Talk:Eilistraee



Eilistraee is actually not dead. After much debate with other fans I asked the author of the book where she "died". She explained that she left loopholes preventing her death, fully. The emails are on my website eilistraee.org

The cannon books by wizards state, quite often, that a God may ONLY be killed on their own plane. The sword which "killed" Eilistraee killed Lolth's champion, Selvetarm, but he was in his own plane (Lolth's) when he died. In the Avatar set of four books, Ao binds the Gods to the mortal realms and effectively allows them to die if killed. The Gods make reference to this rule often. During the battle where Araushnee tries to kill Correlon with Eilistraee's arrow, many Gods are hit by massively powerful Godly weapons, only the fade back to their worlds.

WOTC officially mandated her death and the author was forced to comply. But, by their OWN rules and canon, she cannot be. I would maintain that she is wounded and recovering. WOTC may one day regain their senses, or not, but she cannot actually be dead based on what happened. --Lotus253 19:38, February 12, 2011 (UTC)Lotus@Eilistraee.org


 * Sadly, this is only wishful thinking - albeit well-researched wishful thinking. She could be alive, as could a number of others (Azuth comes to mind, having died in the Nine Hells). As you say, unless Wizards decides to change her status, she's going to remain dead. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 21:41, February 12, 2011 (UTC)

Because WOTC may never use her again and says she is dead, it is effectively the case, but by technical game rules, and from the author who killed her, she is very much alive. If nothing more, WOTC made, in my personal opinion, an extremely bad choice in killing her. She provided a rich dynamic to Drow. Luckily, she is alive in any games DM's add her too, such as me, and the loophole remains in the very unlikely event WOTC brought her back. --Lotus253 22:18, February 12, 2011 (UTC)Lotus@Eilistraee.org

I believe Eilistraee must be dead even according to canon. Maybe Azuth is still alive and out there somewhere, that's a very good point I never thought of, but Eilistraee definitely isn't. It's like during the time of troubles, when Ao kicked all the gods out of their home planes. Once all their essence was on the Prime Material Plain, they could be easily, and more importantly, PERMANENTLY, killed. They no longer have part of themselves hidden away at home.

Now, the whole reason Eilistraee inhabited Qilue was because she lost her game with Lolth. That means she's gonna die. Kiaransalee died too, you know, and she wasn't attacked on her home plane. But she lost the game, so she got killed, admittedly through a mortal agent, but I notice you don't think SHE'S coming back. So what I believe happened to Eilistraee is that she fled her home plane, became vulnerable to attack just like all the gods did during the Time of Troubles, and died in a painfully permanent fashion. Then again, maybe her essence on her home plane got attacked and destroyed at the same time, as a result of the way their game worked, or else because of the game she became able to be killed even away from home. Maybe she sort of signed over the rights to her life and staked it as her wager in their game (that IS what it sounded like to me!) and lost her right to exist somehow. I really don't know, but either way she has to be dead.

I agree that she made the drow much more interesting, and I'm disappointed she's dead, but if that's the way it happened, just live with it. Besides, I didn't really like her so much. She was too like Lolth, with her matriarchies and the way drow males seem to be almost as abused under her as under Lolth. Ryld Argith had that complaint, if I remember correctly. He didn't see any difference between his position in a Lolthian society and with the Eilistraeeans. And Eilistraee's priestesses (sorry - no priests allowed) are obsessed with hunting down anything "evil" out of some misguided belief that it will vindicate their existence. Remember that harmless werewolf in War of the Spider Queen book 6? he wasn't hurting anyone, just wanted peace and solitude, but got killed merely for existing. That was just cruel and pointless. So although I will miss the delightfully warped war of the drow, I really believe Faerûn will be a better place for her absence. 66.241.5.38 19:18, January 30, 2012 (UTC)Eschwartz

PERMANENTLY DEAD? Like Bane and Torm were permanently dead after the avatar trilogy? WOTC made many many bad choices with 4th edition, killing Eilistraee was just one of them. She was really popular among players. It's not the fault of WOTC, they had orders from Hasbro from what I understand. Giving your customers what they want seems to be a smart business strategy. Run your campaigns however you like. I run straight 3.5, the 4th edition world is just another (ultra-vanilla) alternate prime material plane. WOTC is wising up due to poor sales, lets see what they do with the next edition of D&D. 24.199.4.206 20:33, March 27, 2012 (UTC)Noldor858

About what Eschwarz said concerning the hunting down attitude of the Eilistraeens: that's novels' wrong depiction of the goddess, both in WotSQ and LP.

According to the sourcebooks, Eilistraee's main theme is freedom of life and of self expression and acceptance of all beings who revel in life, with no discrimination or prejudice. What she teaches to her drow is that a joyful existence, different from the one they've been brainwashed into believing the only way, is possible, where all beings live in harmony, free to choose their life, their ideas and to fulfill themselves without the shackles of any pointless dogma. To do this, the Dark Maiden uses lighthearted aspects of life, like song and dance, and kindness to open drow minds, to make them understand, like a mother would do, that they have a choice and to let them find their own, spontaneous way to redemption.

This is an extremely open minded and tolerant attitude, which does not include violence at all, on any being (even the ones who may appear as evil, like werewolves, because there is hope of redemption for everyone) and it is this beautiful concept that Eilistraee is about.

In the novels, however, her followers do nothing but slaughtering everyone, which is clearly out of character. Those books offer a warped portrayal of Eilistraee, totally unfitting in many ways. Her priestess are depicted as sexist, but they shouldn't be so. The gender selective clergy is mainly due to Eilistraee being intended by the designers as a mother goddess for the drow, so that priestesses fit this flavor better than males. Authors of the books made the jump from this to OMG Eilistraee is sexist, ruining the character.

Besides the ending of LP isn't what the Dark Maiden would have done, at all. It says that she purposefully gave herself for her followers (and that's totally fitting), but what about all the other drow? By doing what she did, basically said to every other dark elf either you spontaneously redeem and become one of my follwers -yes, I don't care if you haven't ever heard of me- or I don't care about you, not to mention depriving the ones not yet born of any chance of freedom and redemption. This sacrifice thing was done just to mask the purpose of the novels: only getting rid of the drow pantheon. It's not what Eilistraee would have done. This is the whole unwilling were cast down thingy that the Dark Maiden would never even take in consideration. She can't actually 'redeem' the ones who're already seeking alternatives to Lolth, she can just help and love them. It's the others, the ones still brainwashed, that need her support the most.

Not to mention that she wouldn't even have had reasons to engage Lolth in her power games about the fate of her children. As I said she's about opposition to the stupid injustice committed on ALL the Dark Elves millenia ago and to the oppression they are shackled to now, and about offering hope of redemption and -freedom- of life to them, not about she's not about get Lolth. She doesn't care about her pretty games, and a free spirit like her would never accept to be constrained to the her mother's rules when she can keep freeing the drow without doing so. That wouldn't make much sense.

Luckily tho, it looks like the devs at WotC realized the crappy way this goddess was treated and that she and her brother gave depth to an otherwise flat and homogenous race like the drow.

One of the people who worked on the upcoming Menzoberranzan sourcebook posted this: on the Chosen of Eilistraee board.

No god is permanently dead in the Realms and, soon(probably), the Dark Maiden won't be dead at all :D

Rituals and Rites
Sorry about the multiple edits.

The 'Hunt', while not capitalized in the text is in Demihuman Deities, p. 15 in the first sentence of of the first paragraph under Holy Days/Ceremonies.

"The customary worship to the Dark Maiden is a hunt, followed by a feast and dancing, and a Circle of Song..."

Maybe it could be organized better since a Hunt is typically tied to a feast and a Circle of Song, but I wanted to draw attention that a Circle of Song and a hunt are sort of separate things.

I suppose it could be something like Customary worship service LadySilverhair (talk) 17:47, October 9, 2014 (UTC)
 * Hunt
 * Feast
 * Circle of Song


 * First, please don't forget to sign your posts with four tildes ( ~ ) so we know where one comment ends and the next one begins, and some indication of chronological order. Second, you might want to peruse the Forgotten Realms Wiki:3 Sentence Rule (which is more of a guideline than a rule) and keep that in mind when deciding to make something a wikilink or not. For example, if you don't think that more than 3 sentences can be written about Eilistraee's version of a celebratory hunt, then it's probably best to leave it unlinked and explain how the hunt works in this article, rather than making a separate article. Thanks for all your contributions to this topic. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 16:51, October 9, 2014 (UTC)


 * okay - thanks! LadySilverhair (talk) 17:47, October 9, 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah, not being capitalised and not in itself special, this hunt is not really a special kind of hunt, just a generic kind of hunt. Maybe they even just go fishing? :) A discussion of the regular hunt would be best in a discussion of everyday practices and rites. For example, you could write it out like "It was customary among the faithful to worship Eilistraee through a hunt, followed by a feast with dancing, and ending in a Circle of Song, which was..." The High Hunt meanwhile is a distinct, special hunting ritual, so it could have any article on its own.
 * You could consider splitting the article into two (especially since it will get really long): one for Eilistraee as a person and character, and another for her followers as an organization. For example, see Mystra, and Ilmater and Church of Ilmater. They show good ways to to arrange this kind of information. — BadCatMan (talk) 04:30, October 10, 2014 (UTC)