him to join either. They would make him welcome for sure, but Eilistraee wants each drow to find their own path, and pushing it is never the way. Heck, they didn't even push for Liriel to join, they merely helped her.
Comment 1:
Anyone Else: Oh! My upbringing was so bad!
Listening Drow:
Comment 2:
My Drow Bard: *Finishes Performing, Takes Out Small Book* Now... would anyone care to hear the words of our lady and saviour Eilistraee?
🤚🧝♂️
Vendui , Erel devout follower here.
Eilistraee is one of the six widely worshipped gods in the setting I'm making for my campaigns.
She is the heart of those drow who abandon the Spider Queen.
My Drow Bard: "She certainly is. Xal dos alure peacefully wun lil' isilme, dalninuk / dalninil."
This is the first time listening to your channel. 30 seconds in, and you're going to have to work to convince me that I am not listening to Palpatine.
Calling K'thris Drowb, calling Mr. K'thris Drowb. You have friends waiting for you.
A.G.
I sure hope that is not Pedigree food. They could die from it.
love to the best waifu goddess
Eilistraee's faith was so mistraeted and misrepresented in WotSQ and LP series. I prefer AD&D lore much better. I hope 5e is doing her right.
PS there was a temple underground, the Promenade of the Dark Maiden, although it was there probably only to keep an eye on Ghaunadaur's Pit.
Dude, you sound like the "Comic Book Guy" from the Simpsons.
Great video. But lets not forget a few more things:
-Only women could become clerics of the Dark Dancer
-The priestessess were mostly in the nude
-Males where still highly valued amongst Eilistraee society, eventhough they couldn't become clerics themselves
-The darksong knights!!
After the Second Sundering, with Eilistraee's return to life (or more precisely, re-emergence, given what Ed Greenwood said about it), males can become clerics too. Furthermore, even in he 1370s, Eilistraee was already actively trying to open her priesthood to makes.
The priestesses are in the nude only when dancing for Eilistraee. In every other occasion, they use whatever the most practical dress is (or whatever they prefer), as per Demihuman Deities (especially in battle, where they favor light armor, preferably enchanted). That's a common misconception, but Eilistraeeans aren't nudists.
Apparently the people who have been screaming "OMG drows are racists" never heard of Eilstralee, who was created by Ed Greenwood back in 2nd Edition's "The Drow of the Underdark" (he had created her for his original Forgotten Realms campaign. He wanted her to be the "mother goddess" of drow, to help them escape the evil influence of her mother.
Eilistraee is the best waifu!
Just a thought, but, doesn't this mean you could make a drow forge domain cleric who follows Eilistraee? It would appear I have a new favorite class/race combo to cook up.
How's that combo coming along?
Now that's a cool idea!
How uh... how do you build a temple in the mouth of a cave but not under ground?
I wish Eilistralee was one of the gods of choice in the mmo Neverwinter. But she is not.
Vhaeraun next?
We have another Duergar (or more like Laduguer specific )in the works. After that, we should be focusing on Ghaunadaur, Lolth, maybe Sune.
Ghaunadaur please :D
@@@Jorphdan they did end up doing a Ghaunadaur video.
I thought she was killed by Lolth's lady penitent? This was during the war of the spider queen series. This was during the coarse of a sava game waged as proxi between Lolth and Ellistraee. Her father took her place, but my question is was Ellistraee really destroyed during the game or did AO bring her back?
She's back. Look her up in the Forgotten Realms Wiki. The Lady Penitent was not well received by a lot of Eilistraee fans, so it has been kind of retconned.
@@justarandomgal2683 I'm not sure if I like that power dynamic.
LP was unpopular because the changes it helped explain/push through in the setting pissed off a huge chunk of existing FR fans in general at the time, not just Eilistraee fans. The lead-up to 4E that LP was part of, was an especially huge cluster**** that nobody ended up really liking all that much. Authors and game developers got their work blown up in advanced state midstream in their faces; players got their game timelines, places, lore basis etc wrecked. One hand at WotC didn't seem to know what the other was doing that whole time. Hot mess all around.
My priestess of Eilistraee is a hippie who can make people fart flowers! It's so magical!
That sounds like the stuff hippie drow would do.
*Can't Stop Laughing*
If all religions are man made anyway, this one sounds about as awesome as any one I've ever heard of, especially as I'm a musician in real life, and in RPGs, I usually go for an elven rogue/ranger. The closest in real life would be somewhere between Pagan and Dionysian, but if they had Eilistraee temples in the real world, in my vicinity, I'd go, if just for the killer music and people wanting to be happy and contented, in spite of all the assholes out there tryin' do bring you and everyone else down. Too bad it's not a real thing...
They have some downsides to them - A common ritual is to hunt lycanthropys. They have this mentality that they are all evil and need to be purged. - They are also notoriously sexist, this is getting better but still a factor to think about. If you want a party religion, maybe check out Sune (point at Doctrine of Sune video) - Now those guys know how to party.
The view seems to have changed as the Dark Maidens priestesses can now turn lycanthropes back to their form. I forget where I read that though. They are still fond of goodly lycanthropes that seek redemption.
sometimes, trying to read dramatically falls flat on its face.
I don't think Drizzt would talk like this guys. I have to believe you were trying to channel and emulate him in this video even if he worships another goddess.
Shis comentor really sucks!!!