Eilistraee
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| Eilistraee | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Alignment | Chaotic Good | |
| Divine Rank | Lesser God | |
| Pantheon | Dark Seldarine, Faerûn | |
| Portfolio | the Moon, Beauty, Swords, Singing, Legitimising Drizzt clones | |
| Domains | 3E: Chaos, Charm, Drow, Elf, Good, Moon, Portal 5E: Life, Light, Nature |
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| Home Plane | Great Wheel: Svartalfheim (Ysgard) World Tree: Arvandor, The Demonweb Pits (Abyss) |
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| Worshippers | Drizzt clones | |
| Favoured Weapon | Moonsword (BASTARD sword) | |
Eilistraee is the daughter of Corellon Larethian and Araushnee in the Forgotten Realms setting. Despite being a good deity, she chose exile with her mother because she realized that her people needed someone to look out for them.
Also the topic of considerable Skub especially since her portfolio is pretty much covered by Sehanine Moonbow (even their mythological histories can be considered interchangeable to a point), considering that she only really exists to provide a legitimate avenue for redemption of Drow thereby opening the floodgates to a plethora of Drizzt clones.
For more interesting drow goddesses, see Zinzerena and Kiaransalee. For a goddess of redemption for "monstrous" PCs who isn't blatantly made to serve the author's fetishes, see Nusemnee.
History
During the dawn of time, Corellon Larethian's wife Araushnee decided that she wanted rid of him.
In one particular telling if the story (because there are several) Araushnee laid a curse on an arrow, to ensure it would find her husband's heart.
During a hunt, his daughter Eilistraee let the arrow loose, and accidentally took daddy out of action. Not only that, but in everyone's moment of confusion the gods of evil decided to invade Arvandor.
Thankfully, Sehanine Moonbow had spotted that Araushnee had been sleeping around, and combined with the other female goddesses to create her final form: Angharradh which gave her the power to heal dear old dad. Whereupon they kicked the butts of evil... for GOODNESS!
Afterwards, Corellon asked for a quickie divorce, so long as he kept the house. The kids got to choose between parents, and though Eilistraee had just found out her mum was a complete hoebag, she still felt guilty about shooting her dad in the heart. So she moved in to a condo in the middle of the Abyss with her mother and her brother Vhaeraun, while also swearing off the use of range weapons ever again.
Worshippers
Eilistraee appears to her followers in the form of a beautiful nude Dark Elf. So in following her example, worshippers of Eilistraee tend to be nudists, every ritual of the church requires they wear as little as possible, with the most iconic rite being dancing naked in celebration beneath a full moon.
In keeping with her skubtastic role as the deity of good drow and general drow wannabes, she has a significant following of non-drow adherents. Every year her clerics dress up in blackface and dye their hair silver to look like drow and go around doing good deeds and spread the word that drow "aren't all bad". Considering that most folk in the realms freak out at the mere mention of Drow coming into their communities, it probably suggests there are either very few clerics of Eilistraee so the message hasn't got across yet, or that when communities are approached by a strangely naked person covered in black and white make-up, preaching that you welcome more Drow into your life, they get shot on sight.
Depending on your source, Elistraee's church is less powerful than that of Vhaeraun, who also appeals to drow rebelling against Lolth, because she focuses on redeeming drow women nigh-exclusively, sometimes even to the point of requiring that her male adherents change themselves into women to partake in her holy rituals. Whilst this does kind of make a certain sense in that drow women are the sex with all the power in the Underdark, so they can basically A: order the menfolk to follow them in acting good, and B: enact changes to drow society more easily than the oppressed menfolk, it's still just another ladle of creepy fetish trappings to a goddess who already seems to exist mostly to be a source of fetish fuel.
Sword Dancers
A particular sub-grouping of her Clerics who are particularly good with a sword.
Their chosen sword gives them a +2 bonus on attack and damage rolls, gains the Dancing quality which can fight defensively for them in their behalf and can be upgraded with magical qualities by the priest. They also continue with their spellcasting progression and can learn to spontaneously cast their domain spells up to 6th level.
However, they are nowhere near as good as a straight up warrior archetype, they still only gain the 3/4 BAB and lose their special abilities while wearing medium/heavy armour, even suffering spell failure chances on their supernatural abilities while wearing light armour.
Vandria Gilmadrith
| Vandria Gilmadrith | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Alignment | Lawful Neutral | |
| Divine Rank | Intermediate Goddess | |
| Pantheon | Seldarine | |
| Portfolio | War, Justice, Vigilance, Decision, Grief | |
| Domains | 3E: Law, Protection, War 5E: Grave, War |
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| Home Plane | Arvandor | |
| Worshippers | Lawful Elves | |
| Favoured Weapon | Longbow | |
Meanwhile back in "Core" D&D, in something similar to a "What if?" Scenario, we have Vandria. Who is also the daughter of Corellon and Araushnee. Though in this case the story does not have his daughter shoot him through the heart with a cursed arrow. Or at the very least his daughter did not follow Araushnee into the Abyss.
So we get to see what the daughter would have turned out like if she was raised by Corellon instead, and bizarrely she turns out unlike any other Elven god in the Pantheon: Vandria is LAWFUL, but not only that but an entire rank category higher than Eilistraee too. So we can probably suggest that the decision to move in with mother was a bad one, if the spiders, hate and mortal sacrifice didn't already give it away.
Vandria Gilmadrith is the goddess of guardians in Elven communities. Her servants participate strongly with the town militias, and they have strongholds hidden all over the place. They also act as arbitrators as diplomats because they are likely to be the most even handed amongst elves.
