Corellon

Corellon, or more fully Corellon Larethian, whose titles included Creator of the Elves and the Protector, was the patron god of all elves. They were the creator and preserver of the Tel'Quessir, governing those things held in the highest esteem among elves, such as magic, music, arts, crafts, poetry, and warfare. Corellon lived in the realm of Arvandor. They approved of those who killed orcs and followers of Lolth, blessed those who aided others, and became angered at those who defiled the dead, or fled from their foes.

Description
Corellon used to be able to call many forms their true form but fixated theirs to that of a male sun elf. This did not mean that they lost the ability to take other forms like that of a female elf. Either of these forms looked beautiful and while the first impression of them was how lithe and swift these seven feet tall forms were, the strength in them was obvious to everybody.

They always wore a sky-blue cloak, a large amulet with a crescent moon motif within a circle, that worked as a talisman of pure good, and a pair of dazzling gauntlets.

Personality
While Corellon shared the elven trait of pride that may border arrogance, this never got the better of them. They were a god with an endless willingness to learn from others and acted on it, even including mortals in their sources of discovering new information, methods, and philosophies.

Abilities
Corellon was a master swordsman and a powerful mage. They expertly wielded their longsword and longbow and could cast spells from all spheres and schools. They could cast any ritual of elven high magic like casting a normal spell and could summon one to four powerful air elemental once every 10 minutes who then served them as long as they needed them.

Corellon was immune to everything that inhibited their ability to move, caused wounds, or tampered with their mind, as well as to all illusion spells. It was impossible to hurt them with a weapon with an enchantment of less than +3.

Possessions
Corellon owned Sahandrian, their glittering longsword, and Amlath'hana, their longbow, which they could use to hit targets within an entire mile. They did not need to care for lack of ammunition because their quiver had an endless supply of arrows.

They owned an amulet, which worked like an amulet of pure good, and a wand, which worked like a staff of power, staff of the magi, and a wand of frost with unlimited uses.

Divine Realm
Corellon's realm was on Arvandor on the first layer of Arborea.

Activities
Elves believe that they reincarnated with a definitive goal of perfection as their final destination. Corellon, alongside Sehanine Moonbow, was the soul's guide towards that destination of perfection.

They also wandered incognito on Toril to observe priests and craftsmen, and even took a direct hand in protecting elven borders. As a general rule, though, they watched over the elven race as a guardian.

Seldarine
Corellon was the Seldarine’s (the elven pantheon) leader and was generally close with all of them, except Fenmarel Mestarine who was Lolth’s, their former wife’s, partner in adultery. They were married to Angharradh.

Others
They were allied with various deities from the Faerûnian pantheon who dealt with nature or magic as well as with the leaders of the dwarven, gnomish and halfling pantheons, because to Corellon, human expansion was a source of fear.

They were allied with their daughter Eilistraee. This relationship was strong but distant, and Erevan Ilesere was closer to their daughter than they were.

Enemies
Corellon had a long list of enemies.

Gruumsh
According to orcs, the relationship between Gruumsh and the elven deities degenerated to hostility after the latter participated at a prank with the gods of other pantheons. They rigged a lot drawing to determine where each race was entitled to live and there were none for the orcs. Gruumsh was mocked, but destitution for the orcs was averted by Gruumsh creating a niche for the orcs to live. Henceforth, the orc pantheon was an enemy of the others, including of the elven one.

While the orcs deny it, Corellon was said to have cut out one of Gruumsh’s eyes. Their blood seemed to be compatible to each other, for mingling it created elves and also the Elf-Eater.

Dark Seldarine
Corellon’s enemies from the drow pantheon included Lolth, their former wife, Vhaeraun, their son, and Selvetarm, their grandson and others.

Lolth
Lolth was once Corellon’s wife. She tried to take over their position as the head of the Seldarine and failed. For this crime, she was sentenced to banishment. She changed into a spider monster and attacked Corellon. Corellon couldn’t kill her and she escaped.

Lolth hated Corellon and, due to her inability to fight him directly, her hatred took the form of hurting surface elves. She considered this at best a secondary priority. Having fun with urging and seeing the drow fighting themselves was more important to her than putting effort into killing the people of her former husband.

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

They gave up on the idea of convincing their son Vhaeraun to abandon his ways. They vowed kill him, if he ever tried to hurt his sister. This was an empty threat, for the Masked Lord did threaten the Dark Maiden’s life, with no action against him on Corellon’s part.

Interestingly the one type of magic that the 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.

Other
Other enemies of theirs were the goblin and orc pantheon and Bane, Cyric, Malar and Talos.

Prior to the War of the Seldarine
Corellon originally came from the plane of Ysgard. At some point in their life, they came up with the idea to conquer a part of Arborea by driving out the resident giants and did so and Arvandor was founded. The surviving giants went to the land, the elves abandoned in their emigration to Arvandor and founded Jotunheim on Ysgard, the first layer of Ysgard.

They used to be every elven aspect in one, but fixed their form into that of a male sun elf warrior when they made Araushnee into their bride. The background of this fixation was to create a perfect balance of their "male warrior" to his wife's "female artist" and so on. They also gave dominion over the dark elves to their wife. They had twin children, the elder called Vhaeraun, the younger called Eilistraee, of whom the latter was the favored one. By this point, their enmity with Gruumsh was quite old. According to legends, it started with them having participated at rigging lots to the detriment of Gruumsh (see Relationships). But they managed to draw the god to the negotiation table. Gruumsh attacked them there, destroying Sahandrian. Corellon fought and lost due to a combination of elven arrogance and support from their wife Araushnee, who, unbeknownst to them, was a traitor. In the battle, their blade was broken. While they were running for their life to reach Arvandor, they were tracked down by the orc god. There, Sehanine Moonbow appeared and restored their sword to them. The elven and orcish god fought, and Corellon disarmed then gouged out one of Gruumsh's eyes. The battle was ended there because Corellon couldn't kill an unarmed and wounded enemy. Corellon then went home to Arvandor, because Gruumsh promised he would fight them if they stayed, and the elven god didn't want to risk their own demise.

Back home, they were assaulted by Malar who was persuaded by Araushnee to attack Corellon. The two of them fought and the elven god won.

War of the Seldarine
Araushnee tried to kill her husband again, this time by starting a war between an army of pantheons that stand against the Seldarine, such as the goblin pantheon, bugbear pantheon, kobold pantheon, and other deities. This army was expected to lose. The real plan that Araushnee and her son and confidant Vhaeraun pursued involved organizing matters so that Eilistraee gave her father a cursed scabbard, that drew arrows to the wearer, and let the daughter shoot her father to death by drawing her arrows. The battle started, and by this point, Corellon knew that they had a traitor in his pantheon. When Ghaunadaur, an addition even outside of Araushnee's calculations, appeared, Corellon understood the depths of depravity the traitor was capable of, for the ooze god could only come to Arvandor when a real force of evil was there. They were attacked by an ogre god and tried to draw their weapon but Sahandrian was stuck in the cursed sheath and Eilistraee's arrows hit them.

Two factors saved Corellon, the sturdiness of their ribcage and the fact that Eilsitraee used ogre-sized arrows that got stuck in their ribcage. Araushnee tried to poison them with a dose of Eilistraee's hunting poison, but they were saved by Sehanine Moonbow. The moon goddess created their new wife Angharradh with Aerdrie Faenya and Hanali Celanil. After healing her husband, Araushnee and Vhaeraun were on trial. Sehanine recounted her story and the sentence was banishment, but the nature of the banishment between mother and son was different in that the latter had still the option to return while the former had not. Eilistraee followed willingly into exile on request of her brother, for she had visions of undefined dark times that she believed could be stopped if she went into exile, too. Said dark times turned out to be the rise of the drow.

Araushnee was declared a tanar'ri and, after a short fight against her former husband, escaped.

First Flowering
Around, non-dark elves came up with the idea to create a dark elf-free piece of land. They tried to create it, and would have botched it if not for Corellon's and other elven gods' direct intervention. Evermeet was created with the First Sundering, the literal sundering of an entire continent, as a side effect. The Protector and Angharradh appeared before Starleaf and gave her the Tree of Souls around -17600 DR.

Crown Wars
The sun elf nation of Aryvandaar wanted to get rid of the dark elves as a species. Their chosen method for doing this was to devise a ritual that tied the dark elves to faerzress, thus tying them to the Underdark and keeping them there. Towards that end, Corellon's magic, channeled through their priests and high mages, turned all dark elves into drow and they were forced into the Underdark around -10000 DR.

After the Fourth Crown War, Corellon urged the elves to form the Elven Court. They decided House Vyshaan to be the responible party for the Crown Wars and Corellon mandated elves in general to kill them. The Fifth Crown War started and ended thus around -9200 DR.

Founding Time
The activity of the Seldarine during the Crown Wars, especially the Descent and the killing of the entire House Vyshaan with Corellon's mandate made the sun elves who founded Siluvanede wary of the elven pantheon and their society was a godless one, that eventually gave rise to the race of the fey'ri.

Age of Humanity
Some time before 714 DR, in other words before the fall of Cormanthor, elves started to feel weary about competing with humans over land, and they wanted a piece of land for themselves that they did not need to compete over with the encroaching human expansion. Under Corellon, the Seldarine started the Retreat, a mystical compulsion felt by elves to abandon their lands for Evermeet. Most of Corellon's orders followed the call and left Faerûn.

In 1379 DR, a High Magic ritual performed by Q'arlynd Melarn transformed hundreds among those drow who were not tainted by Wendonai's blood or who followed Eilistraee back into their original dark elven form, and Corellon thus permitted the souls of the newly transformed dark elves to enter Arvandor.

Post-Spellplague
After the Spellplague, Corellon's power stayed that of a greater deity, something that couldn't be said about the other deities of the Seldarine.

Worshipers
Among Corellon's worshipers were elves, eladrin, and their descendants, as well as many bards. Their clerics wore silver circlets and gossamer robes of the brightest azure. One of their most frequent holy days was the quarter moon and Corellon was worshiped at natural geological formations with beautiful objects sacrificed to them monthly.

Orders

 * Fellowship of the Forgotten Flower: The fellowship was a loosely structured organization made of elven knights or elven warriors dedicated to the recovery of lost elven relics from long-abandoned realms.

Background
James M. Ward created Corellon Larethian for the Deities and Demigods (1980).