Help with Sword Dancer of Eilistraee build.

[Irennan]

Irennan,
Thanks for the more detailed info from other editions. I didn't know a lot of that stuff, may I ask which source you are quoting for your information? I have a massive backlog of 2e PDFs that I haven't perused yet, and I'd like to look into this myself, but don't know where to look.

Demihuman Deities, The Drow of the Underdark, The Seven Sisters, just to mention some of them. Evermeet, Island of Elves (EC's novel) also includes some insinght into Eilistraee's character (and, once again, she is very warm and spontaneaous in her interaction with two males there, further pointing out that she isn't misandrist, at all). I mention a lot of sources in my document. Idk why it fails to DL for you, I just tried DLing it and it works fine :/

I do, however, respectfully disagree with one of your points from the novels:

The ONLY reason that dude had any pull whatsoever was becayuse he was what's-her-name's consort (the high priestess at the Promenade...was it Quilue?). Anyway, that's the only novel example of a male Eilistraeean having any pull at all, and his authority came from the bedroom, which is distinctly similar to how Lolthite society works.

Nothing in that novel suggests that Elkantar was in a lead position because he was Qilué's consort. I can see why you would think that, but in the book there wasn't really anything about it (correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a long time). OTOH, those books definitely contain no sexism on the priestesses' side. Males are treated with respect. That said, I like that they are a matriarchy--a good example of matriarchy.

That doesn't automatically means sexism, and it doesn't absolutely mean misandrism--even more so when the difficulty that males had to become clerics (a difficulty that no longer is there) was due to Eilistraee's own nature of a mother-goddess rather than deliberate on Eilistraee's side (even in the sense of goddess of fertility, according to Ed). Males are usually given leadership when they're the best in their specialized fields (it might bery well be Ekantar's case), outside of the clergy they have the same role as females, and there's the possibility for them to become 'decision makers', even if rare.

However, keep in mind that It's also a racial thing: Eiistraeean communites tend to be led by priestesses, and drow males are far less likely to become clerics than females (or so was in 3e)--Vhaeraun and Selv being exceptions (but then, they mostly appeal to males, so it's a given that their clerics are generally males).

Eilistraee's priestesses are intended to be an extension of the goddess's mothering of the drow: warriors, yes, but also those who would care for the drow and helpo them forge their place in the world. That's not bad at all, and is what Ed Greenwood has in mind for the Dark Maiden and her followers. Smedman and Athans, however, associated them with misandrism for whatever reason.

For my part, I like drow and find them fascinating BECAUSE they are evil. They make compelling villains-and potentially antiheroes. Which is why I liked the WotSQ series as a whole. An evil party, and a drow wizard with a sense of humor. Anyway, as far as drow deities go, I'm actually quite fond of Vhareaun.

Their evil taken alone is very far-fetched, tho. The drow are an abused people. The vast majoirty of them bleeds without benefits. Their dreams are crushed when they are but children, they are denied basic elements of life, like the simple concept of genuine affection, or of choosing their own path. They are the meat of Lolth, yet they have total free will. It only makes sense for them to want to get away from that, that groups of them *will* at some point succeed and create different cultures, especially when you have deities like Eilistraee and Vhaeraun who have been there for them in Toril even before Lolth. It makes sense especially considering the history of the drow, since the Lolthite model isn't their 'natural' society. In short, you can have the bulk of them evil, but from a world-building perspective you also need nuance and variety. Especially since Ed Greenwood never meant the drow *of the Realms* to be mindlessly evil. Eilistraee and Vhaeraun are his way to provide them depth and nuance.

And yet, I was not irked at the end of LP1, because it sort of makes sense to me. Eilistraee is a dancer and a healer, yes, but she's also a fearsome warrior with a bastard sword, and Vhaeraun's plan depended on him catching her by surprise...which he did not. She knew he was coming. I do not doubt that if she had not been tiped off, he would have succeeded.

It didn't make sense to me, for many reasons. 1)Vhaeraun is explicitly said to be more than willing to put differences aside to cooperate when it comes to defeating Lolth. Yet, the first thing he does in those novels is squandering resources on trying to kill his sister. 2)Vhaeraun's plan basically consisting on sneaking into Eilistraee's realm. Eilistraee's realm back then was on the broder of Arvanandor. Basically, Vhaeraun was walking into his death 3)Eilistraee is explicitly said to not hate her brother. She mourns his cruelty, but she firmly believes that good can be found even in the darkest soul, she's about compassion. She wouldn't have killed him, but tried to get him to work with her--or , in the worst case, trap him. She had all the means to: she was in her home plane, she had immediate assistance from supposedly allied deities--(in fact, Ed Greenwood then explained that she didn't, and that she merely borrowed his portfolio, before participating in a plan with Mystra to allow the survival of all 3 to what Mystra had seen coming).

I did find the Masked Lady stuff kind of interesting, particularly the influence of Vhaeraun's personality and profile on the Dark Maiden's personality (she became much more callous and ruthless).

I personally wasn't a fan of it. I would have far preferred to see Eilistraee and Vhaeraun learning to smooth out their edges and work together, influencing each other, in their battle for the good of the drow. Much more character development there, rather than "BAM! Eilistraee got Vhaeraun's portfolio, things are now magically different". Glad that Eilistraee and Vhaeraun are separate again in the current era, and that they have learned from each other (for example, male clerics of Eilistraee are now more frequent).

I'm also a big fan of the way Kiriansalee was taken out with Elven High Magic...probably would have failed if she had been anything more than a demigod, but it was cool.

That didn't make sense to me either. That's because that spell worked no matter the power of deity, simply because it targeted *every single being on the planet*. Really, if such a spell existed 1)why not use it on Lolth (in the worst case, it would have greatly weakened it and helped so many drow escape from her brainwashing) 2)why did a novice to high magic randomly use it, while the elves--the absolute master of high magic--didn't use it to get rid of all their enemies? 3)why not spam it?

On a side note, we learned that the spell didn't work as intended. Kiaransalee wasn't forgotten by all, since necromancers still remembered her name and invoked her to fuel their spells.

I REALLY enjoyed the appearance of Corellon at the end, though.

I found it telling of his character. He never gave a flying about his children, about helping his daughter with her cause. He never lifted a finger for her. He only came in at the very end, after doing absolutely nothing, after a misguided mage had turned a bunch of followers of Eilistraee (not even all of them, only hundreds among thousands of them) into brown elves, and merely to offer those few of them access to Arvandor (a pointless "reward" at that). In fact, that's all he did. He never proceeded to do anything about the drow when his daughter was absent, and now that Eilistraee returned, things are as she had left them.

It also was the culmination of Smedman's biggest offense to Eilistraee's character, i.e. how she warped her idea of redemption.

Spoiler: lots of text about the above

Show

Eilistraee's whole MO when it comes to the drow is based on her understanding of them. Eilistraee chose to be "one of them", to share their fate when she was but a girl, in order to be by their side in the times of need. Eilistraee can feel and understand their desire for a better life, she can still see their beauty that has been lost to darkness (even when basically all others see them as monsters), and works set that spark alight again.

She strives for the drow to experience all that they've been missing on in life. She helps them rediscover the sheer joy of existence and of freely chasing their dreams, she unconditionally loves them, and makes them understand the strength and beauty in sisterhood/brotherhood. Basically, she leads the drow out of their prison (and, weirdly, comfort zone) to make see the world, to expand their horizons, and open their eyes. She wants them to understand that a different existence is possible and fulfilling (unlike they're brainwashed), and helps them to embrace it and find their own path.

That's Eilistraee's idea of redemption for the drow, one that can only come from understanding and choice (in fact, in her lore and previous appearances, she's always gentle, even subtle: she is there in every important moment of the journey of her people, helping them in practical ways, providing comfort when they feel defeated or alone, etc... but never pressuring any choice, and letting things come naturally--you can really see this in Starlights and Shadows with Liriel, and the fact that she works to never force choices on mortals is also in the lore about this goddess. In Lady Penitent, instead, the metaphor used to describe Eilistraee's relationship with the drow is her playing chess using her people as pawns. This alone goes against so much of what makes her unique).

Smedman also reduced her idea of redemption to undoing the drow equivalent of the Original Sin, which really comes out of nowhere and makes no sense, because Eilistraee doesn't care about the curse. In her lore that has never been mentioned, not once. She has a very positive attitude. The "curse" is now no longer such, but part of who the drow are, and Eilistraee acts as a mother goddess to the drow as a whole race, to help them flourish again, not force them to change their race. If she wanted to remove the curse, she'd just have worked towards it. However, she never made a move, she has never cared. In over 10k+ in-universe years (and 20+ years of existing in the published Realms), she never nudged any of her followers towards it, she never spoke about that, not even once.

She instead embraced the curse so she would be closer to her people and show them that joy can be found even amidst suffering and despair. And rightfully so, because when you are born as a drow, why would you be forced to give up on who you are? Picture any of them, after all the abuse they receive, being finally rescued and given a new chance, only to be told that they have to be "redeemed for their drow-ness" first, or it's a no-no... that would never lead any of them to choose a different path. That's absolutely not what they need, but to be given value for who they are in their entirety, and that's what Eilistraee does.

If we think about it, considering the events in the novels, that "uncursing" was actually a violence, and carried really ugly implications. Basically, those who underwent the transformation were forced to do so (the casters themselves are shown to be horrified). They were forced to give up the bodies they were born with, what they were, and the reason for that was that Corellon and the elves wouldn't accept them unless they renounced to their identity as drow. Basically, it showed them that their choice in life didn't matter, to be accepted they had to give up part of their identity.

Additionally, Smedman decided to have Eilistraee choose to abandon the vast majority of the drow (again, the very people whose battle, curse, and suffering Eilistraee chose to share) to their fate, in order to force a handful of her followers to change their appearance (in fact only hundreds of them were transformed, out of thousands), because in Semdman's mind this was her goal all along--and that, as we know, is infinitely far from being true. On top of that, the reason provided was "lol, the rest is unwilling and unredeemable, 'cuz reasons". That is very clearly something that not only would never even cross Eilistraee's mind, because it would defeat all that she has ever believed in, but also makes 0 sense, given that most of Eilistraee's followers came (and still come) from the group of drow that was labeled as "unwilling" in those novels.

Basically, WotC were pushing their 4e version of the drow, they commissioned Smedman to write them, and used Eilistraee to try to force their idea of "unredeemably evil drow except for Drizzt", even when that goddess represents the very contrary of that. It's also the reason why, even tho I'm really happy that Eilistraee (and all the drow gods) are back, I really, really want a novel that describes their return, if only to show the true face of the Dark Maiden.