Vhaeraun

Vhaeraun, also called the Masked Lord, the Masked God of Night, The Shadow, less frequently, the Masked Mage and the Lord of Shadow was the drow god of drow males, thievery, territory, shadow magic, spellfilchers, and evil activities on the surface, aimed to further drow goals, interests and power there.

Vhaeraun was the son of Araushnee and Corellon Larethian. He held the unique view among drow that males and females were equally valuable, and was primarily prayed to by those drow males who sought a better life than slavery under Lolth’s matriarchy, and that opposed it.

Description
As an avatar, Vhaeraun appeared either as a normal male drow or as a handsome male drow, with a slim, graceful, and toned physique. He could change his size as he wanted and appeared either with a height of 16ft. (4.88 meters) or 6ft.(1.83 meters).

He never used armor, but always wore a black (or purple ) mask, and a long cloak of the same hue. His eyes and/or hair could change color to reflect his emotions (red for anger, gold for triumph, blue for amusement, green for puzzlement and curiosity).

When he appeared to Inthracis in 1373 DR, he was missing a hand, though it seemed that he came into contact with some kind of regeneration later, so he could hold two weapons in each hand.

As a god, who granted the drow domain, the Shadow could cast spiderform, a spell that allowed Vhaeraun to take the form of a spider or drider. As a lesser deity, he could change his own form into average examples of any creature.

Personality
Vhaeraun was a proud (at times vain) and shared the vindictive trait of all drow deities. While he was willing to use underhandedness to reach his goals, he didn't tolerate the same being used against him, or his people.

Despite these harsh traits, he was also willing to cooperate, when it came to undermining and fighting his mother, Lolth, and tried to unite the other drow gods against her.

Vhaeraun was actively involved in the lives of his followers. Tzirik Jaelre described him as a caring god and was indeed one who didn't distance himself from the concerns of his followers and answered their pleas about 15% of the time, even in the form of servants in the case of real need. He also seemed to be protective of his followers and was seen providing protection to those in his vicinity when he could, and provided the means to avert self-sacrifice while working for him.

He and his followers shared a realistic understanding, regarding his strength. He knew, that he was too weak to fight his mother frontally. So he worked against her in secretive ways directed at increasing his and his people’s power and decreasing those of his enemies. Starting with passive resistance by teaching ideas that contradicted Lolth’s dogma to open action. The Masked Lord was unusual among deities for his readiness to enter the front line himself when the scale was right, meaning when the target was a god.

Vhaeraun was a god, who was prayed to on many worlds, for example on Oerth, and had for each world a different aspect, that was prayed to. These aspects were in slight ways different from each other, but the one from Toril drastically differed from the main body. To be precise, the main body of Vhaeraun was a neutral evil god, while the aspect from Toril was chaotic evil.

Abilities
Vhaeraun was a lesser deity. He granted spells to his divine spellcasters, and gave his clerics access to the abilities and spells of the chaos, drow, evil, travel, and trickery domains. After the Second Sundering, he granted the new trickery domain to his clerics.

As mentioned above, he granted the chaos, drow, evil, travel, and trickery domain. This meant that he could cast the spells: animate objects, astral projection, blasphemy, chaos hammer, clairaudience/clairvoyance, cloak of chaos, cloak of dark power, confusion, create undead, desecrate, dimension door, discern lies, disguise self, dispel good, dispel law, false vision, find the path, fly, gate, greater dispel magic, greater planar ally, greater teleport, invisibility, locate object, longstrider, magic circle against good, magic circle against law, mislead, nondetection, phase door, polymorph any object, protection from good, protection from law, screen, shatter, spiderform, suggestion, summon monster IX, teleport, time stop, unholy aura, unholy blight, and word of chaos.

Vhaeraun had several sensing abilities. It started with mundane senses of sight, hearing, smell, and touch that extended to a distance measured in miles but also included remote sense and portfolio sense. Remote sense was an ability, that allowed him to center his senses around a place where his name or title spoken aloud, or around a follower, site, or object dedicated to him - in the case of a lesser deity like him, up to 5 places at the same time, up to a range of 10 miles. He could also block other gods' sensing abilities. Vhaeraun's portfolio included drow males, evil activity on the surface and thievery. He could sense the happening of any event that affected 500 people or more that concerned this portfolio and then center his remote sense to look what exactly was happening there. His aforementioned ability to cast clairaudience/clairvoyance allowed him to create a magical sensor that worked as spying device. He could look into people’s minds. He combined his sensing abilities to be constantly on the look out for dissidents, rebels, and generally dissatisfied people with potential to work for him against the Spider Queen in Lolth-ruled cities, where he had already at least some worshippers working against his mother like Menzoberranzan, Tlethtyrr, or Waerglarn. Once someone was deemed compatible, the individual was approached by a manifestation of Vhaeraun or sent clerics of his to have an one-on-one inducement interview (see Manifestations/Interview). Once a person signed up, Vhaeraun could protect them by blocking Lolth's sensing abilities. Normally, it was impossible to block the senses of a stronger deity, Vhaeraun could do it due to sheer skill at trickery.

Vhaeraun could speak and read any language, including nonverbal languages, but seemed to have a preference for High Drow. He could create a telepathic link or directly speak with his worshipers and people who lingered within proximity - scale was counted in miles - to a site dedicated to him or a statue of his. This link could be maintained for as long as Vhaeraun wished. His aforementioned ability to cast discern lies and suggestions allowed him to detect whether someone was lying or not and to make others swallow his own suggestions. He could transfer information directly into the brains of people, he was conversing with. This method ensured, that the information was transferred without risk of misunderstandings, but was very painful for the recipient. He regularly exchanged information with his clerics. Collecting strategy descriptions, poison formulas and magical knowledge from these clerics to spread them among the others of his faith.

Deities could move very fast but not necessarily fly. Vhaeraun's aforementioned ability to cast longstrider and fly allowed him to speed himself up even further and to fly. Vhaeraun could also levitate.

All lesser deities could cast greater teleport and plane shift to bring themselves and certain amounts of matter to other places. Vhaeraun could teleport using his aforementioned ability to cast dimension door, teleport, and greater teleport in the regular manner to teleport within a plane and astral projection and gate for interplanar travel. The aforementioned ability to cast find the path and phase door allowed him to find out the direct route to a place he wanted to go and the latter to create a direct route to a place he wanted to go. He was one of two creatures, who lived on Carceri, but didn't really belong there, for they could get in and out of the Red Prison as they wanted. A fact that bought them the hatred of other deities from the Tarterian Depths. Out of all his movement abilities, teleportation seemed to come most naturally to him. He was seen casually teleporting around walking distance during his business negotiation with Inthracis. For all these movement abilities, he had his limits. For example, he couldn’t ignore Lolth’s ban during the Silence of Lolth on entering her place and needed outside help to do so.

Vhaeraun had the ability to turn his body parts incorporeal and touch corporeal things inside a corporeal container while remaining incorporeal. For example, he could grab inside a body and crush its internal organs. While it was not clear whether it was the aforementioned ability to cast polymorph any object, but he once changed the cage with Sehanine Moonbow inside into poertable size and dumped her through a gate, he created.

Apart from always moving as though under pass without trace, Vhaeraun owned a number of abilities to fool the senses and divinations of others. His aforementioned ability to cast disguise self, nondetection, invisibility and mislead,allowed him to fool people with a different appearence, to divert detection by divination, to turn invisible, or become invisible while leaving a decoy. The Masked Lord could cast any invisibility spell and turning invisible was a part of his fighting style. What made his abilities at stealth truly special, though wasn’t the kind but his skills at it. An entire percent of his clergy in his church consisted of clerical double spies, called masked traitors, clerics of whom Lolth believed they were under her employment but were in truth specialty priests of her son. This was possible because of his aforementioned skill. It was such, that Lolth, who was more powerful than him, couldn’t compete with him on the field of stealth and trickery.

Vhaeraun could change his, alongside his equipments’, size and fought as a warrior and as an assassin with two weapons, an longsword, Nightshadow, in one hand, a short sword, Shadowflash, in the other. His martial fighting style was of mostly defensive nature and consisted of riposting while primarily dodging and evading enemy blows, parrying only when he had no other choice. It was impossible to hit him with mundane weapons, and even when enchanted, only weapons enchanted on the epic scale could harm him without problems. Being a chaotic evil deity, his attacks were aligned with the chaotic and evil philosophy. His prowess in an open frontal fight wasn’t that of a war god. He fought once Selvetarm, the drow demigod of battle prowess, and was driven away, effectively losing against his son.

Vhaeraun owned all immunities and protections of a lesser deity. Some deities had additional immunities than those owned due to being a deity, he owned these, in his case against all kind of illusions and being charmed. While immunities of deities were generally useless against a divine creature of higher status, when it came down to the immunity against illusions, it was useless against any deity, the one against being charmed was under no such restrictions.

Vhaeraun was thought to be unable to cast spells by himself, on the other hand, he was called the Masked Mage. He was seen making extensive use of spells. He was able to duplicate any divine or arcane spell his followers within 180 feet (ca. 55m) and cast them while fighting physically at the same time. He was capable of generating heat, both in the form of magma but also by converting blasts of shadowstuff into fire, the latter being hot enough to cause agony to deities. He could also cause a bladebend effect once every six minutes.

He was able to create avatars, duplicates with the same learned but less divine power than the original, and as a lesser deity, could create up to five duplicates, who looked like the original. He often sent his avatar whenever an adequate summoning ritual was performed by his priests.

Possessions
Normally, deities didn't use magic items. Vhaeraun could wield any magic item provided by his followers, as long as they could be used by evil individuals and had a penchant to use protective magic items. He also charged one magic item per calling of his avatar as payment. (see ,Manifestations)

In battle, he wielded two swords: Nightshadow and Shadowflash. The former was a black longsword of quickness, which he could make appear out of nowhere in his hands as well as turn invisible in the darkness, and allowed Vhaeraun an additional use of bladebend every six minutes.

Shadowflash was a short sword made of silver that could emit a flash of eerie light, capable of blinding those who looked at it. He also carried a dagger with himself, though that one’s properties were unknown.

The Masked Lord's cloak was able to absorb seven spells of any strength each day, including magic that could affect a whole area (therefore protecting both the deity and those who stood near him), and could make the wearer transparent to those who looked through it. If stolen, or when the avatar of its owner was destroyed, the cloak would melt into nothing.

Divine Realm
Main article: Ellaniath

Vhaeraun’s home realm was called Ellaniath, the whereabouts of which were unknown as the Masked Lord wiped the memories of any visitor.

Manifestations
Vhaeraun had a number of ways to manifest his powers. Apart from his own avatar or his minions’ direct help, he could empower and inform his people.

Calling
Vhaeraun was capable of creating avatars, and preferred to appear in his avatar form (see Description) when possible. A ritual needed to be completed for such an event, but even when said ritual was completed, the avatar appeared only one in five times. On appearing, a magic item needed to be given (or just taken by the avatar). If a magic item was not available, the summoner was set on a quest to get one. The obtained magic item was then offered on an altar and thieves who stole this item were pursued by the avatar.
 * Avatar

Said ritual consisted of the casting of a gate spell and could be done reliably and without the need to offer a magic item, when the Masked Lord's personal goals were involved if the calling of an avatar as done by Tzirik Jaelre was taken as a standard.

It was relatively easy to convince him to send one of his servitors for help, provided the proper rituals were conducted in situations of real need. "Real need" didn’t seem to necessarily equate life or death situations. Instances in which shadows were used as messengers to contact a large number of followers in a wide area were known.
 * Servitors

Tangible Effects
Apart from direct help, Vhaeraun had some means by which he could provide his followers with tangible help.

When Vhaeraun wanted to directly help and individual, who didn’t conduct the ritual to call his avatar, he could send a black shadow. It acted as a half-mask for a chosen individual for about nine minutes.
 * Empowerment

During that time, the recipient received a blessing in the form of minor healing, the true seeing spell, ability to wound creatures immune to mundane weapons, moving silently, while under the pass without trace spell, and success at keeping one’s footing under all circumstances. A single creature could only be blessed like this once per day.

Another manifestation consisted of a floating insubstantial half-mask, made of shadow. It could pass through any obstacle, magical or not and including divine boundaries, to reach the enemy of his people. The mask then (twice per appearance) laughed mockingly and chillingly, inducing terror in those who heard it, as though with the fear spell.
 * Intimidation

Vhaeraun could see into other people's minds, he used this ability to discern compatibility with his philosophy. Once a person with the proper mind set was found, a shadowy black face mask appeared before the individual. Via telepathy, an one-on-one inducement talk was conducted. If such a private meeting was discovered, the mask used a number spells to kill the intruders. After proving that his cause was based on power and had chances to succeed, the mask left to come back later for another talk.
 * Interview

Information
Vhaeraun had a number of minor manifestations, that required less expenditure of power from him and were thus far more common. These were generally directed at giving his followers information instead of a power boosts. The general and interpretation heavy nature of these caused it to be misinterpreted from time to time.

Vhaeraun’s favored color was black. This didn’t just mean that he liked black things. He could change the color of things into his favored color to make choices for his followers easier.
 * Color

Another minor manifestation was the, real or illusory, appearance of animals. He could cause black cats, ravens and/or dead spiders to appear and make them act in some specific ways.
 * Animals

He could also let his favor (or displeasure) be known, by making his followers stumble on or change the quality of specific gemstones. These were agni mani, black opals, black sapphires, hematite, black marble, obsidian, black onyx, black pearls, black-hued jasper, chalcedony, crown of silver, horn coral, jet, ravenar, and samarskite.
 * Gems

Vhaeraun could create unique forms of manifestations to relay information like a half-mask made of shadow, flitting shadows or a region of impenetrable darkness. Receiving such a manifestation was sometimes considered a reason to improve one’s standing in a group, as well as to lay down suspicion against each other and cooperate.
 * Unique

Apart from a deity’s standard creations of sudden smells, noises, lights, auras and visions and possession of people, Vhaeraun could also share concrete information with several people through shared dreams.
 * Others

Activities
Vhaeraun laid out his goals in his dogma.

"The shadows of the Masked Lord must cast off the tyranny of the Spider Queen and forcibly reclaim their birthright and rightful place in the Night Above. The existing drow matriarchy must be smashed, and the warring practices of twisted Lolth done away with, so that the drow are welded into a united people, not a squabbling gaggle of rival Houses, clans and aims. Vhaeraun will lead his followers into a society where drow once again reign supreme over the other, lesser races, and there is equality between males and females. "

Vhaeraun’s goal was to put the Ilythiiri, or drow, back into the position of power they once held. He detested to see his people wither because of the pointless infighting and division that Lolth promoted. His plan towards his goal was thus, undoing the Spider Queen, her idea of "society", replacing it with one where the drow would be united, and both genders treated with equality. He saw that as the only way to lead the drow to reclaim their power and place on the surface, called the Night Above, to rule over all the others. Elves represented an exception, as it was Vhaeraun's belief that all the Tel'Quessir needed to work together for common progress. The Masked Lord taught subtle opposition against the priestesses of Lolth and their ideals. He incited his followers to rebel and sow rebellion&mdash; especially among male drow &mdash;against the Spider Queen’s matriarchy by any means available, going as far as to personally teach methods and skills of resistance.

He promoted the same kind of activities on the surface. He taught his followers to increase drow power and influence based on real assets, by trade and association with other creatures, but also by criminal means, for example thievery. These kind of activities on the surface were so similar to Mask’s, whose consisted of creating a trustworthy front and not committing unnecessary crimes in the face of other means, that the two deities were confused with each other among non-drow there. After the Second Sundering, Vhaeraun’s modus operandi emphasized the "good citizens" part more strongly than before.

The Shadow also gathered any particularly effective poisons, spells, and tactics devised by his clerics, in order to share such tools with the rest  and also trained the otherwise defenseless male drow in his skills of a rogue.

Relationships
Vhaeraun was the son of Corellon Larethian and Lolth, the elder twin brother of Eilistraee, and the father of Selvetarm. He opposed and was opposed by all of his family members.

Seldarine
The relationship between him and the Seldarine, which he was formerly part of, were bad, in fact all members of the Seldarine considered him their enemy.

After Vhaeraun’s betrayal during the War of the Seldarine, Corellon Larethian practically cut his son off with a shilling and exiled him.
 * Corellon Larethian

He gave up on the idea of turning his son Vhaeraun to abandon his ways. He vowed kill him, if he ever tried to hurt his sister, which was an empty threat, for the Masked Lord did threaten the Dark Maiden’s life, without known action against him on Corellon’s part.

Interestingly the one type of magic, that Protector considered too corrupt for elves and thus suitable for drow, the usage of the Shadow Weave, was the niche Vhaeraun filled in his role as the patron of shadow magic.

Vhaeraun hated Sehanine Moonbow for escaping his prison during the War of the Seldarine. The fact that Sehanine and Selune were one and the same person made the relationship interesting. Selune (or Sehanine) and Shar were according to the Dark Moon heresy the same goddess, a not completely baseless claim for both deities supported those clerics of their who promoted this idea, and with it were Vhaeraun's ally.
 * Sehanine Moonbow

Shevarash dedicated his life to kill drow. Vhaeraun was his primary target alongside Lolth. Why the Black Archer viewed the Masked Lord who wanted to get rid of the Spider Queen just like him or who was not an enemy of the elves but wanted to cooperate with them, as an an enemy was rather unclear.
 * Shevarash

The other members of the Seldarine viewed Vhaeraun as an enemy.
 * Others



Dark Seldarine
The relationship between him and the rest of the Dark Seldarine were not good, particularly the one with Lolth was completely hostile. One of Vhaeraun’s goals was it to unite the rest of the drow powers against the Spider Queen, such cooperation was difficult, due to the vastly different views each deity shared, though he did succeed at forming an alliance with Kiaransalee, later one with Eilistraee and cooperation with both Ghaunadaur and Selvetarm to a lesser extent (see below)


 * Lolth

Vhaeraun’s and Lolth’s relationship started as mother and son. Vhaeraun shared her trait of ambition and became her confident in her betrayal against her husband. At latest after the Descent, the two were complete enemies. Vhaeraun calling for the destruction of the society she stood for,

On one hand, she encouraged her son’s rivalry with her, for it appealed to her love of chaos. On the other hand, her son having actual success at swaying the drow to his cause of destroying her, her supporters and beneficiaries, and her version of society was a real source of fear for her. Lolth viewed him as her real rival and enemy leading to her incorporating specific tenets against her son’s followers.

Mother and son had little to no common ground.

Lolth promoted favoritism towards females, Vhaeraun promoted gender equality, the Spider Queen urged surface elves as sacrifice from her worshippers, the Masked Lord urged his followers to cooperate with surface elves, Lolth tried to keep drow society stagnant in every regard, Vhaeraun attracted those who wanted change in the societal progress, economic growth, territorial expansion, etc. Lolth wanted to extinguish the drow race’s desire to return to the surface, Vhaeraun called for settling the surface,  and so on. These differences made the idea of Lolth's forces and those from the surface to work together against Vhaeraun's into something not completely impossible.


 * Eilistraee

A slur to describe him among the followers of Eilistraee was the Sly Savage.

Vhaeraun's relationship with his sister Eilistraee was one, that underwent big changes. Before the Second Sundering, he used to hate his sister Eilistraee, this hatred was mutual. Vhaeraun's hatred against Eilistraee originated both from his sister having been the favored child of Corellon Larethian, and for hindering his efforts to bring the Ilythiiri under him (as that conflict opened the way for Lolth and Ghaunadaur to rise to prominence). Nonetheless, he tried to bring her alongside the other drow gods on his side against Lolth. Eilistraee, on the other hand, mourned her brother's selfishness and cruelty, and, until the late 1400s DR, the two remained adversaries: the Dark Maiden opposed her brother's ruthless ways, and she wished to lead the drow along the path of light. . Her divine champions generally chose the evil deities of the Dark Seldarine as enemies to oppose, and that led some of them to focus their efforts against the followers of Vhaeraun. After 1489 DR, Eilistraee and Vhaeraun achieved a deeper reciprocal understanding (possibly even friendship), but this didn’t necessarily extend to their followers. How the alliance between the traitor of the Seldarine and an ally of the same affected their respective relationships with the elven pantheon was not known. They shared a few characteristics. Both wanted their people on the surface, Eilistraee in harmony with others, Vhaeraun by building power structures that allowed his followers to rule over others.

He was opposed to Ghaunadaur, they used to guide the elves of Ilythiir together, during their time there, though it was not clear whether they were on amicable terms. If Ka'Narlist was taken as a measure, followers of Ghaunadaur considered Vhaeraun an upstart who was not attractive to those who were looking for life force as a power source. There was also an overlap in their follower base. A meaningful part of Ghaunadaur’s followers were philosophically closer to Vhaeraun than Ghaunadaur and followed him only because they didn’t know about the god of thievery or his agenda. Followers of Ghaunadaur and Vhaeraun seemed to work together based on individual projects. As examples, followers of the two worked together to destroy the Lolth-worshippers in Eryndlyn, the Ghaunadan fey'ri House Dlardrageth and the Vhaeraunite drow House Jaelre worked together to protect themselves from the Army of Myth Drannor, and even after Vhaeraun's death, a faction of Vhaeraunites and Ghaunadans successfully worked together to destroy the Promenade of the Dark Maiden but there were also capable of living side by side like in Holldaybim.
 * Ghaunadaur

Vhaeraun was allied with Kiaransalee, though she was also allied with Lolth. The difference between these two relationship was, that the former was a willing alliance to get rid of Lolth's dominance, while the latter took the form of forced subservience to the Spider Queen.
 * Kiaransalee


 * Selvetarm

He was opposed by his son Selvetarm. For example, when the draegloths started to convert to Vhaeraun during the Silence of Lolth, Selvetarm took some in with the intention of handing them over to his grandmother when she awoke again. Even though Selvetarm hated his grandmother to whom he was practically enslaved, he still fought against his father during the Silence of Lolth as Vhaeraun sought to destroy Lolth in her weakened state thus botching his chance for freedom. Vhaeraun had a very low opinion about Selvetarm’s intelligence but the aforementioned submissive trait of his son was what angered him. It seemed that his position as patron of male drow was contended by the more comformist Selvetarm after the Second Sundering. At some point in time, though the two managed to set aside their differences enough for radical Selvetargtlin and Vhaeraunnites to cooperate enough, that being raised by Selvetargtlin was not something to bat an eye.

It was heavily suspected, that the reason why the attack on the Promenade of the Dark Maiden and Vhaeraun's assassination attempt on the Dark Maiden were on the same day was because the two gods were in league with each other.

Enemies
A large number of Underdark deities were also his enemies. They included the duergar deities Laduguer and Deep Duerra, the derro deities Diirinka and Diinkarazan, the beholder deities Great Mother and Gzemnid, the mind flayer deities Ilsensine and Maanzecorian, the aboleth progenitor Blood Queen, the ixzan deity Ilxendren, the kuo-toa deity Blibdoolpoolp, the myconid deity Psilofyr and the troglodyte deity Laogzed. Though this could be more due to the fact that in the Underdark, societies organized and identified themselves first through their racial identities and tended to enslave others who were not of the same to make the generation and distribution of the (extremely) scarce resources easier, than due to personal grudges. Other enemies of his were Sharess and the halfling deity Cyrrollalee. Vhaeraun's enmity with Cyrrollalee was rooted in their portfolios. The halfling goddess was the deity of homes and Vhaeraun was the god of thievery and thus an intruder into a home. His enmity with Sharess had a more specific background. (see Age of Humanity)
 * Underdark Deities
 * Surface Deities

Allies
Vhaeraun enjoyed a working relationship with Mask, Shar, and Talona. Vhaeraun was an ally of Mask. two were similar in many ways and among non-drow on the surface, the two were confused with one another. The two shared even one similar title&mdash; "Lord of Shadows" for Mask and "Lord of Shadow" for Vhaeraun.
 * Mask

The relationship with Mask was interesting in that while Mask was interested in absorbing him to compensate his loss of power to Cyric, there were also Vhaeraun's followers who used the resemblance in the two gods' symbols and methods to recruit followers among humans and half-elves.

Vhaeraun was the drow patron of shadow magic and Shar was the owner of the Shadow Weave. They worked together in projects that concerned this magic like the School of the Shadow Weave which had both followers of Vhaeraun and Shar among them. When Vhaeraun died, Shar was also one of the prime choices to convert to.
 * Shar

Talona was a deity from Carceri, which meant that she hated Vhaeraun for being able to go in out of the Red Prison at his leisure, but found him exceedingly dangerous.
 * Talona

Still, the Lady of Poison and the Masked Lord maintained a functional working relationship.

Followers
Generally speaking, the Drow deities had a weird relationship with their followers. In some cases, followers were referred to in terms of belonging to one or the other deity like possessions. . That seemed to be meant in the literal sense for Lolth and Kiaransalee, who were capable of using their followers’ fate as a wager in their game for their own gain. While Vhaeraun meddled in this game, he didn’t wager his followers like the others, which wasn’t necessarily an indicator of a different stance.

They also had dogmas, that generally concerned itself with describing how to live a life that pleased them, whereas Vhaeraun’s was unique in that his was used to outline the goal of his organization and the steps towards it. He considered himself the leader of this endeavour.

The relationship between him and his followers was based on a deal, the followers' obedience in exchange for divine support, whereas piety was at best of secondary concern. His followers joined him for different reasons, from actually agreeing to his philosophy to more personal reasons like the desire for change or freedom to completely personal reasons like the desire for revenge, simple madness or because they thought, that Vhaeraun's support was a tool strong enough for the follower's social advancement to justify the risk of exposure,

He primarily valued his followers by their action, what was excluded from evaluation were their intentions, private desires and thoughts including rebellious ones. He was capable of punishing his followers for bad performance, a good track record wasn’t considered an excuse for it, and also for transgressions, like impersonating him, even in ways, that virtually meant their death, as it happened to Tellik Melarn, and to hold people in high standing for their actions, despite their rebellious thoughts against him.

Mortals
Vhaeraun trained the otherwise defenseless in his skills of a rogue and was seen providing protection to his followers in his vicinity when he could, and when his followers were to conduct magic, that would kill them, he gave means to avert self-sacrifice (the divine spell soultheft) while working for him. These may sound like the actions of a kind person, he wasn’t one. For example, the aforementioned means to avert self-sacrifice consisted of burning other people’s souls instead those of his followers.

His goal was to lead the drow back to their former position of power and saw a general need for advancement for elves, and encouraged cooperation including intermarrying. The goal included the subjugation of other races. Aforementioned intermarrying had also an ulterior motive in the form of increasing drow numbers on the surface by taking advantage of the drow's genetic dominance and the psychological quirk of the children to favor the drow parent. Despite this, cooperation with other races was possible. He had an unexplained dislike against dwarves and gnomes and forbid his followers to associate with these,  but they did it anyway (see here)

He found halflings and humans tolerable to deal with. It was believed that the Shadow wanted or at least was not against the drow to intermingle with humans to acquire their genetic traits.

Worshipers
Main article: Church of Vhaeraun Vhaeraun had the largest drow following on the surface and the second largest overall. The church of Vhaeraun primarily consisted of male drow and half-drow males who sought a better life than slavery under Lolth’s matriarchy, and that opposed it. The promise of a gender fair society in which empathy, cooperation and growth was possible appealed to them.

Servitors
The Masked Lord was personally served by his petitioners, the souls of his dead followers, on his realm Ellaniath. Some petitioners were turned into vhaeraths, petitioners who gained additional abilities in stealth and retained their skills in life, who were frequently dispatched to Toril to do their god's bidding.

Other servitor creatures weregehreleths (farastu, kelubar, and shator); mephits (air, smoke, and earth), shadow dragons, shadow fiends, shadows, yeth hounds. Petitioners who distinguished themselves in life through great service were turned by the Masked Lord into some type of his servitor creatures.

Vhaeraun once forbade his priests to use spells to summon any servant creatures, as he expected them to only perform rituals to summon his avatar. This rule was substantially relaxed and it became in fact easy to convince him to send one of his servitors for help, provided the proper ritual was conducted. He also provided his followers access to his servitors for their summon monster and planar ally spells. The vhaeraths were an exception, calling them required the knowledge outlined in the Obsul Ssussun.



Symbol
Vhaeraun's symbol was a black half-mask. Variations consisted of two black lenses forming a mask. There was also a slight variation of this symbol, which consisted of a black mask with two blue lenses.

Its similarity with Mask's symbol combined with the two the two gods' similarities of their methods allowed Vhaeraun's followers to recruit humans and half-elves who initially mistook the symbol for the human god of thieves.

The Dawn Age
Vhaeraun was born as son of Corellon Larethian and Lolth, as the elder twin brother of Eilistraee. About -30.000 DR, Lolth (at that time called Araushnee) tried to overthrow her husband as the head of the elven pantheon.

Vhaeraun was her confident in this betrayal. He was unique in that he didn’t feel attachment to membership in the Seldarine, easily suggesting to just leave the group and also didn’t see inherent value in blood ties. Realizing that she was alone, after understanding her son’s capability to betray his father and his potential to murder her later to come out on top, was what gave Araushnee the final nudge away from the Seldarine.

He hid Corellon’s sheath, so Eilistraee could find it, which she did out of the known affection towards her father. She was intended to be the unknowing murderer of her father and the scapegoat for the betrayal. The sheath was cursed to direct her arrows to the bearer - Corellon - and retrieving and giving it back to him guaranteed her a position in his vicinity in the ensuring battle. His other role was to imprison Sehanine Moonbow. She needed to be imprisoned because his mother conducted the very first step of the betrayal in plain sight of the moon goddess, thus revealing it to her. The moon goddess eventually managed to escape her prison, albeit at high cost to herself. During the war, he protected Araushnee. After the war, a trial was called in. Vhaeraun became a member in exile of the Seldarine.

The Time of Dragons
During the Time of Dragons, the first elves came to Toril. They didn’t know about the Seldarine and mostly strove to live in scattered tribes with one exception, the Ilythiiri. Among them, Vhaeraun became the mainstream deity. in the first elven state Ilythiir.

He, and to a lesser degree Ghaunadaur, helped their people to carefully but successfully expand their territory throughout southern Faerun (at that time the name for the single continent on Toril), and power, to a level that kept them independent from the dragons. Eilistraee tried to stop Vhaeraun’s evil machinations, and he tried to kill her.

He maintained thin ties with his mother. Without any bad intentions, the moon elf Kethryllia Amarillis drew Lolth to Toril in -24400 DR, the Spider Queen then made inroads in the southern state of Ilythiir.

The First Flowering
Vhaeraun’s became the most popular deity in the southern Ilythiir. The nation spread throughout the south of the continent with Vhaeraun as the driving force behind this development. This position of hegemony changed with the First Sundering in -17.600 DR.

Despite vastly different views, Ilythiir was originally on good footing with the other elven nations. But Lolth poisoned the relationships between dark elves and other subraces. Seldarine-following elves came up with the idea to create a dark elf-free piece of land for those weary of the difficulties on the continent. They used elven high magic, and while they succeeded at creating their island, Evermeet, they destroyed the continent, with accompanying casualties, among them many citizens of Ilythiir, as collateral damage. Among this collateral damage was a large part of the church of Vhaeraun. The Masked Lord's influence ebbed with the loss of these and with his salvage efforts being foiled by Eilistraee, according to Szorak Auzkovyn, through starting to favour female followers, among others by excluding men from her clergy, thus causing a schism in the egalitarian church of Vhaeraun by seducing the women away to her. Lolth became the hegemonic deity in Ilythiir, allowing her to start her machinations to corrupt and destroy all elves which culminated in the Crown Wars.

The Crown Wars
Aryvandaar had borderline genocidal intentions regarding the dark elves of Ilythiir at latest after the Dark Disaster. Geirildin Sethomiir, the coronal of Ilythiir, read even earlier those intentions in the actions of Aryvandaar. The coming battles were viewed and treated as battle for survival, so he made a pact with Lolth by proxy of Wendonai, around -11500 DR, to gain the power needed to save his people. This act made Lolth the most important deity in Ilythiir.

Nobles of Ilythiir followed the example of their coronal and made their own pacts and Vhaeraun, no longer the main deity, supported the dark elves of Ilythiir with servants and other support during the battles, alongside Ghaunadaur and Kiaransalee.

It was not very clear what kind of role Vhaeraun filled during the Crown Wars, though it was known, that it was not one as a warmonger, that role fell to Lolth and Ghaunadaur.

The Ilythiiri, who were still refining their worship of the Dark Seldarine, used to portray their gods as spider deities and high priests were killed for promoting these kind of iconography by the offended gods. Vhaeraun, for example, was depicted as a Masked Spider. The Crown Wars destroyed most elven realms, among others Ilythiir, at latest at this point, Vhaeraun and Lolth were enemies. (see Relationships)

Age of Humanity
At some point, some centuries before the 3rd century DR, Zandilar, a deity worshipped by the elves in the Yuirwood at that time, tried to seduce Vhaeraun.

The background for this seduction attempt was that Lolth’s followers attacked the elves in the Yuirwood. The elves there had general problems to repel any invaders and thus Zandilar made habitual use of her seductiveness to get information and allies or to sway would be invaders away, her target for seduction at that time was Vhaeraun. She tried to seduce the Masked Lord for information and/or assistance but was imprisoned in turn with the goal of stealing her power. Bast managed to create the opening for Zandilar to flee and she let her savior take the remnants of her power, so Bast could protect the elves in her place. Selvetarm was born just before the process of this merging as Vhaeraun's son and rejected his father out of personal uncertainty.

War of the Spider Queen - Silence of Lolth
In the Year of Wild Magic, 1372 DR, the goddess Lolth went into a state of hibernation, a period called the Silence of Lolth, with Selvetarm protecting her, as part of a plan to increase her power and separate her divine realm, the Demonweb Pits, from the Abyss. Vhaeraun gained influence through unfurling plans during this opportunity, his followers took over power by both legal and violent means and by being sought out as an alternative, for example by draegloths.

In the same year, the drow of Menzoberranzan, through Triel Baenre, sent a group of powerful adventurers led by Quenthel Baenre to discover the cause of Lolth's silence (or, as was then suspected, disfavor). During Uktar, Quenthel's company finally managed to gain the collaboration of a cleric of Vhaeraun, Tzirik Jaelre, who could lead them to the Demonweb Pits with the help of his god. However, they were betrayed by their Vhaeraunite guide, who summoned the Masked Lord as part of a plan to attack the defenseless Lolth. After grievously wounding her, Selvetarm appeared to battle Vhaeraun but both fell off the web and plummeted into the darkness below. This battle caused a lot of damage to the fabric of the multiverse. Among others, it caused the danger of a part of the Nine Hells to seep into Toril. Tzirik tried to create another gate but, luckily for Lolth, failed because Pharaun Mizzrym managed to cast a sending spell across the planes, something, that didn't always work, and managed to order Jeggred Baenre to kill the Vhaeraunite priest.

Another attempt at Lolth’s life was made through a bargain Vhaeraun made with the yugoloth Inthracis, he couldn’t act personally because of Lolth’s ban against divine creatures to enter her realm. The bargain consisted of the yugoloth and his army killing the potential candidates for the position of Lolth’s Chosen, the vital component for her successful rebirth in exchange for Vhaeraun assassinating Inthracis’ superior, thus enabling the yugoloth’s promotion, as payment on confirmation of success. The attempt failed.

War of the Spider Queen - After the Silence
After the Silence of Lolth, Eilistraee and Lolth started a divine game of sava over the destiny of the drow, Vhaeraun meddled with this game, though without wagering his life and those of his followers.

He and his followers plotted another attempt against Lolth’s life to end her reign. The idea was to open a gate between Ellaniath, Vhaeraun’s realm, and Eilistraee’s portion of Arvandor, via elven high magic, for the god to walk through and assassinate his sister, so the surface drow could be united under a single banner, thus increasing the number of Vhaeraun’s followers and giving him the necessary power boost to kill his mother. However, that kind of magic was very taxing, and would have required the sacrifice of the souls of the casters. Because of that, the followers of the Masked Lord started to kill various priestesses of Eilistraee and collect their souls in their masks, via a spell called soultheft which they were taught, in order to use them as a fuel for the ritual.

On Nightal 20 of the Year of Risen Elfkin, 1375 DR, Vhaeraun managed to enter his sister Eilistraee's realm and attempted to assassinate her. The plan failed due to the machinations of Lolth, as conducted by Halisstra Melarn. She captured Malvag, the organizer of the undertaking, led Cavatina Xarann to him so he'd be killed and the soul in the mask freed by her. Halisstra raised Malvag, so he could continue his undertaking. The church of Eilistraee had a program to revive every dead priestess because they were otherwise too small in number. Thus the priestess whose soul was captured was revived, she conveyed her information, and The Dark Maiden was warned by Qilue Veladorn. As mentioned Abilities, Vhaeraun's combat abilities were not that of a war god like Eilistraee, deity of swordwork. With the warning, his secure success chance as an assassin was forfeit and he lost. No mortal actually witnessed the battle that ensued, so what happened remained largely unknown. However, Eilistraee emerged from the battle alive, suggesting that Vhaeraun had failed and perished at the hand of his sister. Either way, Eilistraee was changed after the event: she held both her brother's and her own portfolios, and gained the title of "Masked Lady".

Vhaeraun’s influence on Eilistraee was pervasive. Apart from cosmetic changes like his sister starting to wear clothes that hid her features, she experienced also a change in morale. Her Chosen spreading lies for propaganda’s sake, engaging in bribery or ordering assassinations to ensure the silence of those who knew the truth, became acceptable to her. Furthermore, she didn’t seem to have full control over Vhaeraun’s powers. Starting with petitioners actually being capable of rejecting her, formerly Vhaeraun’s clerics, even those who actively worked against her, still received spells, albeit barring their strongest, to inability to detect the betrayal of former clerics of Vhaeraun, she accepted as hers, who joined forces with Ghaunadaur’s, who then doomed the Promenade of the Dark Maiden.

Some of Vhaeraun’s followers joined Eilistraee, others joined other gods like Shar, others refused to have anything to do with Eilistraee, others stayed with their old faith and others never became aware that their god died, they later formed the skulkers of Vhaeraun.

Post-Spellplague
Vhaeraun's death was a huge setback for the church, but it didn't kill his faith completely.

Some drow who didn't believe his demise still worshipped him, and their prayers were actually answered. In fact, during that time, his followers (including lay worshipers) gained some divine abilities (like that of producing poison, of disguising their appearance, or small range teleportation), which allowed them to complete dangerous tasks to further their cause, and safely escape afterwards. They were called Skulkers of Vhaeraun, and mostly consisted of disgruntled drow males, but also included a few females. Speculations were that the entity answering their prayers could be identified as the remnants of Vhaeraun himself, or possibly another god masquerading as the Masked Lord. Some believed that the fervor and faith of the followers were the source of their new powers.

The Second Sundering
Vhaeraun managed to return to life during the event known as the Second Sundering, in Flamerule, 1489 DR. . Vhaeraun and Eilistraee were separate entities again, but they reached a reciprocal understanding, and the enmity between them was no more. Both siblings made their return be known, manifesting through their avatars to their followers, who enthusiastically spread the word.

Appearances

 * Novels
 * Evermeet: Island of Elves
 * Daughter of the Drow
 * Condemnation
 * Resurrection
 * Sacrifice of the Widow
 * Sacrifice of the Widow


 * Sourcebooks
 * Demihuman Deities
 * Lords of Darkness
 * Faiths and Pantheons
 * On Hallowed Ground
 * On Hallowed Ground

Connections
Vhaeraun