User talk:Tsammarco

Welcome!
Well met, Tsammarco, and welcome to the Forgotten Realms Wiki! Thank you for your edit to the Eilistraee page. We hope you like the place and decide to stay and explore the Forgotten Realms with us.

Here are some pages that you might find helpful, that explain who we are and what we do and how we do it. You should find these a useful reference, or maybe they could give you some ideas for something to do.

It's our goal to be a complete and reliable encyclopaedia of the official Forgotten Realms in all its forms, and a valuable resource for all Realms fans, players, and dungeon masters. As such, we do not accept fan fiction, homebrew lore, and player characters. All information added to this wiki must be attributed to an official source. Information must not be copied from sourcebooks and novels. Please always give a source for your information, and explain what you've done in the "summary" box.

We hope you enjoy editing here. Please sign your messages on Talk and Forum pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, please leave a message on my talk page or ask any of the administrators about things.

Again, welcome! Happy scribing!

— Darkwynters (talk) 03:17, March 19, 2015 (UTC)

Eilistraee
Hi, thanks for your edits to Eilistraee; it's going to take a long time to go over them. I have one request or bit of advice: please don't make an edit, then publish, then make an edit, then publish, and so on. Today's 25 edits are excessive and rather a chore to go through. Use the preview option to see how the page looks before you publish. Another technique is to work in a Word file, make all the edits you want there, revise them, then transfer the text over and publish. It saves a lot of work. — BadCatMan (talk) 02:27, June 5, 2015 (UTC)


 * Another point is please ensure you work in past tense ("Eilistraee was..." etc.) as per our Remove wiki from timeline policy. — BadCatMan (talk) 02:30, June 5, 2015 (UTC)


 * Hello again! Given the huge length of the Eilistraee page, I strongly suggest splitting it into Eilistraee for the goddess as a character and church of Eilistraee for the organization of her followers. That's what I did with Ilmater and church of Ilmater and what we've been developing for other deities. As it is, the article is very overwhelming and unfocused, and lore about the faith swamps lore about Eilistraee as a character. Furthermore, there's a lot of information about individual temples, orders, and characters that isn't essential to the article. It would be more effective to simply list them and link to articles about these.
 * Please respond here to confirm you've received this and understood these requests and suggestions. I've locked the Eilistraee page from further edits to save you from the potential for wasted work. — BadCatMan (talk) 00:57, June 6, 2015 (UTC)

Sorry about the late answer. Should I create a new page regarding the Church of Eilistraee (including rituals and artifacts/magic)? Should that page include the info about the various temples and shrines?

Also, my apologies about the issue concerning multiple edits. --Tsammarco (talk) 01:09, June 6, 2015 (UTC)


 * I would really recommend a second page at this point. The church page would include rituals, and links to artifacts and magic. Important and representative examples of artifacts, items, and magic can be briefly discussed on the church page. I'd prefer only general, descriptive information about temples and shrines on the church page, together with some representative examples to aid discussion. That's what I did with Church_of_Ilmater. A list of important/interesting temples and shrines can be linked to.


 * It would save yourself a bit of effort too. :)


 * I'll remove the lock. — BadCatMan (talk) 03:02, June 6, 2015 (UTC)

Re: I will make the Church of Eilistraee page as soon as possible. So, should the artifacts remain on Eilistraee's page (with links and brief descriptions on the Church page)? Are there any templates that I should use to create the church page? --Tsammarco (talk) 03:20, June 6, 2015 (UTC)


 * Okay. That sounds fine.
 * The Organization template is suitable for making an organization like a church or faith (organized or not). There's a suggested list of section headings there too. I wrote church of Ilmater to fully demonstrate a complete religious organization article. You can also see church of Mystryl, which User:Moviesign wrote along the same lines. Both, I think, are good examples to follow (well, I would say that).
 * If you have any questions or need anything done, we can help out. Given the great amount of lore on Eilistraee and her prominence, you've picked a massive, daunting project to start on, and also one of the most vital. Good luck! — BadCatMan (talk) 04:05, June 6, 2015 (UTC)

Aargh. I discovered that some passages of the Eilistraee article had been copied from Demihuman Deities – not by you, thankfully, but by old anons. I've removed some (the description and personality), and marked others that seemed more enmeshed with original text. If you like, feel free to check these against the source and rewrite these in your own words. If not, I'll redo them as part of my copy-edit. — BadCatMan (talk)


 * Hi there. I think I've more-or-less finished working on the Eilistraee article, short of future copy-edits and straightening things up. It's now quite a smooth and impressive piece, thanks to you and everyone else who's worked on it. It was nice working with you. I'd like to propose it as a featured article, for showing on the main page. Do you have anything more to add to it?


 * One thing it could do with is a short summary of Eilistraee, her history, personality, and purpose, to go in the opening introduction, more than there is already? Would you like to write that?


 * It'll also need some more pictures to illustrate the article; let me know if you know of any. I prefer official artwork, but fan art with permission is acceptable. — BadCatMan (talk) 13:13, August 10, 2015 (UTC)

Aking for cooperation--Saya222 (talk) 11:30, July 18, 2016 (UTC)
Dear Tsammarco,

I’m Saya222. The talk page of Vhaeraun’s page has told me that two people worked on the page and that you were the other one besides me.

First, I need to thank you for editing the page in adding lore, making the page more sightly both in the orderly manner like paragraphs and also in the language section but most importantly in making the page more neutral and thus more informative.

The talk page has told me to divide the work between us, may I ask whether you are interested? I’m asking because I like the character and his troupe and while I try to be neutral, but fact is I word the content in more or less favoring manner. I realized it always on the next day or after you edited it. Added to this comes the fact that you know more, for example I really thought Eilistraee just shot Corellon and the arrow was not directed by Lolth. And most importantly your language and writing style are clearly better than mine, I realize that I translate directly from Japanese sometimes and also have yet to learn to order in paragraphs.

Please reply to this and thank you again

Best Regards

Saya222 Saya222 (talk) 11:30, July 18, 2016 (UTC)


 * Hello, Saya222.


 * I'd be happy to work with you on the oage about Vhaeraun and his followers. I understand the difficulty to be neutral, since Eilistraee and Vhaeraun are my favourite deities in the Forgotten Realms (Eilistraee means a lot to me, but I also *really* like Vhaeraun, and was very pleased to see them working together in 5e), so there's no problem with that.


 * I also understand the difficulty with language, as I am a non native speaker too, and I too have troubles with idioms and forms (although translating from Japanese must be surely harder than transalting from Italian).


 * That said, BadCatMan suggested to split the page in two articles, one for Vhaeraun, and one for his followers.


 * A Church of Vhaeraun page should include the info that you have added to the deity page (so, composition of the worshipers/clergy, beliefs/dogma, activities, relationships, orders, notable characters). But it should also include lore about rituals, magic items, equipment, centers of worship. The history is mostly the same as that of Vhaeraun himself, but it could use a few adjustments to better emphasize the role of the worshiper themselves. The sections about the Vhaeraunite orders, organizations and the speciality priests should be just brief paragraphs, and redirect to the main pages (in line with the articles that BadCatMan linked).


 * Vhaeraun's page itself is missing sections about his manifestations, powers, and activities. The worshipers section should be reduced to a small summary, and then provide a link to the Church of Vhaeraun page. We could move the info about the holy symbol and the divine realm to sections on their own (the one about the realm should probably be split in subsections about the Great Wheel, World Tree and World Axis cosmologies, to avoid confusion. The 5e, and current cosmology, is a slightly altered version of the Great Wheel).


 * I don't know what books you have access to (I guess that Lords of Darkness, Skullport and Faiths and Pantheons are among them), but Demihuman Deities and The Drow of the Underdark (both 2e) include a much more complete writeup of the deity and his church, so they should also be mined for lore.


 * Again, I'd be happy to work with you.


 * Best regards,
 * Tommaso


 * PS: I think that we should move the conversation to the Vhaeraun Talk Page (in fact, I'll copy-paste all of this there)--Tsammarco (talk) 13:55, July 18, 2016 (UTC)

Asking for help
Dear Tsammarco,

here is Saya222 again. First, thank you for looking after the Vhaeraun page and correcting mistakes. I discovered, that turning the Vhaeraun article into a feature article is up to debate. The page has a plethora of problems though. One of those is apparently the usage of "here" and "this question" in the notes. (please read here for what exactly is the problem with it) I love your writing style, which is why would love to see those notes kept as much in their current form as they are. May I ask you to correct the problem?

Please tell me, whether it is possible for you otherwise I will try my best.

Best Regards and thank you again

Saya222 Saya222 (talk) 19:46, May 14, 2018 (UTC)

Done.

Best regards, Tsammarco (talk) 20:59, May 14, 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much.


 * Best Regards
 * Saya222 (talk) 04:46, May 15, 2018 (UTC)

Slack
Greetings! I have been empowered to invite you to the Forgotten Realms Wiki Slack community, an informal chat group of FRW admins and regular editors. If you are interested, please fill out https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfoVCqUNSPCKTp77IxhwMDyIQ4UGVoB1AP0MM15agNUZsU94Q/viewform and leave your email address so that High Imperceptor Admin Fw190a8 can send you an invite. Your email address will not be shared with anyone except Slack. There are no fabulous benefits for joining, and certainly no penalties for declining, we just talk now and then. Hope to see you soon! :) &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 14:38, July 6, 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the heads-up!--Tsammarco (talk) 01:15, July 8, 2018 (UTC)

What I plan next
Hello Tsammarco,

here's Saya222. Before my next edit turns into a minor edit war, I'd love to report beforehand what I intend to do next. I intend to fill some info on the Demon Weave debacle, write short parts about each of the drow's faiths and link them to each church, some stuff about the Homeland-section about the drow, and at last there'll be some tidbits about the drow.

To prevent something like today, I intended to put up a request for copy-edit once I'm finished with editing the page. May I first write everything I intend to write down and then request you to copy-edit the drow-page? After all, your English is decidedly better than mine. This way, we might prevent something like this bizarre small edit after small edit-war of ours.

Best regards

Saya222 (talk) 18:57, October 8, 2018 (UTC)


 * Sure, I will copy-edit the page once you're done, but it will take me a while, given the size of the article. However, I will still check and eventually edit if I have doubts regarding some info.


 * I'd also appreciate it if I could write the blurb about the faith of Eilistraee once you get to that section.


 * For the Demon Weave, you might find this lore by Ed Greenwood useful: http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=19841&whichpage=1#462346 It provides a lot of insight into the whole debacle.--Tsammarco (talk) 19:39, October 8, 2018 (UTC)


 * Hello Tsammarco,


 * first, thank you for the quick reply. Second, thank you for the link. I'll probably use it once I start re-editing in the Dark Seldarine-article. Third, thank you for your offer for the copy-edit.


 * About the edits about the churches, I intend write in the following way. First, the information-situation, second, the goal and third, the general localization with a "main article"-link towards the proper page. Regarding the church of Eilistraee, I've got the following or similar in mind.


 * As a general rule, the term "Eilistraee" was not one the drow were familiar with. It was the name of their deity of song. Those who knew about her thought of her as some kind of surface elf deity who prepared to drive the drow into extinction. They were wrong as that faith's goal was to make the drow live on the surface in peace with other races. Due to the nature of their goal, the faith was practically non-existent in the Underdark and were mainly on the surface.


 * If you want to know where I've got the info from, please ask me.


 * Best regards and again thank you


 * 19:57, October 8, 2018 (UTC)


 * I was thinking more of something along the lines of:


 * The church of Eilistraee, followers of the goddess of beauty, song, and freedom, strove to free the drow from Lolth's web and build a place for their people on the surface world. They reached to the drow in the Underdark, while on the surface they offered help to the needy and nurtured arts, working to build peaceful relationships with the other races. Most drow weren't aware of Eilistraee, as the matron mothers suppressed all records about her, and what little information existed painted her as a surface elf deity aiming to drive the drow into extinction. Due to the nature of their goal, except when performing redemption missions, the faith was mainly active on the surface and had little presence in the Underdark.


 * In short, putting emphasis on what the faith is about, rather than most drow not being aware of it.
 * Best regards,
 * Best regards,


 * --Tsammarco (talk) 20:30, October 8, 2018 (UTC)


 * Hello Tsammarco,


 * it's done. At least, I can not add anything substantial to the page anymore. When you see me making edits to that page, it'll be about adding quotes from novels or some images.


 * Best regards


 * Saya222 (talk) 11:19, October 20, 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the note. I'll re-start the copy edit as soon as I can


 * Best regards
 * --Tsammarco (talk) 13:29, October 20, 2018 (UTC)

A Request
Hello Tsammarco,

I wrote the reasons why changing the drow was such a big deal and Eilistraee's souls were not capable of entering Arvandor. I did this in the Church of Vhaeraun, Dark Seldarine, Drow, and Lolth pages. May I ask you to rewrite the section in the drow-page to give it uniformity in language?

Best regards

Saya222 (talk) 08:09, December 22, 2018 (UTC)


 * Hello, Saya222


 * Eilistraee didn't gamble the souls of her followers, the fate of the drow in general was at stake, as the game, in theory, would have determined which deity would have survived. The part that you added was merely the angels' opinion on what was worth saving, not Eilistraee's goal. In fact, the angels even say really disturbing things, like that Eilistraee had exhausted her purpose, because "the willing were saved, the unwilling were cast down". The books don't mention Eilistraee acknowledging to have lost, and she never would have abandoned (the thing about the unwilling being cast down defeats the very premise of her character).
 * There's also the fact that the spell wasn't meant to transform anyone, its purpose was severing the link between the faerzress and the drow. The transformation of a number of Eilistraee's followers was some kind of side-effect.  And I mean, not even all of her followers were transformed...--Tsammarco (talk) 13:09, December 22, 2018 (UTC)
 * There's also the fact that the spell wasn't meant to transform anyone, its purpose was severing the link between the faerzress and the drow. The transformation of a number of Eilistraee's followers was some kind of side-effect.  And I mean, not even all of her followers were transformed...--Tsammarco (talk) 13:09, December 22, 2018 (UTC)
 * There's also the fact that the spell wasn't meant to transform anyone, its purpose was severing the link between the faerzress and the drow. The transformation of a number of Eilistraee's followers was some kind of side-effect.  And I mean, not even all of her followers were transformed...--Tsammarco (talk) 13:09, December 22, 2018 (UTC)


 * Hello Tsammarco,


 * thank you for the reply. The entire matter is cosistently called "gamble" or "wager" with "winner takes all". When the winner, Lolth, is clear she was entitled to simply grab Eilistraee's followers, which she couldn't because they were Corellon's by then. So this is a gamble, if the object of gambling was the "fate of the drow as a race", it doesn't change it to be a gamble because the determining factor is a game.


 * About the angels, these aren't some random solars and what they provide is not an opinion but an explanation of what was going on the entire time. They say that Eilistraee's death was part of the plan. On the question that the rest of the drow were condemned to eternal servitude to Lolth, they say that it was a necessary sacrifice just like Qilué's death and that the game, meaning the wager between Lolth and Eilistraee, would have been lost if this was not done. Now, saying that one can't win by herself is an admittance that the adversary is superior to one.


 * To the matter with the dark elves, drow are merely dark elves with faezress-connection, taking that away from them naturally turns them into dark elves. About not everyone being transformed, I think the original idea as shown in the books was just to turn every Eilistraeen into dark elves and that was simply retconned in 5e.


 * Saya222 (talk) 16:47, December 22, 2018 (UTC)


 * The thing is, the premise of the game, at the very beginning, was that the participants would gamble themselves, therefore determining the "fate of the drow" by deletion of the competition (winner takes all). But the followers themselves can't be gambled, simply because they still don't belong to the goddesses. When a mortal's alive, he still can decide to worship whoever, and go to their realm instead. Yes, Lolth tries to grab Eilistraee's pieces, but, ultimately, the choice still belongs to the mortals. That's how faith works in the Realm, and it has always worked like that. Followers' faith takes precedence over whatever machination (to the point that the existence of the deities needs to be sustained by that faith). There's also the fact that, if Eilistraee had actually gambled her followers, then they would belong to Lolth, no matter their race (making this whole dark elf thing pointless as a cop out plan). Moreover, the game was originally between Lolth and Eilistraee, so it's clear that "all drow being gambled" is due to the fact that one of them would be gone (since there was a large number of drow that wasn't follower of any, and couldn't part of the prize).


 * The servants of Corellon don't share the view of Eilistraee. Qilué's death wasn't planned, nor was Eilistraee: there's a whole scene in which they try to avoid that, but they can't. It's extremely evident that there was no sacrifice, that's just the spin that the solars tried to put on it. In fact, they even go on saying that they consider Eilistraee's purpose exhausted, because changing the race of a few was their grand plan--not an extreme measure--and the banishment of most "the necessary sacrifice", for whatever reason. Again, this whole matter defeats the very premise of Eilistraee's character. Eilistraee never gave up or conceded, she fought till the end.


 * That's without mentioning that, yes, GHotR stated that the game was real, but in the novels it was very, very obviously a huge metaphor--both because there are scenes that make literally no logical sense, if we assume that it was real, and because the idea it's, quite frankly, ludicrous. No one with half a brain would ever accept to play by Lolth's rules, especially when they're in a good position (like all the Dark Seldarine were after the Silence).


 * The drow aren't merely dark elves connected to faerzress, there's also Corellon's curse that changed their race. Besides, in the novels themselves it is stated that the transformed elves are in the hundreds, which is a whole order of magnitude below any lesser deity's followers base--Tsammarco (talk) 16:57, December 22, 2018 (UTC)


 * Hello Tsammarco,


 * thank you as always for your quick responses. Now, to your four points. First, afterlife in Toril is quite a complicated thing and the degree of choice that the mortals have is actually not that high. For example, a human who gives offerings to Diancastra gives Mask a superior claim on his or her soul than the former has over it because that one is the giants' trickster deity while the latter is the humans' trickster deity. Winning a gamble would give a Lolth a claim on Eilistraee's followers' souls whether the claim is higher than that of other deities' is open for debate and is probably nowhere explained because divine nature is kept quite murky. I assume it is kept murky to give DMs freedom.


 * Second, I wouldn't be so sure what is planned and what is not. First, the solars have no reason to claim anything outside of the truth and solars, or the entire category of aasimons, don't lie. Second, Eilistraee's last actions surprised Lolth due to its levels of subterfuge and trickery. Sacrificing herself while making it look like the rather pathetic scene which we read about, especially if it's solars making the claims, sounds quite true.


 * Third, when describing gods in person in novels, the stories are almost never completely logical at least to my . As for the idiocy of accepting Lolth's proposal, it doesn't matter whether it was or wasn't stupid for Eilistraee accepted it.


 * Fourth, the drow are merely dark elves with faerzress-connection. The novels reveal the nature of Corellon's curse that changed the dark elves to drow, connecting the dark elves to faerzress through elven high magic that channeled Corellon's power.


 * Best regards


 * Saya222 (talk) 20:37, December 22, 2018 (UTC)


 * Where's racial priority stated, because I've never read about it. In any case, it has never been the case that deities could take the souls of mortals who don't align with them, or trade them as items. Mortals are given choice in the Realms (unless they're faithless or false); the deities depend on mortals choosing them. Even for Zaknafein, who was sacrificed to Lolth, she couldn't take his soul (as confirmed by RAS, and by Lolth herself). Once again, though, I made several other points as for why the gamble wasn't of the followers, but of the deities themselves, and even if it was, the transformation wouldn't have solved anythning, because the souls of the followers would have been gambled, no matter which race. So, once again, the transformation as a cop-out is very far fetched.


 * Angels don't like to lie, but they can. There are parts of what the solars say that are obviously lies, such as the one in which they said all the willing had been saved, while the unwilling had been cast down, and therefore Eilistraee had no purpose. This statement is indeed a lie, because it assumes that all the drow trapped within the Lolthite society at that time were unwilling to embrace a non-evil life, including children and future generations. That's false, because drow have free will; Eilistraee losing purpose is false because Eilistraee strongly believes that all drow can be freed, so she would have never been like "oh, my work's done, I can call it a day". Lolth was surprised by the trickery in that Eilistraee tried to turn Halisstra against her. It was represented in the chess board, and it was shown by Eilistraee indeed working to save Qilué and Halisstra, even more so because that would have allowed Qilué to kill Wendonai (trapped in the sword), and Halisstra to have a chance against Lolth. Once again, in the book there's no trace of sacrifice whatsoever, only Eilistraee that keeps going till the end (and the ritual was already completed *before* Qilué was killed, IIRC; it also didn't need any sacrifice).


 * Now, while the angels *did* lie, as for why they would, well, I have a hypothesis--but it's just my thought: they are servants of Corellon, they may be spewing what he told them about the events (so they wouldn't even be lying, just told what was said to them). Corellon has a very narrow view of the drow, he certainly doesn't believe in the possibility to redeem them all (in fact, he never raises a finger to help his daughter--never--and their relationship is strained). To him, the few that were transformed may have already been a matter of all that were "willing/unwilling to be redeemed". Now, as for why he would lie to the solars about what happened to Eilistraee, it could be that he actually saw it as a sacrifice, or wanted her to be seen in a more positive light, or that maybe he had seen that his daughter had survived in some way (she was slain on the material plane; no outisder can be really killed there, and her realm countinued existing) and wanted to protect her by hiding the fact to everyone. Only ideas, but are a very possible motivation for lying.


 * There's a matter of basic logic. For example, Selvetarm fighting and dying in the Demonweb, and at the same time being alive at the table after he was killed (not mention being in 2 places at the same time), and starting to disappear only after the move representing the fight had been made on the chessboard (the symbolism of  a metaphor). Since I doubt that the author was going for some Schroedinger's cat shenaningans, the game was clearly intended as a metaphor (in addition, if the game wasn't a metaphor, all the events in the novel would be 100% pointless--the game would be the deciding factor anyway. The author clearly wasn't going for this).


 * The drow were indeed connected to the faerzress by the Descent (according to these novels--and only to these novels, btw), but their race and appearance was specifically changed by Corellon. That's stated in multiple sources.--Tsammarco (talk) 21:28, December 22, 2018 (UTC)