Baldur's Gate 3: Eilistraee, Daughter Of Lolth

there are many reasons for you not to worship lolth assuming you are at least marginally sane but lolth as you know was once part of the seldorine and had two children veyron and elistrae with her then husband corellon narithian veyron is distinct from his mother but nonetheless the early evil however elistrae is both distinct from her mother and also not evil in any way shape or form whilst remaining a dark health through and through in her presentation she is the go-to deity for many disaffected drow who have come to shun the evil of the spider queen promising a better life on the surface under the open moon of the night sky because neither surface elves nor other racists are typically willing to accept drow whatever the disposition however much of illustrae's backstory is tied to that of her mother and that is where we will begin you are probably familiar with the fall of wealth by now but in a nutshell she was caught in an act of conspiring against her husband corellon laurethian and the rest of the seldarine the gods of the elves lolth had attempted to secretly make illustrate complicit interactions by framing her daughter with the intention of scapegoating her later on should the need arise her plan was to craft a magical scabbard for her husband that would redirect the flight of arrows towards his person rather than the target when fired in the general direction illustrate was bidden to deliver the scabber to her father karelin unaware of the reality of the situation when an ogre god charged corellon illustrate seeking to protect her father fired an arrow from her bow aimed at his foe but instead it found his target in his chest having been grievously wounded by the arrow a rush knave feigned grief and concern and rushed to corella inside attempting to pass off a poison used for hunting developed by her daughter as a helium elixir from the plane of elysium something that had it worked would surely have finished off guerilla fortunately for him the goddess saiyan moonbow managed to break free of a prison she had been placed in and joined together with the other goddesses erdrifenya and hanalil sanano to become the triune goddess angerod saving corellon by healing him and revealing the truth behind a russiany's plan and thus exonerating illustrate there was thus no case against illustrate as all her guilt had been fabricated by her mother and i'll acknowledge this corellon banished both his wife and his son thereon but had no intention of doing so with his daughter and yet elistrae perhaps foreseen the difficulty that the dark elves would face in the future decided to voluntarily go into exile from our vandor the plane of the elven gods deeming it necessary feeling both pride and reluctance her father acquiesced and so it was that illustry left the elven pantheon there was of course wisdom in this decision because her mother now lolth would become the primary patron of the dark elves in the future and would almost certainly come back one day to seduce them into her dominion something that in fact actually happened over the course of elven history after leaving the seldarine illustry's initial attention was focused on the world of toril as her brother veiran had managed to make inroads into converting many of the dark elves of that world to his worship specifically the dark elves of the kingdom of illithier as mentioned prior illustry foresaw the dark influence of both her brother and mother taking hold of the dark elves and sought to prevent it though this proved far more difficult than she had initially imagined as over the centuries the iller theory had come to appreciate the ways of strife and guile that veron had cultivated in the dark elves and they had furthermore begun to worship other dark gods such as ganadar the god of slimes and oozes in an effort to further increase their power illustrate had gained some worshipers but these were a minority and thus she lacked the power to oppose the other gods and dissuade the illithi from their course but things would worsen still further as loth discovered toril and saw a source of divine power seducing the iller theory over time lolth managed to assert herself as a major power in illithier in time illustrate managed to secure a following in a realm called mierotar around 800 before dale reckoning a community founded by dark and green elf refugees and it became a major center of her worship in ancient times but this would not last long as lost increasing influence led to a definitive event that severed the dark elves from the rest of their elven kin forevermore the crown wars which i have referenced a number of times in the past but in essence these were a series of multiple wars fought over millennia beginning in 12 000 before dale reckoning and ending in 9000 before dale reckoning in 10 000 before dale reckoning elven high mages and priests appealing to the seldarine performed a ritual that banished all dark elves the underdark indiscriminately not just the evil illa theory as a consequence of this and the successful campaign of corruption of the dark elves illustry ultimately lost out to the spider queen for the position of patron deity of the dark elves and her faith became increasingly marginalized to small numbers of dark elves who had resisted the call of the spider queen and other dark deities as the crown wars had been absolutely ruinous to the faith of the dark maiden like most gods illustrate was banished from her outer planar realm during the time of troubles but managed to emerge from that crisis relatively unscathed what follows soon after however is a matter of some complexity things had returned to relative normality for a decade or so but in 1372 dr something occurred that uprooted the entirety of drow religious cosmology and lore this event is sometimes referred to as the war of the spider queen which is told in the hexology of books and is something that i have hitherto not mentioned for a number of reasons but it ought to bear some exposition nonetheless during this time lolth grew silent and entered a state of divine hibernation as she metamorphosed into a greater deity some time after these novels in a trilogy of other books called the lady penitent vault managed to eliminate her rivals for good among the drow deities as the others died or were outright slain by love however my reasons for not going into incredible depth on this matter are severalfold the war of the spider queen is a tale told that length in six separate but connected novels released between the years 2002 and 2005 on planet earth and as such is an extremely long and convoluted story which i nevertheless would recommend reading as it certainly is interesting and fun the problem with the series however has less to do with the series itself and more to do with the lore surrounding it the changes that took place during the hexology in the trilogy were implemented into the lore of subsequent forgotten realms products above all in fourth edition but ultimately much of this if not most of this was retconned not necessarily out of the lore but was largely done away with as insignificant with the emergence of 5th edition d d reverting to more or less the old status quo with a few tweaks loth lost her status as greater deity and illustrate who had been slain was returned to life during the second sundering in 1489 dr as were many other deceased deities for that matter the events of these books whilst at the time monumental and important have nevertheless hardly left an effect on the lore of the forgotten realms and this is particularly true when it comes to the gods as the current status quo 5th edition resembles a deific situation much akin to the situation we began with way back when in 1987 when forgotten realms first came out and thus going into excessive depth on what happened during these novels would exceed my purpose of delivering accessible lore to people who are less familiar with dungeons and dragons and only acquainted with the games and speaking of the status of drow deities it is important in light of this history to talk a little bit about the role of illustrate among the drought the dark maiden as she is called is the goddess of beauty sound dance freedom moonlight sword work and hunting and is the only goddess of good alignment among drow deities she encourages her followers to engage in acts of kindness and above all such acts as those that promote freedom in sentient beings strangers are meant to be treated as friends and the abandoned and homeless are to be offered shelter arts and specifically music and dance are encouraged and the goddess actively encourages her followers to engage in such creative activities and dancing is meant to take place under the open sky as the goddess herself dances in this manner swordplay and swordsmithing are also areas of interest to the clergy and her followers and the dark maidens devotees recount the story of how illustrate had given up on the bow because of nearly killing her father with it subsequently taking up the sword and to this day she only wheels the sword in both offensive and defensive matters coupled by magic originally illustrates clergy was entirely female but over 100 years ago she decided that she would change this rule the original reasoning was that only females could understand the process of motherhood and the connection to nature but the dark maiden later realized that this exclusion mirrored too strongly the policy of her own mother in illustrie had always stood for equality between the sexes and opposed the tyrannical matriarchy of wealth-driven society distilled to a simple statement illustrie's doctrine can ultimately be expressed by the goddess herself addressed in particular to aldrao a rightful place awaits you in the realms above in the lands of the great light come in peace and live beneath the sun again where trees and flowers grow the dark maiden's relationship to her mother lolth is understandably rather poor and that's a bit of an understatement as they have attempted to slay each other in the past and they are ideologically completely opposed to each other one thing that does seem to have changed since the second sundering however is the relationship of illustrate to her brother veron whereas the dark maiden had never hated her brother to the degree she had hated her mother she always regretted her brother's cruelty and evil and there had always been some kind of overlap in terms of the siblings interest in returning to the surface but the means to do so and the final goals of the two deities diverged greatly and one could even say that they were diametrically opposed to each other veron sought to conquer and illustrate sought to live in harmony with others the latest lore states that the siblings have since arrived at an understanding but whether this is canon or not remains to be seen as illustrate was never banished and voluntarily left the seldarine she remains on good terms with them and has particularly warm relations with her father corel and lorethian interestingly enough illustry also has a unique relationship with the goddess mystra owing in large measure to the fact that long ago mystra was seeking to birth a a mortal imbued with some of her power an immortal female and the original candidate did not survive the process as she was unable to contain the power of the goddess of magic and misra suggested to illustrate the soul of the child be implanted in a pregnant drow follower of the dark maiden who was soon going to die as the result of a stillborn death to which illistry agreed leading to a lasting friendship between the goddesses and the birth of a drow who would go on to be chosen of both goddesses it is difficult to say just how much of a role illustrate will play in baldur's gate 3 probably both sadly and understandably not a major one but you can play a cleric of the goddess if you choose to play a celtering drow which hints at some level of reactivity between such a player in the game environment and if there were none then the option would likely not be there at all and with the full release of the game there's bound to be more content in game that will touch upon the dynamics of the drow in many respects including one can only hope illustrate as always thank you for tuning in please leave a like comment share and subscribe as it really helps out the channel and i'll check you out next time take care

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Length: 11min 18sec (678 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 10 2022