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 The Descent of the Drow and their “evil”

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T O P I C    R E V I E W
DM_Megan Posted - 07 Feb 2021 : 11:35:00
People who know me know that I’m not a fan of gods as characters and tend to prefer to keep them more mythical and reinterpret anything they did as being done by mortals.

I’m looking at the Descent of the Drow and the events that led up to it. What sources do we have that detail this event and those that led up to it?

To be honest having the “dark” elves as the villains is something I’d like to rework. And to be honest the events that led up to it appear to be “war” which means there are rarely good guys and bad guys. So it seems pretty easy to reframe, although the details I have around the Descent of the Drow are slim.

I’m using the Grand History of the Realms as my primary source right now. Assuming the “traditional portrayal” is gold elf propaganda, it appears to me that the green elves and dragons seemed to have had some sort of arrangement and peace and after the high elves fled the Faerie Realm the high elves appear to just consistently pick fights until the dracorage occurs (which they cause). From that point on the gold elves seemed to be aggressive towards the green elves (at which point a distinction between dark elves and other green elves starts to be established).

There are some cases where peace and harmony exists among dark elves and high elves (almost exclusively with moon elves), but tension for the most part continues. And while there are some instances of dark elves appearing to make unprovoked attacks, the gold elves seem to do far more.

The first crown war seems to be unequivocally the fault of the gold elves. And then an interesting thing happens: The Grand History takes a very negative stance towards the dark elves who start the second crown war (which one could see as either retribution for the first crown war or even a preemptive strike after learning an attack by the gold elves was imminent).

The dark elves commit the terrible crime of using fire, but this was after the gold elves had done some pretty awful things (they invented the dracorage for example). The dark elves are accused of using “corrupt magic” but no real details as to what is corrupt. More emotive language is used to describe the dark elves as “unrepentantly evil” for... using undead and monsters? Whereas the gold elves annex yet another dark elf kingdom.

We then get the third crown war which sees gold elf turn on gold elf. And then with seemingly no provocation they unleash the Dark Disaster upon the dark elves.

Now yes, the dark elves do start openly worshipping evil gods. And then 450 years later Corellon curses them and ALL DARK ELVES transform into the Drow.

It seems highly unusual to me that the gold elves escape divine punishment whereas all dark elves (regardless of their individual actions) are cursed.

Is this truly how things went down? Am I missing something? Because it looks like the high elves invaded faerun and were welcomed by the green elves. The high elves attacked the dragons and committed terrible war crimes, systematically attacked green elf settlements until they finally pushed the dark elves to evil. And then wrote history to present dark elves as the aggressors and it was only through the will of the gods that the Drow were banished from the surface.
30   L A T E S T    R E P L I E S    (Newest First)
Irennan Posted - 26 Feb 2021 : 21:36:08
They seem to have erased all of that entirely. The ritual, the events regarding the gods, the conflict between the churches, 5e erases them and refuses to mention them, even when talking about topics that basically require mentioning those novels (like when they talk about the relationship between Lolth and the Dark Seldarine and its history, or when they talk about their new idea for Kiransalee constantly undergoing cycles of deaths and rebirths, etc...) You could say "but that doesn't mean that it's retconned", well, refusing to even write a passing mention of a huge piece of history like "that one time when the Dark Seldarine shrunk to Lolth only, and how she claimed supremacy and bla bla bla" is a very intentional choice. Basically, it's a silent retcon.
They also retconned the Promenade out of history entirely; that area has been written as having always been a temple to Dumathoin, which was then claimed by a Lolthite clan and by another faction that I don't even remember. Even for Qilué, in the Lore You Should Know segment about the seven sisters, they have her as alive and try to avoid talking about her as much as possible.

Ed Greenwood tried to give an explanation in regards to how Eilistraee and Vhaeraun survived thanks to Mystra's help, how Qilué became a Weaveghost, how the Promenade was retaken, etc... but even Ed seems to ignore the brownification stuff, and WotC ignored his explanations anyway. Technically, they could be canon though, since there's nothing in the source material that contradicts them currently, so, being Ed's lore, they should be canon by contract.

But I understand why they're doing this. Those novels are pretty obscure for most D&D people, and a lot of icky matters and intents are tied to them. WotC has already been in hot waters due to their portrayal of certain human ethnicities and non-human races, like the drow, and due to their IRL treatment of their PoC employees. If these things:
-WotC planned to make all the drow "unwilling and to be cast down", tainted by demons, with evil innate in them, and with their dark skin being the symbol of this evil.
-They tried to erase the *one* good drow culture, but not before having intentionally tried to turn it into a self-righteous version of Lolth.
-They made canon that the good drow must receive the stamp of approval from the "good guy white god" who cursed them, in the form of a lighter skin at that, before being acknowledged as having the rights to be treated decently.

were to ever became widespread knowledge, it would be absolutely horrbile PR for them.
TKU Posted - 26 Feb 2021 : 16:37:09
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

quote:
Originally posted by Kentinal

Lisa Smedman Blind-sided many with her presentations, compared to existing lore.



Indeed. And that trilogy has been quietly shuffled to one side, with WotC actively pretending it never existed.


What exactly has been rendered non-canon? From what I understand, it sounds like the series is still mostly canon in a 'broad strokes' fashion. Like Vhaeraun, Eilistraee, Selvetarm and Kiaransalee all still died, The Promenade was destroyed and Qilue killed. Halisstra getting turned into the LP and later dying is still canon afaik. Is it just the thing with the ritual that turned Drow into Dark Elves that's being ignored? It feels like a very awkward thing to navigate the canonicity of.
Irennan Posted - 26 Feb 2021 : 14:55:14
quote:
Originally posted by SaMoCon

Except the Elven Court did not exist yet when the elven high magics were cast to warp the elves of Ilythiir.


You're right, I misworded. I meant the mages that did the casting of the Descent. The elven court would be created a couple months after that, by Corellon personally summoning a lot of the very mages that took part in that ritual. I used the term elven court to refer to those mages because of that, but yeah, I misworded. Nonetheless, what I said still stands.

quote:
That casting was in response to the refugees from Shantel Othrier giving their accounts of apocalyptic stuff done by the invading Ilythiiri: stones from the sky, the ground boiling, the trees screaming, and other inflicted "atrocities that the actions of the Aryvandaar for the past several centuries seem tame by comparison." (p. 55-56, Lost Empires of Faerun)


Yup, and the Vyshanti had done that too, but they basically took that to the next level (a whole genocide). That's the exact part people have problems with--"stones from the sky, ground boiling, trees screaming" (for the flames, I guess)... all sound like very obvious consequences of a war in a world where people can use magic capable of leveling forests in 1 spell. It's basically the same as calling one side bad for using artillery and neglecting that the other side very obviously did that too. How can we say that? Well, Aryvandaar would have instantly lost if they intentionally refrained from using all the weapons in their arsenals while Ilythiir did.

quote:
The Aryvandaar leadership were worried that the same punishment leveled against the dark elves would be used on them. "-9900 DR Aryvandaar's covert persecution of High Mages and priests begins, as they attempt to destroy or control any who might somehow force their descent as they did the drow." Aryvandaar's high water mark comes in "-9800 DR The Vyshantaar Empire's forces occupy all elf realms (except Keltormir) from the High Forest of Aryvandaar to the sweltering southern forests of Ilythiir. They begin the colonization and settlement of Evermeet." (p. 15-16, Grand History of the Realms) Despite this, Elven Court declares the empire guilty in -9200 DR and by -9000 DR the empire of Aryvandaar is no more, which makes this the fastest of the Crown Wars. Make of that what you will.


Yeah, but as I said, the point wasn't that Aryvandaar won or got away scotsfree or something. The point was that there's massive double standards in the way the dark elves and the gold elves were treated as a whole--among the former, innocents and victims were punished alongside the guilty; among the latter, only the guilty were punished. Which, adding the fact that no one did nothing about that, points to it not being just a mistake, but something intentional. It would have made way more sense IMO, if the ritual had been depicted as a way of the other elven kingdoms to weaken Ilythiir--not to extreminate them, but to quickly end the war. Which would explain why innocents were punished too: even though it was presented as justice/punishment, it was just about pragmatism.

quote:

*Looking up some information* *double-take*
Well, Lisa Smedman, author of the second book in the Lady Penitent trilogy, "Storm of the Dead," makes it quite clear in that novel that the Aryvandaar were trying to eradicate all dark elves. The high magic ritual was not something that got out of control like many other such high magic debacles but was engineered (by the Aryvandaar!) to affect all the dark elves right under the noses of the best & brightest of all the other elf peoples & nations whom have more than enough reason to keep an eye on the Vyshaan's proxies. *face meets palm* Blind-sided by yet another non-gaming product. Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to take my disappointment somewhere else and sulk.



Those novels are notorious for *intentionally* crapping not only on lore, but on characters too. The post that I made before, about the "brownification" issue and trying to smear Eilistraee so that people would dislike them? Yeah, that's in those very same novels. In general, when it comes to Smedman's and Athans' stuff about drow, it was the product of that period of time, and it has been ignored and entirely retconned by WotC. Moreover, the novels themselves read like apocrypha to begin with, beause they base their entire plot on things that are very clearly false in the setting (like intentionally misplacing Eilistraee's realm so that their little plot could work), beause the story couldn't even start if not for such assumptions. Lady Penitent is in the top two series when it comes to absolutely sh*tting on the Realms.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 26 Feb 2021 : 13:15:26
quote:
Originally posted by Kentinal

Lisa Smedman Blind-sided many with her presentations, compared to existing lore.



Indeed. And that trilogy has been quietly shuffled to one side, with WotC actively pretending it never existed.
Kentinal Posted - 26 Feb 2021 : 12:26:47
Lisa Smedman Blind-sided many with her presentations, compared to existing lore.
SaMoCon Posted - 26 Feb 2021 : 11:41:29
Except the Elven Court did not exist yet when the elven high magics were cast to warp the elves of Ilythiir. That casting was in response to the refugees from Shantel Othrier giving their accounts of apocalyptic stuff done by the invading Ilythiiri: stones from the sky, the ground boiling, the trees screaming, and other inflicted "atrocities that the actions of the Aryvandaar for the past several centuries seem tame by comparison." (p. 55-56, Lost Empires of Faerun)

The Aryvandaar leadership were worried that the same punishment leveled against the dark elves would be used on them. "-9900 DR Aryvandaar's covert persecution of High Mages and priests begins, as they attempt to destroy or control any who might somehow force their descent as they did the drow." Aryvandaar's high water mark comes in "-9800 DR The Vyshantaar Empire's forces occupy all elf realms (except Keltormir) from the High Forest of Aryvandaar to the sweltering southern forests of Ilythiir. They begin the colonization and settlement of Evermeet." (p. 15-16, Grand History of the Realms) Despite this, Elven Court declares the empire guilty in -9200 DR and by -9000 DR the empire of Aryvandaar is no more, which makes this the fastest of the Crown Wars. Make of that what you will.

*Looking up some information* *double-take*
Well, Lisa Smedman, author of the second book in the Lady Penitent trilogy, "Storm of the Dead," makes it quite clear in that novel that the Aryvandaar were trying to eradicate all dark elves. The high magic ritual was not something that got out of control like many other such high magic debacles but was engineered (by the Aryvandaar!) to affect all the dark elves right under the noses of the best & brightest of all the other elf peoples & nations whom have more than enough reason to keep an eye on the Vyshaan's proxies. *face meets palm* Blind-sided by yet another non-gaming product. Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to take my disappointment somewhere else and sulk.
Irennan Posted - 24 Feb 2021 : 04:56:07
quote:

We have plenty of canon lore that suggests that gods are limited in their powers, enough so that we can just consider them mortals with really awesome abilities. Why would the High Magic rituals be necessary if any of this is just "the will of the gods" and "within their power" to do? Why would temples and worship matter so much to these beings prior to Ao's decree from the ToT thousands of years after The Descent? There is no deus ex machina no matter how often people here invoke the name of Zeus - the FR is not a Greek tragedy. And, again, whinging about the gods have their own threads. Besides, the OP stated "I’m not a fan of gods as characters and tend to prefer to keep them more mythical and reinterpret anything they did as being done by mortals."


In this case, Corellon very obviously had the power to repair damage, I explained why in one of my previous comments. And the Olympian analogy was about the kind of cruel punishments that he comes up with.

About the rest, Idk why you're so adamant that discussing how things went in canon is off-topic. Yes, the OP made a premise about her preferences, but then she said "And then 450 years later Corellon curses them and ALL DARK ELVES transform into the Drow." and "Is this truly how things went down? Am I missing something?"

The comment of mine that you're replying to was to address a point that Wooly made about Corellon not being really guilty of this.

quote:
The gold elf nation Aryvandaar, instigator of the Crown Wars, was militarily subjugated, its armies destroyed, its leaders executed, its lands occupied by foreign troops - so, can we stop implying that they were somehow the victors in this or they got off easy?


There's a misunderstanding: the point was that the punishment of the dark elves was pretty much unfair, for a lot of reasons already discussed here (including that even dark elves from nations that were victims had been cursed), not that the Vyshanti won. In fact, the question was "why didn't Ilythiir get the same treatment as Aryvandaar, rather than a curse directed at a whole race?" Which leads to:

quote:
Likewise, the dark elf Ilythiiri Empire, while a later participant in the struggle as an ally of the green & dark elf nation of Miyeritar, was already militarily powerful having crushed the moon elf Grand Empire of Orishaar and the moon elf kingdom of Shantel Othrier despite Aryvandaar's military aid. In fact, Aryvandaar had to stand with the nations allied against it (the green elf Emerald Kingdom of Keltormir, wood & moon elf kingdom of Illefarn, moon elf realm of Ardeep, and the gold elves of Arcorar) to stop the victorious march of Ilythiir's army of demons, devils, dragons, & dark elves out of the Shaar from overrunning their home nations in the High Forest in a last ditch defense between the Delimbyr and the Troll Hills. Ilythiir was too strong to be counter-invaded. So, just like they did with the dragon nations thousands of years earlier, the elves of the newly formed Elven Court turned to their magics to weaken the power base of the Ilythiiri empire from within causing its collapse.


Aryvandaar was a powerhouse too, capable of literally (allow me the expression) "magic nuking" a whole nation and erasing it from the map. Nothing says it was weaker than Ilythiir. In fact, most of the Crown Wars were about Aryvandaar and Ilythiir conquering third parties, but when their forces directly clashed, it was a draw for centuries, until the elven court stepped in.

Now, the elven court using the ritual just to weaken Ilythiir and win their war (which explains why even innocents were cursed--those mages didn't care about justice, they had another goal), is something that I proposed as a possible change for the OP to make a few comments above yours, but it's not what went down in canon. I stll think it's the best way to spin this stuff as "victors rewrite history" without altering canon too much, though.

quote:

Paul Simpson's works located under the phasai account on Deviant Art has a lot of this information compiled from many sources in realm specific books:
Aryvandaar - The Golden Empire
Ardeep - Realm of the Moon
Arnothoi - The Fey Realm of Flowers
Eaerlann
Illefarn - Voices of a Lost Realm
Ilythiir - Empire of the Ssri’Tel’Quessir
Keltormir - The Emerald Empire
Miyeritar - Land of the Great Sapphire Wood
Orishaar and 3 Leaf Realms
Shantel Othreier - Empire of a Sundered Crown



His stuff is amazing and a good suggetion for the OP, but I'll add that it's not just a compilation from various canon sources. There's a lot of added lore there--which was the point of making those books to begin with, since canon didn't have enough info.
SaMoCon Posted - 23 Feb 2021 : 22:40:54
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan

... that is within your power to repair...

We have plenty of canon lore that suggests that gods are limited in their powers, enough so that we can just consider them mortals with really awesome abilities. Why would the High Magic rituals be necessary if any of this is just "the will of the gods" and "within their power" to do? Why would temples and worship matter so much to these beings prior to Ao's decree from the ToT thousands of years after The Descent? There is no deus ex machina no matter how often people here invoke the name of Zeus - the FR is not a Greek tragedy. And, again, whinging about the gods have their own threads. Besides, the OP stated "I’m not a fan of gods as characters and tend to prefer to keep them more mythical and reinterpret anything they did as being done by mortals."

The gold elf nation Aryvandaar, instigator of the Crown Wars, was militarily subjugated, its armies destroyed, its leaders executed, its lands occupied by foreign troops - so, can we stop implying that they were somehow the victors in this or they got off easy? Likewise, the dark elf Ilythiiri Empire, while a later participant in the struggle as an ally of the green & dark elf nation of Miyeritar, was already militarily powerful having crushed the moon elf Grand Empire of Orishaar and the moon elf kingdom of Shantel Othrier despite Aryvandaar's military aid. In fact, Aryvandaar had to stand with the nations allied against it (the green elf Emerald Kingdom of Keltormir, wood & moon elf kingdom of Illefarn, moon elf realm of Ardeep, and the gold elves of Arcorar) to stop the victorious march of Ilythiir's army of demons, devils, dragons, & dark elves out of the Shaar from overrunning their home nations in the High Forest in a last ditch defense between the Delimbyr and the Troll Hills. Ilythiir was too strong to be counter-invaded. So, just like they did with the dragon nations thousands of years earlier, the elves of the newly formed Elven Court turned to their magics to weaken the power base of the Ilythiiri empire from within causing its collapse.

Paul Simpson's works located under the phasai account on Deviant Art has a lot of this information compiled from many sources in realm specific books:
Aryvandaar - The Golden Empire
Ardeep - Realm of the Moon
Arnothoi - The Fey Realm of Flowers
Eaerlann
Illefarn - Voices of a Lost Realm
Ilythiir - Empire of the Ssri’Tel’Quessir
Keltormir - The Emerald Empire
Miyeritar - Land of the Great Sapphire Wood
Orishaar and 3 Leaf Realms
Shantel Othreier - Empire of a Sundered Crown
Irennan Posted - 21 Feb 2021 : 18:02:17
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

Then, by your logic, Corellon was able to prevent the Sundering but didn't, and Mystryl could have kept Karsus from targeting her but chose not to.

This was obviously not the case, in either situation.

Thus, it is logical and supported by canon to assume that Corellon did not know everything that was going to happen with the casting of the spell that drowified the dark elves.

I'm not saying he couldn't have done more to keep the peace either before or after, I'm saying that the lore does not support Corellon saying "Yeah, go ahead and punish everyone, innocent or not!"



What I said wasn't about preventing, but about repairing damage. If you do nothing about repairing damage that is within your power to repair, then you're totally fine with that damage, or you just don't care.
TKU Posted - 21 Feb 2021 : 18:01:15
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

quote:
Originally posted by TKU

In the Evermeet Novel Corellon and Angharradh basically admit that they knew what the elves were planning. They says some stuff about the Sundering/creation of Evermeet being destined and that gods can't interfere with events like it because it would 'take all choice away from the hands of their mortal children'. Them choosing Starleaf as center and giving her the Tree of Life afterwards was all the Seldarine was willing to do, but they *did* apparently know what was going to happen if the mages went ahead with the ritual.



Per Elaine Cunningham, not everything in Evermeet is fact -- some is mythology and legend.

Besides, not allowing bad things to happen is not the same as taking away all choice.


I'm aware, but I don't know of any other sources that give an idea of Corellon's role/opinion on the Sundering, so it's the best source I'm aware of for understanding his relation with this event.

I do agree that not allowing something bad to happen isn't the same as taking away free will, but that's Corellon's reasoning there for letting the Sundering go ahead. It sounded like choosing Starleaf as Center and entrusting (possibly having a hand in creating) the Tree of Souls to her afterwards was all Angharradh and Corellon felt they were able to do without violating that principle of theirs.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 21 Feb 2021 : 17:54:38
Then, by your logic, Corellon was able to prevent the Sundering but didn't, and Mystryl could have kept Karsus from targeting her but chose not to.

This was obviously not the case, in either situation.

Thus, it is logical and supported by canon to assume that Corellon did not know everything that was going to happen with the casting of the spell that drowified the dark elves.

I'm not saying he couldn't have done more to keep the peace either before or after, I'm saying that the lore does not support Corellon saying "Yeah, go ahead and punish everyone, innocent or not!"
Irennan Posted - 21 Feb 2021 : 06:48:28
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

quote:
Originally posted by Irennan

quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

Does anything actually tie Corellon to the Descent, directly? I've long thought of it as something done via High Magic, and not through direct divine action.

Obviously, I could be mistaken. I'm weak on drow lore, due in no small part to deliberate avoidance of them. The more WotC went "MOAR DROW! Drow everywhere! Drow all the time!" the less interested I got in them, and the War of the Spider Queen books killed any vestiges of interest that remained.



The common version is that Corellon personally fueled the High Magic spell. Even the GHotR reports it like that.



If that's the case, I don't see that the blame rests entirely on Corellon. It's already established in lore that gods don't always know what's going to happen or what's intended to happen -- otherwise, Mystryl certainly wouldn't have let Karsus target her, and it's doubtful the Seldarine would have been cool with the destruction caused by the creation of Evermeet.

Corellon displays a degree of negligence in not keeping a closer eye on things -- especially given the "oops!" that was the Sundering -- but I'm inclined to think he was surprised by what happened with the drow.

My thinking is that the overall sentiment of the elves casting that spell was "Punish the dark elves," but some of the participants wanted to go further -- perhaps even at the influence of Lolth, who saw the opportunity to gain from what was happening.

If Lolth had influenced some of the participating casters, it could explain both matching the drow's appearance to hers, and also how the faerzress came into the equation for them. Drow lost the connection to the Weave (and elven High Magic) that non-drow elves have, so Lolth's involvement could have given them that faerzress connection as a replacement.

Obviously, I don't think Lolth was directly advising those casters who twisted the ritual -- but if she had intermediaries whispering in their ears, beforehand, stirring up their hatred of the dark elves and making them thirst for vengeance, then her influence would have gone unnoticed until it was too late. And then, once the deed was done and it was too late to change anything, then it'd be easy for them to say "do you *really* want to investigate how this happened and admit the scale of your mistakes?"



Entirely? Well, the high mages share a part of the guilt ofc, but as the guy provided the spell, Corellon is definitely guilty too.

Consider this: if Corellon really had been surprised by, or had disagreed with what happened, he'd have had all the power to do something about it (like, Idk, reverting/interrupting the spell--we know it's possible, since there are itmes in lore that can do that to the drow curse--and redoing the whole thing well). Also, he went as far as summoning elves while in their reverie, one by one, to create his elven court. That was immediately after the Descent. If he did that, then he surely could have summoned the high mages again to correct the spell. On top of that, he could have told the elves something like: "yo people, there was some pretty huge mistake there. Like, we even punished genocide victims and a lot of innocent people. Don't hate the dark elves just because they're dark elves. Peace"
In fact, by that logic, he could have reached to the dark elves too! To let them know that, you know, the Seldarine didn't consider them absolute trash. Instead, Corellon didn't give a flying about any of that. He didn't even give a flying about reaching to the drow shortly later on, while Lolth was trying to gain prominence, and while Eilistraee was K.O.ed. due to her church collapsing and her losing so many followers because of the Dark Disaster. Heck, he could have done as little as lending her a hand in that time (and I mean, she's his daughter), but he did nothing.

Also, Corellon and the Seldarine didn't care about the Ilythiiri before the Crown Wars, when Eilistraee warned them about Vhaeraun and Ghaunadaur, and left her fighting their influence alone. Corellon left the situation to rot for friggin' *millennia*. He only cared when Lolth's name popped up, which says a lot, especially when combined with his other behaviors.

And this is not stuff that's the result of certain novels warping lore much later on or in hindsight; this has been in the lore since the early editions.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 21 Feb 2021 : 06:00:26
quote:
Originally posted by TKU

In the Evermeet Novel Corellon and Angharradh basically admit that they knew what the elves were planning. They says some stuff about the Sundering/creation of Evermeet being destined and that gods can't interfere with events like it because it would 'take all choice away from the hands of their mortal children'. Them choosing Starleaf as center and giving her the Tree of Life afterwards was all the Seldarine was willing to do, but they *did* apparently know what was going to happen if the mages went ahead with the ritual.



Per Elaine Cunningham, not everything in Evermeet is fact -- some is mythology and legend.

Besides, not allowing bad things to happen is not the same as taking away all choice.
TKU Posted - 21 Feb 2021 : 05:38:43
In the Evermeet Novel Corellon and Angharradh basically admit that they knew what the elves were planning. They says some stuff about the Sundering/creation of Evermeet being destined and that gods can't interfere with events like it because it would 'take all choice away from the hands of their mortal children'. Them choosing Starleaf as center and giving her the Tree of Life afterwards was all the Seldarine was willing to do, but they *did* apparently know what was going to happen if the mages went ahead with the ritual.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 21 Feb 2021 : 05:14:10
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan

quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

Does anything actually tie Corellon to the Descent, directly? I've long thought of it as something done via High Magic, and not through direct divine action.

Obviously, I could be mistaken. I'm weak on drow lore, due in no small part to deliberate avoidance of them. The more WotC went "MOAR DROW! Drow everywhere! Drow all the time!" the less interested I got in them, and the War of the Spider Queen books killed any vestiges of interest that remained.



The common version is that Corellon personally fueled the High Magic spell. Even the GHotR reports it like that.



If that's the case, I don't see that the blame rests entirely on Corellon. It's already established in lore that gods don't always know what's going to happen or what's intended to happen -- otherwise, Mystryl certainly wouldn't have let Karsus target her, and it's doubtful the Seldarine would have been cool with the destruction caused by the creation of Evermeet.

Corellon displays a degree of negligence in not keeping a closer eye on things -- especially given the "oops!" that was the Sundering -- but I'm inclined to think he was surprised by what happened with the drow.

My thinking is that the overall sentiment of the elves casting that spell was "Punish the dark elves," but some of the participants wanted to go further -- perhaps even at the influence of Lolth, who saw the opportunity to gain from what was happening.

If Lolth had influenced some of the participating casters, it could explain both matching the drow's appearance to hers, and also how the faerzress came into the equation for them. Drow lost the connection to the Weave (and elven High Magic) that non-drow elves have, so Lolth's involvement could have given them that faerzress connection as a replacement.

Obviously, I don't think Lolth was directly advising those casters who twisted the ritual -- but if she had intermediaries whispering in their ears, beforehand, stirring up their hatred of the dark elves and making them thirst for vengeance, then her influence would have gone unnoticed until it was too late. And then, once the deed was done and it was too late to change anything, then it'd be easy for them to say "do you *really* want to investigate how this happened and admit the scale of your mistakes?"
Irennan Posted - 21 Feb 2021 : 03:37:17
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

Does anything actually tie Corellon to the Descent, directly? I've long thought of it as something done via High Magic, and not through direct divine action.

Obviously, I could be mistaken. I'm weak on drow lore, due in no small part to deliberate avoidance of them. The more WotC went "MOAR DROW! Drow everywhere! Drow all the time!" the less interested I got in them, and the War of the Spider Queen books killed any vestiges of interest that remained.



The common version is that Corellon personally fueled the High Magic spell. Even the GHotR reports it like that.
Kentinal Posted - 21 Feb 2021 : 03:14:49
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

Does anything actually tie Corellon to the Descent, directly? I've long thought of it as something done via High Magic, and not through direct divine action.

Obviously, I could be mistaken. I'm weak on drow lore, due in no small part to deliberate avoidance of them. The more WotC went "MOAR DROW! Drow everywhere! Drow all the time!" the less interested I got in them, and the War of the Spider Queen books killed any vestiges of interest that remained.



The High Elven Magic is the only tie I recall that links to Corellon, part of his portfolio is/was Elven Magic.

The argument could be made as deity of that type of magic he could have banned it from working, much like Mystra banned 10th level spells.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 21 Feb 2021 : 03:07:57
Does anything actually tie Corellon to the Descent, directly? I've long thought of it as something done via High Magic, and not through direct divine action.

Obviously, I could be mistaken. I'm weak on drow lore, due in no small part to deliberate avoidance of them. The more WotC went "MOAR DROW! Drow everywhere! Drow all the time!" the less interested I got in them, and the War of the Spider Queen books killed any vestiges of interest that remained.
TKU Posted - 20 Feb 2021 : 17:40:10
Well, in regards to the OP, I think that's a pretty good assessment-history is written by the victors and all that...and I think personally that the connection of the Dark Elves and the Dark Seldarine (specifically Lolth) had a hand in the disparity between the punishments the sun elves and dark elves were given is a notion that holds weight. There does seem to be an element of WoTC insisting that it was in-fact justified though-instead of encouraging readers to come to their own conclusions, which is a little bit awkward to work with IMO.

There's also some ambiguity over the exact nature of the 'curse' that they received. Even the light sensitivity could be taken to be a symptom of their Faerzress exposure (since it fades over time with exposure to sunlight). If you want to interpret the Descent as the drow being magically compelled/physically driven out of their homes and underground, there's enough to go with that interpretation, I think.

Ironically, a lot of the 'modern' Lolth/Drow problems could be traced to the actions/inactions of the other elves and the Seldarine as exacerbating the friction between the Dark Elves and the other elves. Corellon's punishment of Lolth probably had no small part into shaping her into the particular flavor of insane evil she came to be*, not protecting/warning the dark elves about the Sundering (or stopping it, even) helped Lolth get her foot in the door to growing her worshippers among the Drow, and the Descent pretty much drove them into her arms and gave her an ideal environment to isolate, control and shape their culture to her whims. The end result was almost inevitable there.

*I found it interesting that even as a demon/goddess she apparently still retained aspects of her old portfolios as a patron of artisans and destiny until the Sundering when the great loss of life among the Dark Elves worshippers of the other members of the Dark Seldarine saw her suddenly become the head of the Pantheon. Kinda interesting to speculate how she might have ended up if she hadn't been turned into a demon and banished to the Abyss.
Irennan Posted - 20 Feb 2021 : 11:02:00
The discussion took this path because the OP also asked if she was missing something about how things went down in canon. And in canon things are just weird, and Corellon is just elven Zeus.

What you propose firmly puts the Corellon/non-Vyshanti elf side of the conflict on the right side of history, and makes Corellon's actions more reasonable, but it doesn't do much for what the OP wanted to do (reworking the drow into no longer being villains). It leaves the idea that modern dark elves are villains intact, but it reinforces the idea that all of their ancestors were villains too, and that they deserved their punishment (since now only the evil dark elves were cursed).

Reworking the modern drow into no longer being villains would require either reworking Lolth into something that makes sense, or reducing her to a niche cult (the only way her ridiculous society can work) and giving much more weight to other drow cultures. The unfair history can be left as is, and the "but the Ilythiiri were sooooo evil" issue can be handwaved as gold elf propaganda. Or you can entirely take out the divine punishment thing (as well as the "we make your skin darker to reflect your sins" part; just say that the drow have always looked like this), and make the curse an attempt at weakening the Ilythiiri (by making them sensitive to sunlight) by the elven forces, followed by the what we read in LEoF (all the elven nations forcefully driving any and all drow underground). This would explain why even innocents were cursed, since this wasn't about justice but about winning a war, so most casters really didn't care. Finally, later manipulation of history on the elven side could respin this curse as righteous divine judgment or whatever.
SaMoCon Posted - 20 Feb 2021 : 09:58:10
Grousing about the elvish gods and how their actions were portrayed should be done in the Corellon Must Die thread.

The OP didn't like how the events went down with the elves and wanted to change that. The elves, all of them, are interlopers that were not native to the FR. They arrived after the dragons had won their war for dominance with the giants and represented a threat to the immigrant elves. The Dracorage was what the elves cursed the dragons with to break that dominance. The remaining giant powers were then dealt with wherever the elves decided to colonize. The spread and rise of multiple elvish nations set the stage for the Crown Wars. So, the transformation into drow of the dark elves and the execution of the responsible gold elves was what caused the dissonance with the OP. While the description is less than artful by those charged with creating these details, a person with a creative imagination can explain it. For example, the elf forces that were united against both group could get their hands on the gold elf empire and directly punish them while the dark elves and their green elf allies were able to evade all attempts to capture them or were too powerful to conquer. So the gold elves they were able to subjugate by the sword and behead the racial heads with the same blades, the dark elves (& a few others) got a high magic ritual that went awry (and, really, has there been one that went well?).

Several threads have already covered how unfair these events were and I can't be bothered to look them up, but that isn't what the OP was asking for. How can this be reimagined without breaking the history of the realms and necessitating massive changes through the butterfly effect. The easiest way to deal with the "all dark elves became drow" narrative is to say that wasn't true because only the actively evil elves worshipping forbidden gods were transformed and that there were non-evil elves whom were unchanged, but the destruction of Miyeritar and the release of enslaved monstrous being in Ilythiir too a toll on those populations with the survivors going the way of the Human Talfir - colonized and bred out of existence by the more populous elven blood lines.

And if anyone is really having a problem with the color of the drow skin - just make them plaid, it's magic, problem solved. If people can accept flying cats, invisible bridges, micro-managing gods, and a millenia-old wizard that bangs all the pretty girls, then they should be able to handle this.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 20 Feb 2021 : 00:05:28
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan

However, this is definitely off-topic.



Agreed, and an avenue that we don't need to go further down.
Irennan Posted - 19 Feb 2021 : 23:18:55
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

quote:
Originally posted by Irennan

Corellon is pretty much elven Zeus, so yeah, a lot of personal bias was probably involved in making that decision.

Btw, his punishment for the Dark Elves wasn't creative at all. It literally was the "curse of Ham" from the Bible. Also, it was extremely ineffective. I mean, cursing people should obviously include just making a slight palette change to their look, leaving them invariably super hot, giving them sunlight sensitivity (which can be overcome with as little as 10 years spent on the surface), and believing that this would stop one of the most magically gifted people ever, right?



Well, I never heard of the curse of ham before this.... but I feel for those poor dark elves that must have walked in on Corellon while he was drunk at the urinal.

By the way, that is one messed up thing from the bible. Its kind of odd to me that I probably know more about norse myths now than Christianity, which was the religion I was raised in (admittedly, barely went to church as a kid).



It was a misinterpretation of a passage, which was sadly used to justify messed up stuff like slavery. With religion, intentionally misinterpreting stuff and using that to advocate for atrocities seems to be a common thread, sadly.

However, this is definitely off-topic.
Irennan Posted - 19 Feb 2021 : 23:16:32
quote:
Originally posted by TKU

Angharradh's judgment for Lolth was the same as Vhaeraun's IIRC-exile. Turning her into a Tanar'ri, fighting her, and then not putting her out of her misery when she asked him to were all his decisions. Very 'Olympian' if we want to continue with that comparison, but probably far from the best outcome. Obviously killing Araushnee would have solved a lot of future problems. Now if he wanted to show mercy and spare her? Even if Lolth hadn't been turned into a demon and stewed in the Abyss for Millennia I don't see her not ending up as an evil goddess, but probably not *quite* as evil and more on the level of her son, and likely a great deal less insane. Either outcome would probably have been better for the elves as a whole.

Regardless, I think the Descent stuff come off as being due to the Dark Elves association with Lolth and thus comes off as rather arbitrary, but comes off as even moreso if the stuff about their skin color being changed is taken into account, because then we are talking about someone who considers the ultimate curse to be one that makes you look like their ex-wife. And then only being willing to take them back if they stop looking like your ex...yikes.



One more point that reinforces the ex-wife thingy, is that Eilistraee had warned everyone that Ilythiir was under the influence of Vhaeraun--who's a racial supremacist and a warmonger--and Ghaunadaur (who's... well, Ghaunadaur).

So, the Seldarine knew, but they did nothing, while Eilistraee tried to contrast V's&G's influence alone only to end up hunted away alongside her followers.

Corellon always knew everything that was going on, but he never gave a flying about that until Lolth was mentioned.

My issue with this is not that Corellon's actions are questionable at best, but that the source material tries to paint him as good. In fact, as I said, my (admittedly devoid of proof) belief is that the original intention with the elven history was to paint a morally nuanced scenario, where no faction was objectively right. Hammering that the elves were the good guys must have been a decision taken in the editing process.
sleyvas Posted - 19 Feb 2021 : 18:23:20
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan

Corellon is pretty much elven Zeus, so yeah, a lot of personal bias was probably involved in making that decision.

Btw, his punishment for the Dark Elves wasn't creative at all. It literally was the "curse of Ham" from the Bible. Also, it was extremely ineffective. I mean, cursing people should obviously include just making a slight palette change to their look, leaving them invariably super hot, giving them sunlight sensitivity (which can be overcome with as little as 10 years spent on the surface), and believing that this would stop one of the most magically gifted people ever, right?



Well, I never heard of the curse of ham before this.... but I feel for those poor dark elves that must have walked in on Corellon while he was drunk at the urinal.

By the way, that is one messed up thing from the bible. Its kind of odd to me that I probably know more about norse myths now than Christianity, which was the religion I was raised in (admittedly, barely went to church as a kid).
TKU Posted - 19 Feb 2021 : 16:20:32
Angharradh's judgment for Lolth was the same as Vhaeraun's IIRC-exile. Turning her into a Tanar'ri, fighting her, and then not putting her out of her misery when she asked him to were all his decisions. Very 'Olympian' if we want to continue with that comparison, but probably far from the best outcome. Obviously killing Araushnee would have solved a lot of future problems. Now if he wanted to show mercy and spare her? Even if Lolth hadn't been turned into a demon and stewed in the Abyss for Millennia I don't see her not ending up as an evil goddess, but probably not *quite* as evil and more on the level of her son, and likely a great deal less insane. Either outcome would probably have been better for the elves as a whole.

Regardless, I think the Descent stuff come off as being due to the Dark Elves association with Lolth and thus comes off as rather arbitrary, but comes off as even moreso if the stuff about their skin color being changed is taken into account, because then we are talking about someone who considers the ultimate curse to be one that makes you look like their ex-wife. And then only being willing to take them back if they stop looking like your ex...yikes.
Irennan Posted - 19 Feb 2021 : 15:02:32
That's because while Araushnee gets labeled as Stupid Evil (tm) like she deserves to, canon material portrays Corellon as the good guy of the situation. Meanwhile, not only he was petty to the core, he is the one who enabled Araushnee to do succeed (that, and A LOT of author/designer bias and plot armor, but that's another matter).

Even his punishment of Araushnee was likely about indulging into the gratification of revenge. What other reason could he have had to turn her into a spider, strip her of her powers, and throw her in a hellhole filled with beasts that only wanted to rip her to shreds? You certainly don't do something like that to someone because you love them so much you can't bring yourself to kill them.
LordofBones Posted - 19 Feb 2021 : 13:26:09
Corellon gets a lot of flak for the whole drow issue, but Araushnee being off her rocker can no way be blamed on him.

Though, ironically, the Sundering actually worked out pretty well for elves that weren't drow. The drow that died were primarily worshipers of the only sane man on the dark seldarine, while the survivors were converted to the worship of a hedonistic lunatic that's succeeded in turning her chosen people into their own worst enemies.
Irennan Posted - 19 Feb 2021 : 08:25:10
quote:
Originally posted by SaMoCon
The audience is very narrow in the demographics and despite attempts to make it more inclusive has had no real effect.


This is just not true. D&D audience has grown immensely, and is now made up of a wide spectrum of people, including women, queer people, and people of color. For example, I remember reading last year that about 40% of the players identify as a woman.

Also, I suspect it's far more likely that the former near exclusive presence of dudes in the D&D audience was due to most products being tailored to appeal only to dudes (the kind of art you describe, for example), rather than to other people not being interested in TTRPG like D&D.
Irennan Posted - 19 Feb 2021 : 07:59:38
The issue TKU was referring to is a piece in a particular novel, in which a bunch of drow who were already good (or weren't even born in Lolthite society) got a forceful physical transformation (that did nothing but making their skin less dark, btw) as a "reward" for their goodness. The goal of the transformation literally was to render them acceptable in the eyes of the "good guy" god who cursed their ancestors (including plenty of innocents), because their life choices weren't enough for him to deem them ok and to admit them into his portion of Arvandor.

Meanwhile, in the same novel (set *far* after the Descent, btw), the rest of the drow (the ones with the darker skin, i.e. almost the whole race, since only a few hundreds got the "blessing") got universally labeled by said god as "unwilling and to be cast down", while his servants said that Eilistraee had exhausted her purpose, because there was no more need to redeem/save/whatever any other drow (because all of the remaining ones deserved to rot under Lolth). The book very clearly paints this as a positive happening, and even a victory. Oh, and all these events happened after the "rewarded" drow 1)had always been drow (since they were born as such) 2)never had any problem with being drow, and in fact considered it to be part of what they were.

Even without the ligh/dark skin issue, this is incredibly stupid and gross--it screams "your life choice don't matter, if you don't look like/aren't what certain people want, you don't deserve a place in the world". Or the issue with redemption being a physical transformation, or people needing to redeem for being born as a certain race (a very toxic idea prevalent in said novel). All stuff that is the exact opposite of the faith featured in the story (Eilistraee&followers).

It's a notoriously problematic series, born out of some childish fanboyism for Drizzt going on among the WotC staffers back in 2008, and that translated into said staffers trying to make anything drow that wasn't Drizzt or Lolth look like trash (or outright removing it). In short, it's trash content that deserved the retcon it got, and I'm glad that the people who came up with such idiocy no longer work on the FR.

------

Yes, the drow curse thingy is the exact same as the misinterpretation of a biblical passage, that was even used by certain individuals to support things like slavery. Keeping it (or even including it at all to begin with) is quite tone-deaf, tbh, especially when you can still have the drow as dark-skinned/white haired without saying "but Corellon cursed them so that their skin would reflect the evil inside!" In fact, Elaine's Evermeet does this, and it flows very well regardless.

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