Talk: Eladrin

Weren't Eladrin something of LotR? Since when did they exist in the Realms? I have never heard or read about them, where does this come from. Historicus 08:57, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Eladrin are core in 4th edition (like the Dragonborn mentioned in the article). I thought I had heard that we were going to stave off any 4th edition changes until the wiki got fleshed out better, but I'm not 100% sure on the 4th edition policy just yet. Mendahu 12:46, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

If the article doesn't conflict with previous edition information, it isn't a huge problem at the moment. I think we need to work on that policy before August 19th comes around, though. Gabeth 17:33, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

"Eladrin" are "Gold Elves" and "Star Elves", "Elves" are "Wood Elves" and "Wild Elves", etc.... I think this will be clarified in the soon-to-be-released FRCS.  SkyeNiTessine (talk · contr) 17:48, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Eladrin in 3.5 are outsiders native to Arvandor and the Gates of the Moon. They are elf-like in appearance. hash^talk 04:15, 30 July 2008 (GMT)

I've found this: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20071221 But its frightening me even more about the new edition, especially the cutting down of the lore about the Seldarine. Historicus 15:55, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Note that the article you linked isn't specific to the Forgotten Realms. It's set in the new "default" setting that has Bane, Pelor, and Ioun as deities, and in which world a tiefling empire used to reign.  SkyeNiTessine (talk · contr) 17:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, if this separation between common and noble Eladrin exists in FR (no such distinction appears in the core 4e materials) then why was a picture of a pair of 'noble Eladrin' used? Why not use an image taken from the 4e books? hash^talk 13:42, 04 August 2008 (GMT)

(unindented) I haven't found a "promotional" image of a normal 4E Eladrin yet. As soon as we find one I agree that we should add it to the article. However, there's nothing wrong IMO with using a "noble eladrin" as the image in the Eladrin article -- it is a type of Eladrin. It's like showing a "Moon Elf" image in the article for "Elf". As to their being no reference of a "noble eladrin" in the core 4e materials, check the reference I added in the article: it was from the 4E PHB.  SkyeNiTessine (talk · contr) 21:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

This is what I don't like about 4e FR. All the changes to established fluff. It wouldn't be nearly so bad if these 'noble' eladrin were outsiders like they used to *all* be. I can see how you might get fey eladrin though, sure. However, what they've done (and yes I saw that bit in the 4e PHB) is turn the Chaotic good outsider species into a fey creature and just slapped a seasonal addendum onto their name and called them 'noble'. D&D has had an outsider species for every alignment (except true neutral) for as long as I can remember. Archons (LG), Inevitables (LN), Devils (LE), Guardinals (NG), Yugoloths (NE), Eladrin (CG), Slaadi (CN) and Demons (CE). hash^talk 02:55, 05 August 2008 (GMT)

No kidding. This site used to have actual Faerûn history and facts, not the apocryphal garbage that has been coming from everything since Grand History of the Realms and the 4e retroactive continuity. How do you get the details on the official, pre-retcon Faerûn, as opposed to this nonsense? The only valid sources for what Eladrin are are 3.5 and earlier books. They are CG Celestials unrelated to Elves in any way.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.231.141.13 (talk • contribs) 06:24, 27 September 2009

Please sign your additions to talk pages with the four tildes (~~~~). In answer to your question regarding how to tell 3.5 information from 4e information, please check the reference linked at the end of each statement and listed in full at the bottom of the article.  Fw190a8 (talk · contr) 01:33, October 3, 2009 (UTC)

Moon Elf / Sun Elf - Eladrin Connection Confirmed

I read this not long ago. Eladrin are indeed not a real new race, but just a retouching and renaming of moon elves and sun elves as well as the "noble" eladrin. wood elves and wild elves appear to be 4e elves.

“

Sildeyuir was once a demiplane connecting to Aglarond's Yuirwood. The eladrin of Yuireshanyaar (sometimes referred to as star elves created it to escape human incursions into their realm.

”

— FRCG, page 68

And...

“

Evereska is a mist-shrouded city of secretive eladrin. Its inhabitants spurned the Retreta to Evermeet, keeping their city hidden from the rest of Faerûn, only to end up at the center of a war between the Shadovar and the phaerimms.

”

— FRCG, page 130

Both of these seem to indicate that eladrin and moon elves, star elves, and sun elves are all one and the same. If that is the case should we modify the elf and eladrin articles accordingly (such as moving the subraces listings for the aforementioned elves to here)? Niirfa-sa 02:46, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

This is also quite explicit in the RPGA guide for creating characters of Sun Elf and Moon Elf origin. As to whether we should keep them distinct, I would say "no". Though there are mechanical differences, to most people Sun Elves and Wood Elves and dumped together under "elves"... which is completely understandable since they both have "elves" in their racial names. Also, keep in mind that we're trying to write to two audiences: the 3.5e and the 4e crowd. We should probably discuss the specifics of the template in the appropriate Talk page though.  SkyeNiTessine (talk · contr) 03:42, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

This is being carried on from the half-eladrin discussion article. I'm curious to here what others have to say about this. If, indeed, 4e eladrin and 3e eladrin are different races entirely than two separate articles should be created. I'm firm in the belief, however, that 4e eladrin and 3e eladrin are one and the same. I point to the 4e FRPG:

“

With the reappearance of the Feywild, its natives have begun exploring the world again. These fey folk collectively call themselves eladrin, and many Faerûnian elves have adopted this name for their lineage, thoug they have not forgotten their traditional cultural distinctions and names.

”

— Forgotten Realms Player's Guide, pg 5

This seems to indicate to me that "noble" eladrin, or eladrin native to the Feywild, are in fact the same creatures believed to be celestials in 3e by the Tel'Quessir. If this is the case than 3e eladrin were not celestials, but in fact, the same race as sun elves and moon elves.

On the other hand, it's possible that noble eladrin and "celestial" eladrin are two different races. If this is the case than a separate article should be created. Niirfa-sa 23:25, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

History

I have a question about something written in the article. It is said:

It starts in -27,000DR when the fey of the Faerie realm allow large numbers of green elves, avariels and lythari to immigrate to Toril.

Weren't these Fey already on Toril? I mean in the text of the GHtotR, p.8 it was written "Continuing their work to undermine dragon rule, the Fey open new gates, allowing the first elves to immigrate to Toril." Until now I thought that meant these Fey creatures were at that time still roaming around in Faerûn and opened the gates from there, to get help for their fightings. Why else should they have interests in undermining the ruling class of a foreign prime marterial world, if their own realm is in the Faerie and not threatened by the dragons. Or is there anything known, that the Fey of the Faerie got into contact with the creator races of Faerûn (like the dragons) and had a war or something else with them through the boundaries of the realms? Historicus 09:44, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll have to check the exact dates, but the general description is accurate. Elves/Eladrin are not native to Toril, and first immigrated from the Faerie realm (Feywild) to Faerûn during the Time of Dragons. This is mentioned in Demihuman Deities, Races of Faerûn, and GHotR if I recall correctly, among other sources. First the green elves, avariels and lythari came over, then the other Tel'Quessir races arrived later. I don't think they came over with the specific purpose of fighting the Dragons, so maybe we need to make that clearer. But certainly they came into conflict with dragons soon after they immigrated. In fact, it's even rumored the elves had something to do with the King-Killer phenomenon, which caused the first Dragon Rage. This is detailed, in part, in the Traitors short story, and I believe in some other novels as well.  SkyeNiTessine (talk · contr) 18:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The little sentence is from the GH entry -27000 DR (p.8): Continuing their work to undermine dragon rule, the Fey open new gates allowing the first elves to immigrate to Toril.

I think that means some Fey creatures (must not be elves, there existed others too, like dryads, pixies all the sylvan species. I am not sure when they arrived, but maybe earlier than the elves) opened the gates, while they were allready trying to "undermine dragon rule". Whatever this undermining means, I think they created the gates to find allies in these elves. I don't meant that elves were native to Toril, only that some Fey creatures may have been there, before they brought the elves to Toril. As it looks now in this article it seems the Fey hat nothing to do with Toril until the elves came there. But how could they have been undermining dragon rule, when they weren't even on Toril?

Besides, I have looked into the FRCS under creator races, Fey or Sylvans were one of them, so they have been on Toril much earlier. So what I meant is not the Fey of the Faerie realm allowed large numbers of elves to immigrate to Toril. It were the Fey of Toril, who opened the gates. Historicus 09:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I think I understand what you're saying. The issue you had is with the phrase "when the fey of the Faerie realm allow". You're pointing out that it's not the Fey of the Faerie realm, but the Fey of Toril that opened the gates. Fair enough. I think we can resolve this by just eliminating "of the Faerie realm" portion of that sentence.

Speaking of Creator Races, of which I will admit I don't really know that much, the FRCS (pg42) actually states "The noble fey never dominated the continent; they chose instead to rule the Feywild, an otherworldly realm loosely connected to Toril". This makes it seem that they weren't really active in Toril much. I honestly think that since some Fey (especially noble Fey) have been known to travel back and forth between the Feywild and Toril, even before the Spellplague, where they lived wasn't always that relevant.  SkyeNiTessine (talk · contr) 18:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Not on Avandor?

Unless I'm mistaken, there are still references to quite a few Eladrin living in Arvandor in 4e. Not that it should matter whether it's 4e, of course. Why was Arvandor removed?  SkyeNiTessine (talk · contr) 18:46, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I removed it because the race as a whole does not typically live on Arvandor, but in the Feywild and Toril. There are, indeed, as you say, quite a few eladrin in Arvandor - but they're mostly noble eladrin. Hence, I changed it to Feywild and Toril and moved the Arvandor reference to noble eladrin. I've been streamlining creature infoboxes in general so, where there are subraces and subtypes, the larger box reflects the general trends of the entire race, while individual subraces get list their own locations where they differ with the general locations or are more specific. Otherwise we get quite a few redundancies (with eladrin and noble eladrin both listed as inhabitants of Arvandor).

This is hardly an officially policy, however, so if you want it changed, by all means, go ahead. But that was my rationale. Niirfa-sa 22:41, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok. I'll try to find 2e/3e/4e references for non-noble eladrin (well, sun elves and etc... in < 4e parlance) living on Arvandor as a race as a whole, then update as appropriate.  SkyeNiTessine (talk · contr) 04:32, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Eladrin are celestials, elves are not

WotC messed up. I don't know how WotC and people are reshaping 4th ed given the new info. But they are fundamentally different things. This wiki is going to have different articles with the same name for different things, mentioning what Eladrin are in each edition. --95.96.117.68 18:44, September 13, 2009 (UTC)

Eladrin & Elves

K so i know this is a stupid question that has probably already been answered, but I will ask anyway... What is the difference between Eladrin & Elves? Is there any major difference or is it just a subtle, hardly mentionable difference? Is it even worth worrying about? --Solfaris Kupo! 16:14, March 30, 2010 (UTC)

Eladrin are from the Feywild, Elves are from the Material Plane. It is unconfirmed if elves are descended from Eladrin but in FR everything that looks like an elf is called an elf. In editions prior to 4th, Eladrin were celestials who just happened to look like elves. hash^talk 11:50, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

Got a more in-depth answer from Candlekeep: Since the 4e designers were doing away with the Chaotic Good alignment AND had made the decision that the game didn't NEED 3 separate species of good-aligned immortals (DnD, in their opinion, was about fighting monsters, not roleplaying) they decided to get rid of the traditional eladrin. However, they also didn't want to clog up the Player Guides with subraces. Taking the idea that you traditionally have 2 elven archetypes - the woodland archer and the snooty archmage, they separated them into distinct fey species - the elves (woodland archers) and the eladrin (archmages - keeping the familiar name). They realised that this would be confusing for campaign settings with continuity (which the core world did NOT have) but relied on the designers for those worlds filling in the blanks.

The Realms designers explained the retcon thusly:

In the Realms, less than 5% of Toril's intelligent population (mostly learned sages) know that there is any difference between elves and eladrin, therefore every humanoid fey creature with pointy ears and high cheekbones is known as an elf. Erik Scott De Bie states that when Faerie moved closer to Toril after the Spellplague, existing eladrin began to awaken into some lost fey magic. When they reached about 15th level in game terms, they stopped being typical elves and became noble eladrin. -hash^talk 14:45, July 21, 2013 (UTC)

5^th edition eladrin

This video features a preview on the eladrin and their connection with the general history of the elves in 5^th edition, that is coming up in more detail in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. According to Jeremy Crawford, the book reconnects the different types of eladrin that showed up in previous editions and explains the inconsistencies within the lore. Some eladrin returned to Arvandor, others remained in the Feywild, etc. Seems very exciting. Sirwhiteout (talk) 14:56, March 1, 2018 (UTC)

I hope it isn't too convoluted. ~ Lhynard (talk) 15:00, March 1, 2018 (UTC)

Ok, here is the history as Mordenkainen tells it (Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, pp.35–64):

1. Elves are born from Corellon's lost blood in a battle against Gruumsh. He brings them to Arvandor (the layer of Arborea) and gives names to his favorites. They become the Seldarine. In this state the "primal elves" can change shape and be whatever they want , just like Corellon.
2. One of the elevated elves (Lolth) persuades the primal elves that they can become more powerful if they give up their mutability and assume physical forms. They all fall for it (including the elven gods). Some become more attached to Lolth, who they view as a mother; and others to Corellon, who they view as a father.
3. Corellon in his anger rises against Lolth, but the elves on her side argue that no elf should attack each other. As they argue, Corellon gets distracted and Lolth attacks him, but this time none of her allies does anything to prevent it.
4. Corellon and Lolth and their respective god followers part ways. Corellon casts out all elves, now in the fixed forms they chose. Only the Seldarine remains in Arvandor.
5. Followers of Lolth, the drow go underground. The gods that joined her become the Dark Seldarine.
6. All other exiled elves go to the Feywild and stay there a while. Curiosity drives most of them to other worlds of the Material Plane. They become high elves, wood elves, sea elves, etc.; basically all the non-drow elves, fixed to the form that they had originally chosen.
7. The ones that remain behind become eladrin and noble eladrin, warped by the Feywild magic, and regain some of their shapechanging ability, to different degrees. The NPCs presented in the book are noble eladrin (fey), and the PC subrace is the regular (still humanoid) eladrin. The book, however, does not use this nomenclature and just calls them all eladrin, while acknowledging that there are different types.
8. Some eladrin are even more affected and completely regain their shapechanging abilities. They are allowed back in Arvandor. There are no stats presented in the book for those (and the celestial terminology is also not used).
9. Now the twist: one elven queen, during the conflict between Corellon and Lolth, tried to ascend to godhood in order to put a stop to the fighting. The idea was to use the souls of her followers to increase her power. When the ritual was almost finished, she was betrayed by wizards among her followers that tried to use the magic to increase their own power. When the queen strikes them in retaliation, the ritual backfires, plunging everyone involved into the Shadowfell and reducing the newly-deified queen to a jumble of memories and feelings. She becomes the Raven Queen, and her elf followers become the Shadar-kai. The book makes no distinction between humanoid and "fey" shadar-kai and treats them all as the same creature. However, it does say that the PC variant is usually the ones sent in long-term missions to the Material Plane, while others remain in the Shadowfell most of the time.

So that's it. This is the updated canon on elves, which tries to bring all discrepancies from previous editions together. Should we adopt this convention as the standard in the wiki as well? ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 16:49, May 27, 2018 (UTC)

The biggest question I have is how any of this relates to Toril. There are numerous Underdarks, potentially one on every main world. This mythology makes it sound like there is only one Underdark. ~ Lhynard (talk) 18:50, May 27, 2018 (UTC)

The book does address this, in a way. There are a couple of direct "quotes" from Mordenkainen in which he says that the drow descent happened at different times on different worlds, and they went to their respective Underdarks at those times. On Krynn, it hasn't even happened yet, he adds. As far as Toril specifically is concerned, there is an entire section on the origin of Evermeet. Since all elves share their primal memories of their time in Arvandor, their longing to return there led them to create the island by bringing a piece of the realm to Toril and causing the First Sundering, as is well documented in other sources. Since the 15^th century, the island is accessible from multiple worlds. ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 19:42, May 27, 2018 (UTC)