> [!infobox]+ Eilistraee > > <div class="infobox-coat-of-arms"> > <div style="text-align: center; padding: 5px;"> > <div class="character-name-container"><div class="character-main-name">Eilistraee</div><div class="character-epithet">the Lady of the Dance</div></div> > </div> > </div> > <div style="text-align: center; padding: 0.2em;"> > <img src="EilistraeeSymbol.png" alt="Eilistraee" style="max-width: 250px; height: auto;" class="internal-image"> > </div> > <table class="infobox-table"> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Province</td><td class="infobox-data">Goddess of Beauty, Song and Drow Freedom</td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Alignment</td><td class="infobox-data">Chaotic Good</td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Symbol</td><td class="infobox-data">A nude female drow with long white hair dancing before a moon wielding a silver longsword</td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Holy Day</td><td class="infobox-data"><em>None</em></td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Type</td><td class="infobox-data">Lesser <a href="Deities.md" class="internal-link">Deity</a></td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Home Plane</td><td class="infobox-data">Eilistraee orchestrates and supports the freeing of drow from her Moonlit Court in the Crystal Caverns of <a href="Arborea.md" class="internal-link">Arborea</a>. A place where moonlight refracts through crystal ceilings and the harmonious ring of sword song plays throughout the halls.</td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Divine Champion</td><td class="infobox-data"><em>Not Known</em></td></tr> > </table> ### About Eilistraee, the Lady of the Dance, is the lesser goddess of beauty, song and the freedom of the [[Elves|drow]]. The daughter of [[Corellon]] and [[Lolth]], she stands in defiance of her mother, offering the [[Elves|drow]] a path out of the darkness of the [[Underdark]] and the cruelty of the [[Lolth|Spider Queen]], and into the light of the moon. Her followers find joy in song, dance and the beauty of the world, and take up the sword in defence of those who cannot defend themselves. Though she is honoured most by the [[Elves|drow]] who have cast off [[Lolth]], bards, dancers and [[Elves]] of every kind also pay her homage. In [[Muxnir]], she is revered above all as the prophet who first brought the light of the [[Luxon]] to the [[Elves|drow]]. ### Depiction Eilistraee is most often depicted as a tall and graceful [[Elves|drow]] woman with long, flowing white hair, either nude or clad in a gown of shimmering silver, dancing with a silver longsword in hand. She is commonly shown beneath a full moon, bathed in soft silver moonlight, and it is in this form that she appears upon her holy symbol. In the art of [[Muxnir]], most famously the stained glass of its Cathedral of Light, the moon is replaced by a [[Luxon Beacons|Luxon Beacon]]. ### Divine Domains Many of the Lady of the Dance's clerics are granted powers of Light, Twilight or War. ### Holy Day Eilistraee has no set holy day. ### Commandments of Eilistraee - Dance beneath the moon, and let song and beauty bring joy to all who would share it. - Free the drow from the Spider Queen's web, and guide all who seek the light to safety and peace. - Take up the blade in defence of the weak, and meet cruelty with courage and kindness alike. ### History - #### The Age of Founding Eilistraee was born in the [[Age of Founding]], the younger of twin children to [[Corellon]] and his bride [[Lolth]], and the favoured child of her father. Her elder brother, [[Vhaeraun]], coveted their father's greater divinity and his place as lord of the [[Elves]]. During the [[Age of Founding|Schism]], as [[Corellon]] fought the Ruiner, [[Gruumsh]], [[Vhaeraun]] caused his father's blade to break. While [[Corellon]] fled for [[Arborea]], he was tracked down by both [[Gruumsh]] and [[Vhaeraun]], and it was then that Eilistraee appeared and faced her brother in battle. As the two greater gods fought, the siblings duelled, and when [[Corellon]], having put out the Ruiner's eye, turned to face his children, he found that his daughter had killed her brother. The death of [[Vhaeraun]] drove both Eilistraee and [[Corellon]] into a long grief, and drove [[Lolth]] to madness. The [[Lolth|Spider Queen]] swore vengeance on her husband and daughter, and turned against the Pantheon. Eilistraee soon rose from her grief to stand against her mother. Fighting shoulder to shoulder with [[Pelor]] in the [[Crusades of Dawn|Crusade of Dawn]], she helped drive the maddened [[Lolth]] deep into the [[Abyss]]. - #### The Age of Arcanum With [[Lolth]] banished, many of the [[Elves|drow]] who had served her remained in the [[Underdark]], and Eilistraee spent much of the [[Age of Arcanum]] on quests into its depths, freeing those who wished to leave the [[Lolth|Spider Queen's]] cruelty behind. Between these quests she would often meet with her father in [[Arborea]], where [[Corellon]], who could not bring himself to face [[Lolth]], praised her efforts against her mother. It was on one of these quests that Eilistraee uncovered a [[Luxon Beacons|Luxon Beacon]], an artifact holding a power greater than her own, and greater even than that of her parents. She learned what she could from it and spread its light among her followers. Those who served both Eilistraee and the [[Luxon]] became the ancestors of the [[Elves|Grey Drow]], while those who were freed by her without ever knowing the [[Luxon|Luxon's]] light remained [[Elves|drow]]. Later in the age, her followers built the city of [[Muxnir]] on a river island on the southern coast of [[Vangrallag]]. Eilistraee founded the city herself when she lit its first flame, a purple fire that still burns upon its monument today, and appointed her champion, [[Nilkairn]], as its first king and the first Radiant Light. - #### The Dawn-War At the start of the third century of the [[Dawn-War]], in the Great Meadows of [[Laphithas Desert|Laphithas]] in Meksiko, Eilistraee led her army of free Dark [[Elves]] against [[Gruumsh]]. Barely holding on against the greater [[Deities|deity]] and his endless army of demons, she was disarmed, and was saved only when [[Corellon]] appeared, struck down the one-eyed Ruiner and banished him to [[Acheron]]. When [[Corellon]] left the battlefield as quickly as he had arrived, his [[Elves]] chose to fight under Eilistraee, until, disheartened by their patron's repeated absences, they retreated into the [[Feywild]]. Between her campaigns, Eilistraee returned to aid [[Muxnir]], whose wizards held back the forces of the [[Betrayer Gods]] as the [[Vangrallag|Dead Lands]] spread around them. Near the end of the [[Dawn-War]], Eilistraee fought alongside [[Kord]] against her mother in the northern mountain ranges of [[Zeshana]], a long and even battle in which thousands of [[Elves|drow]] and warriors perished. Eilistraee was wounded in the fighting, but when [[Corellon]] arrived and pinned [[Lolth]] to the ground, [[Kord]] pierced her heart with his Thunderspear, banishing the [[Lolth|Spider Queen]] to the [[Demonweb]]. - #### Post Dawn-War With the [[Betrayer Gods]] sealed away, Eilistraee left the [[Material Plane]] alongside the other gods at the [[Divergence]]. From her Moonlit Court in the Crystal Caverns of [[Arborea]], she continues to watch over the [[Elves|drow]] who seek freedom from the [[Underdark]], though she no longer leads that fight herself. Instead, the [[Elves|drow]] she once freed have taken up her cause, following in her footsteps to free those who remain beneath the [[Lolth|Spider Queen's]] web. ### Modern Worship of Eilistraee The worship of Eilistraee is strongest among the [[Elves|drow]] who have cast off [[Lolth]], whether in the small [[Elves|drow]] towns and villages of the surface, or in the handful of [[Elves|drow]] cities of the Upper [[Underdark]] that trade with the dwarven city of [[Tholgrast]]. Bards, dancers and [[Elves]] of other kinds also honour her, often alongside her father, [[Corellon]]. Her faith has no central church. Instead, small circles of priestesses lead their followers in dances beneath the moon, most often in secluded forest glades, while others work quietly to guide [[Elves|drow]] out of the [[Underdark]] and into the light. In [[Muxnir]] and a handful of cities of the [[Underdark]], Eilistraee is honoured in a different way, as the prophet of the [[Luxon]]. There, her followers dance naked around the [[Luxon Beacons]], or around a brazier where none is available, as she once did. Small cells of this faith also worship in secret throughout the [[Underdark]]. For more on this branch of her worship, see the [[Luxon]]. ### Known Worshippers of Eilistraee #### Champions - [[Nilkairn]] † - Champion of Eilistraee, appointed by her as the first king of [[Muxnir]] and the first Radiant Light. #### Other Worshippers - [[Elora Kraok]] - A paladin of Eilistraee and former member of the adventuring group, [[Group 8274]]. - [[Elvanna Zolarin]] - Queen of [[Muxnir]] and the current Radiant Light. - [[Viriel Zolarin]] - Prince and heir to [[Muxnir]]. - [[Dinzar Zaphral]] - First Mage of the Onyx Tower. - [[Lilaten Jhalinn]] - Apprentice to [[Dinzar Zaphral|Dinzar]] and heir to the Onyx Tower.