Editing Eilistraee (section)

==History==  
[[File:Eilistraee and Corellon.jpg|250px|thumb|left|Eilistraee with her father, Corellon]]
During Eilistraee's youth, Araushnee's schemes to usurp Corellon's position led various deities, enemies of the Seldarine, to assault and enter [[Arvandor]]. In the ensuing battle, as Eilistraee fired an arrow meant to save her father, Lolth's magic cursed it mid-flight, causing it to pierce the elven god's chest instead. Eventually, the treachery was unveiled and Corellon saved, but--despite having been judged as innocent--Eilistraee chose to share her mother's exile. She had foreseen that the drow would need her warmth and guidance in the dark times that were to come, and she couldn't provide that from the luxury of Arvandor, but only by being by their side in their struggle. Feeling guilty, she also swore to never use the bow again, and started sword-dancing instead. Corellon was pained to see his child go, but at the same time he was proud of her choice. 

After her exile, the Dark Maiden followed the elven people--including the dark elves that she had chosen to watch over--to [[Forgotten Realms|Toril]]. There, alone, she fought [[Vhaeraun]]'s (her brother) and [[Ghaunadaur]]'s corruption of the drow in southern Faerun (and, later, Lolth's as well, when she started exerting her influence on Toril). However, in the end, she wasn't powerful enough to prevent their rise, and became hunted by them alongside her followers. Eilistraee and her people would found a flourishing center of arts and magic in Miyeritar, rivaling the splendor of the great elven kingdoms, but it wouldn't last. During the Crown Wars, a conflict started by the power plays of the sun elves of Aryvandaar and fueled by the ruthlessness of the dark elves of Ilythiir, her efforts couldn't contain the so called Dark Disaster, a magical cataclysm unleashed by the Aryvandaari, which caused the death of the majority of her people in Miyeritar, leading her to lose everything she had worked for, and bringing her to a near powerless state. 

Eilistraee found a precious friend in the demigod [[Selvetarm]] (her nephew and son of Vhaeraun and Zandilar the Dancer) who, neither good nor evil, had walked away from both his parents. She took care of him, raised him by teaching her ways, and the two grew close to each other. Selvetarm admired his aunt and wished to gain, in turn, her admiration; the Dark Maiden hoped that Selvetarm could reunite the drow with the elves and the Seldarine. However, Lolth would later trick him into slaying her rival Zanassu, a demon lord of spiders, with the promise that such a feat would neat him Eilistraee's admiration. Predictably, it didn't go like that; Selvetarm was corrupted by the demon, becoming a near mindless berserker and Lolth's pawn, stripping the Dark Maiden of her friend.

As the Crown Wars raged on, Lolth and Ghaunadaur kept corrupting the dark elves by tempting their rulers, warriors and nobles with demonic powers, until the Seldarine cursed and exiled all of them (including the surviving Eilistraee's followers, or those who were otherwise innocent) in the event that became known as "Corellon's Descent". Once again, Eilistraee chose to share the path and curse of her people, but in her powerless state she could not rival Lolth as deity of the dark elves, and the Spider Queen led them in the Underdark. After this event, Lolth's and Ghaunadaur's efforts to exterminate the followers of the other drow gods brought Eilistraee and her people to a virtual collapse, and her relationship with her father and the Seldarine became strained, if still polite, due to the deep schism caused by their choice to curse and punish the entirety of the drow. 

Ever since Lolth wrapped her web around the drow, Eilistraee has tried her best to recover from that blow, to offer her people a new life and lead them to flourish once again. She is alone in this battle, however, an underdog who faces forces much greater than her (most of the Dark Seldarine), and too often the results of her efforts and of those of her followers have been swept away like ashes in the wind. Despite all this, after each fall, Eilistraee kept starting over and never stopped fighting for her people, and in the 1300s DR, all the sacrifices were rewarded with substantial gainings and progresses in her cause (in no small part due to the actions of Qilué Veladorn, her chosen). Eventually, the Dark Maiden chose to put her own life at risk in a battle to free the drow from Lolth once and for all. She was left alone to face the deities of the Dark Seldarine one by one, as neither Corellon nor the Seldarine did anything to help her. The Dark Maiden took down Kiaransalee and Vhaeraun (Ed Greenwood said that she spared the latter, merely KOing him with the help of Mystra, who trapped his sentience in the Weave, and borrowing his portfolio), and her church merged with that of her brother for a few years. In the end, however, she was defeated and (apparently) killed--even though, as suggested by Ed Greenwood, thanks to the help of [[Mystra]], the hit that took her down only made her lose her divinity for a while, making her unable to function as a goddess for that time (but still able to communicate with mortals through visions and manifestations). Either way, it lasted only for about 100 years, until the Second Sundering (circa 1480s DR/5e D&D), when Eilistraee returned to her people, and her followers immeidately resumed their activities (which supports the idea that the goddess actually survived and kept in contact with them). Currently, she no longer holds Vhaeraun's portfolio, as he too has re-emerged.

At some point during the above-mentioned war, an Eilistraeen drow mage (Q'arlynd Melarn) cast a High Magic spell that turned a few hundreds among the few thousands followers of Eilistraee into brown skinned "dark elves" (like the drow used to be before being cursed by the Seldarine more than 10k years before). The mage wanted to target all drow except Lolth's followers, but only those of "pure Miyeritari" descent were affected, with the result that most Eilistraeens remained unchanged. Corellon then decided to acknowledge the new brown skinned elves as "redeemed" (despite the fact that they were already good before changing race, and that many of them, born outside of a Lolthite society, had nothing to be redeemed for) and allow them into Arvandor--even though they could already go there, since Eilistraee's realm is in that plane. Now, this has a lot of problems; for example, in 10k+ years Eilistraee has never once cared or acted to change the race of her people (she literally became one of them to build a place in the world for them, as drow), and forcing such a massive chnage on a mortal runs contrary to everything she stands for. The meaning of this transformation is also something that probably should have never seen the light of the day in 2008, because it implies that the mark of being a "good" drow is a lighter skin tone, that goodness is somehow tied to physical appearance, and that one has to conform to arbitrary standards set by others in order to be acceptable, no matter the actual value of their actions (since this is literally what Corellon does with Eilistraee's followers). It's no surprise that WotC decided to entirely ignore and then retcon this matter: both Eilistraee and all her followers are currently still drow, and the "brown elves" have never been mentioned again.