HWU: Priestess of Eilistraee

[Schwann145]

The only requirements I ask are to keep it in line with the stereotype: Female Drow, likes naked dancing under the moon, favors a bastard sword (ie: putting that longsword versatile keyword to use), and so on.

•How would you do stats? Str to make use of the longsword? Dex to play to racial strengths?
•What class would you use? Cleric seems to make the most sense for obvious reasons, IMO. Domain though? (She's "officially" got Light/Nature/Life as options, but her stats came before Tasha's - would you add Twilight?) Or maybe a different take altogether? A more martial class with skills/background to fill in the religious aspect?
What combat style? Would you take advantage of heavy armor if it's available? Skip it for something more dex-friendly? Be more spell-caster entirely and go without?

Curious to see what you come up with. :)

Information on her faithful/church can be found here on the FR wiki. (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Church_of_Eilistraee)

[Kyovastra]

I've thought a lot about this, since as you can probably guess from my drow avatar and name, I love my oldschool drow lore from 2e and 3e - big part of what actually got me into D&D. :smallbiggrin:

It's really hard to get a priestess of Eilistraee to feel right in 5e. The best ways I've found are kind of counterintuitive, since you probably aren't going to want any cleric levels. Twilight cleric definitely fits best out of all the cleric subclasses, but you're still a cleric and probably not going to feel as martial/gish as you may want. If you don't want to gish and make heavy use of a bastard sword, you could also just go Life/Nature/Light cleric as you said. Remember though, all drow tend towards being very religious, so you don't need to be a cleric to be devoted to Eilistraee or even to be a priestess.

I think the only single class that works easily is probably Paladin of the Ancients, if you want to take more of a martial approach. The oath fits perfectly with Eilistraee, and you can go Strength to make use of the Longsword, or go Dexterity which I think fits better thematically in most other ways, since you can use Medium armour and wear a breastplate over your clothing. Priestesses of Eilistraee aren't known for wearing heavy armour, but there's nothing stopping you from breaking expectations with that if you want. The only difficulty is, you're gonna have to reflavour a rapier if you go Dex paladin, but depending on your DM, you might also be able to use a rapier like a versatile weapon without any mechanical benefits (or you could ask for a worse version of the rapier that's like a 1d6/1d8 finesse versatile weapon).

There are magic longswords in 5e that are finesse weapons, like the moonblade for example. The most thematic magic weapon you can get would obviously be a finesse dancing sword of some kind. Generally, you can't build around or expect to get these at most tables, but interesting to note.

The other best way I've found to get a bastard sword wielding drow priestess going in 5e, if you rather not play a half-caster, is bladesinger. Especially if you read the old lore in bladesinging as an elvish fighting style and even the lore on it in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, you're basically literally cracking the air into song with your blade and dancing gracefully through battle, which fits a priestess of Eilistraee so perfectly I'm surprised there's not actually any lore connection between the two. When I've DMed in my D&D setting which has involved drow quite a bit, bladesinging is just another word for "sword dancing" since sword dancer is one of the older terms for certain priestesses of Eilistraee, IIRC.

In 2e, priestesses of Eilistraee using arcane magic could also learn a special spell (I think from the Drow of the Underdark book) to replicate divine clerical magic, so I think bladesinger actually works very well as a modern twist playing off of the older lore! They also used dancing to perform their rituals out-of-combat, and there was some spells and group spellcasting rules for it, which is where the "dancing naked under the moonlight" thing also comes from... you don't have to worry about trying to make unarmoured defense work with this. Maybe reflavour your rituals as involving dancing and song, or ask if you could use a holy symbol as your spell focus (wizards can't normally do that, but it won't break the game).

Only problem with bladesinger is the above longsword one, and then that you won't actually have any clerical spells by default. Also, if you want to use a versatile weapon, you technically can't use it while bladesinging since it ends if you two hands to make an attack, which I kind of feel is a mistake, since I think the text is intended to disallow weapons with the two-handed property with bladesinging, rather than attacks with a weapon using two-hands, because doing that in bladesong means you're either suboptimally investing in Strength or using a magic weapon, so not a balance issue like the greatsword wielding GWM bladesinger that was probably written to prevent - so possibly talk to your DM depending on how RAW they are, since I think the RAI varies from it here.

Some other options to keep in mind depending on your table are multiclassing, you can take artificer (battle smith) 3 which gets you some healing magic you can prepare and also makes you able to attack with Intelligence, which can also let you invest a bit in Charisma that's nice to have for this kind of character. Artificer Initiate can also get you a healing spell on a class that doesn't get them. Hexblade is another interesting option to let you attack with Charisma, the mechanics for it kind of fit well for a priestess of Eilistraee, but not the default subclass flavour. Feats like Magic Initiate Cleric or Ritual Caster Cleric are something to consider if you go a non-Cleric or non-Paladin, as are Ravnica backgrounds. Too bad the Mark of Healing Halfling isn't a drow!

If you get a fighting style, blind fighting is definitely the most thematic for pretty much all drow, IMO. I like to flavour it as infravision, since blindsight represents senses like that in 5e. Dueling is the other option here, if you opt not to use a versatile weapon.

[CapnWildefyr]

I'd probably take a different approach. I'm not thinking any of this through much, just thinking thematically.

Usually, you have to be a cleric to, you know, be a cleric. Druid won't cut it, E's about the hunt and living and being nice and singing. Maybe a level of bard, or a level of ranger. Probably the best would be to roll-your-own domain, and add swords and survival. The singing -- well, technically nothing in the 2e sources said you had to be a good singer, only that you try and that you hire bards. Turn every meal into a celebration with your new friends.

Maybe from that standpoint you could also go all bard, but create a new college of Ellistraee. Let the bard take half of their spells from the cleric list, let them have divine intervention as a college power, give them an ability to heal everyone an extra d4+wisdom during a short rest if they cook the food and sing, things like that. It still just seems like priests need to be clerics to me, though. That was one good thing about 2e -- specialty priests, so a deity could have Generic the Cleric and Priests with Flavor.

Sorry I don't have the time to work anything out, just thinking aloud.

[Warder]

The DMG mentions an option for giving clerics the monk's Unarmored Defense feature in exchange for their proficiencies - Twilight Cleric with unarmored defense would be a pretty good fit.

[RogueJK]

I'd likely do a Ranger 5/Twilight Cleric X. That Ranger dip gets you a more martial and hunting/nature-oriented Twilight Cleric. Good options for Ranger subclass could be Fey Wanderer for proficiency in Performance and +WIS to CHA checks, or Gloomstalker to lean into the "fighting in the dark" aspect.

[TyGuy]

I didn't know versatile bastard sword was part of the portfolio. I thought rapier swords bard sounded on point before. Gets performance expertise, instruments, bardic inspiration, song of rest, flourishes.
Sadly, priestess of Eilistraee is one of those tragic concepts that has all the ingredients necessary in the game to build a quintessential version... spread out over many classes.