As we've seen under Eilistraee's page, there has been considerable debate over whether or not she's dead (WotC's ill-advised ruling be damned). And I agree; the circumstances surrounding Eilistraee's supposed death are pretty murky, what with home planes and divine essence and all. But Leira's supposed death is even murkier, I believe; we are talking about the involvement of two gods of deceit and illusion (Leira and Mask) and one who aspires to be such (Cyric), after all.
Just for clarity's sake, let me say that I despise Cyric as a character. I feel that he is the biggest Gary Stu in the entire Forgotten Realms universe, and if you look at him, he's actually pretty shallow and one-dimensional. He's like a wannabe Kratos, but without the charm and the believable motivation. He seems to exist purely to kill oodles of gods, like a two-legged virus, nothing more. If I were Ed Greenwood, I'd be very miffed about having my own prized Goddess of Lies and Deceit get stomped on by someone like that.
So naturally I agree with the idea that Leira staged her own death to suit her own mysterious means. Perhaps she and Mask were in cahoots from the beginning. "Hey, Leira! See that mortal upstart Cyric strutting around, trying to be all big and bad? How about if I pose as a godslaying sword, he'll take me up and come at you, then we'll make it look like you're dead so you can start working behind the scenes and maybe bring him down later on. Yeah, I know. We're supposed to be rival Gods of Deceit and all. But really, this guy's a jerk. Let's work together and bring him down, just this once. Whadayasay?"
There may actually be a third option here that no one else seems to have considered yet: Cyric grabbed Godsbane. Cyric took a go at Leira. Leira, being the Goddess of Lies and Deceit, quickly turned the tables on Cyric and struck him down, or imprisoned him, or "Surprise! We're not on my home plane! We're actually on yours! Now die, Cyric!"...whatever. Then Leira put on her Cyric mask and took Cyric's place, and she did such a good job of it that she fooled not only Cyric's cults and all the other gods, but she even fooled Lord Ao as well; she may have even shifted (deliberately or not) from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Evil in order to do it. Whether or not she also fooled Mask (seeing as Mask was directly involved and he knows a thing or two about deception himself) is unlikely, but hey...intrigue!
Is this an actual possibility, or am I completely off base here? BloodyBay from YouTube (talk) 13:58, May 4, 2014 (UTC)
- I'd say off-base. :p Discussions on the wiki are focused more on wiki matters like article sourcing, arrangement, development, etc. Try the WotC forum or especially Candlekeep forum, you're sure to get many more fans to discuss this with at a general discussion board.
- But yeah, it's possible. Fans have been discussing this idea since it happened, it's not a new idea. Faiths and Pantheons has the Metatext and Leira's counter-work still active. (In my game, I switched it about and had Leirans hiding out at Iron Dragon Mountain helping priests of Deneir assemble the Metatext, doing lie-checking. :) So, Leira was hiding out with Deneir, where no-one would expect. ;) )
- And Cyric's a fedora-wearing "Nice Guy" misogynist who stalked Mystra until he murdered her for refusing to sleep with him. :( It could have been a clever move making those misogynist attitudes the great evil of the world. It was a bloody mean and stupid one having them triumph, with the deaths, insanity, or silencing of all the powerful female NPCs and goddesses of the setting. (Reason 4e Realms sucks #1) — BadCatMan (talk) 14:26, May 4, 2014 (UTC)
- You had me at "4e Realms sucks". Thanks. :)
- Now that I think about it, Kelemvor and Cyric go way back, and surely Kelemvor had an axe to grind over Cyric's betrayal. And Mask was carrying Kelemvor's soul around after Cyric used Godsbane to kill Myrkul and Kelemvor (thus getting Cyric all cocky about wielding Godsbane and thus setting the stage for Leira's grand illusion). Mask and Leira were allies before Mask supposedly betrayed her with his role as Godsbane, but if such betrayal was a mere illusion staged by the two Gods of Deception, and thus their alliance would secretly remain intact...yeah, I think Kelemvor could have had a role in that scheme too. "Dear Kelemvor: Thanks for giving us the 411 on Cyric. Here's a shiny new God of Death portfolio for you; Cyric won't be needing it anymore, and Jergal already said it was cool. You have your revenge, we're rid of one more threat to our power...everyone's happy. Except for Cyric, of course. Think we should come up with a cover story about you dueling Cyric atop a tower or something? With Dubious Sincerity, Mask and Leira."
- Something like that. :) BloodyBay from YouTube (talk) 14:31, May 4, 2014 (UTC)
"Citation Needed" 
Edit
Wow. What's with all the new "Citation Needed" tags? This is becoming almost as annoying as Wikipedia itself!
Citations for Leira's Alignment and her home plane are easy; she has always been Chaotic Neutral and her home has always been the Courts of Illusion, at least as far back as the AD&D days. See Page 93 of Forgotten Realms: Faiths and Avatars.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/218384950/Forgotten-Realms-Faiths-Avatars
Faiths and Avatars also includes Lawful Neutral among her priesthood's Alignment rangs, but bear in mind that the "One-step Alignment Rule" pretty well didn't exist back in the days of AD&D and wasn't made official until Third Edition came along. So I don't see why a Fact/Citation Needed tag is necessary for the Alignment grid under "Worshippers" either; the One-step Alignment Rule is universally understood in these post-Third Edition days. A Lawful Good deity probably isn't going to have any devoted Chaotic Neutral followers (and no, I wouldn't count the Chaotic Neutral guy who leaves a fat bag of gold at Tyr's altar in hopes of being exonerated by a pending criminal trial as being a "devoted follower").
Or have the rules changed to some hyper-stringent degree where we can't even say "The sky is blue" without tacking a reference to it?
BloodyBay from YouTube (talk) 18:41, January 3, 2016 (UTC)
- I have added the sources you mentioned. The problem of e.g. different cleric's alignments in different editions is easily remedied by using the separate places for the different editions, so I have added the 2nd edition version separately. Daranios (talk) 20:19, January 3, 2016 (UTC)
- 3.x Leira does not appear in Faiths & Pantheons, but is discussed in Fallen Empires [Correction: Lost Empires of Faerûn -- See what happens when you spend the whole weekend pricing M:tG cards? --SWS]. This volume also has the Servant of a Fallen Power feat, which is the de-facto rule for clerics of dead powers. --Sings-With-Spirits (talk) 03:30, January 4, 2016 (UTC)
"Citation Needed" means "someone needs to find sources for all this junk, but I don't have the time to go plowing through books and making a project out of it". So, thank you, Daranios.
The domains given in the article were different from those in Lost Empires of Faerûn, so clearly stuff needed fact-checking and referencing. References help us know if cleric alignments are for 2nd or 3rd edition, if domains are for 3rd, 4th, or 5th edition, and so on. References – your new best friends. — BadCatMan (talk) 03:53, January 4, 2016 (UTC)
- "Citation Needed" could also mean "I cannot find any references and I think this alleged fact is B.S."Vreejack (talk) 08:57, January 5, 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, and if it does, the line should then be removed. Otherwise, if it sounds right but you can't get a source for it, then "citation needed" will do. But everything should be sourced always. — BadCatMan (talk) 09:59, January 5, 2016 (UTC)
