Corellon Larethian

Corellon, or more fully Corellon Larethian, whose titles include Creator of the Elves and the Protector, is the patron god of all elves. He is the preserver of the Tel'Quessir, governing those things held in the highest esteem among elves, such as magic, music, arts, crafts, poetry, and warfare. Corellon lives in the realm of Arvandor. He approves of those who kill orcs and followers of Lolth, blesses those who aid others, and becomes angered at those who defile the dead or flee from their foes.

Description

As the personification of all things elven, Corellon was at once a warrior and a poet, a mage and a bard, and a male and a female. However, in his love of Araushnee, he settled into the aspect of a male gold elf warrior, a counterpart to her female dark elf artist. While he retained the capacity to assume female or male form, he conventionally appeared as an androgynous male elf possessed of lithe build and preternatural beauty. His avatars stood 7 feet (2.1 meters) tall and displayed exceptional speed, reflexes, and grace, as well as a strength obvious to all.

He always appeared wearing a sky-blue cloak, a large amulet displaying a crescent moon within a circle, and a pair of dazzling gauntlets.

Corellon owned Sahandrian, his glittering longsword, and Amlath'hana, his longbow, which he could use to hit targets up to 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) away. He did not lack for ammunition because his quiver had an endless supply of arrows.

His amulet worked like an amulet of pure good. He had a wand that worked like a staff of power, staff of the magi, and a wand of frost with unlimited uses.

Personality

While Corellon shares the elven trait of pride that can border arrogance, this never gets the better of him. He is a god with an endless willingness to learn from others and acts on it, even including mortals in his sources of discovering new information, methods, and philosophies.

Divine Realm

Corellon's realm is on Arvandor on the first layer of Arborea.

Activities

Elves believe that they are reincarnated with a definitive, final goal of perfection. Corellon, alongside Sehanine Moonbow, is the souls' guide towards that perfected state.

He wanders incognito on Toril to observe priests and craftsmen, and is even known to take a direct hand in protecting elven borders. As a general rule, he watches over the elven race as a guardian.

The one type of magic that the Protector considers too corrupt for elves, and thus the province of drow, is use of the Shadow Weave. He is angered by an elf who experiments with it.

Worshippers

Orders

Fellowship of the Forgotten Flower: The fellowship was a loosely structured organization made of elven knights or elven warriors dedicated to the recovery of lost elven relics from long-abandoned realms.

Relationships

Allies Seldarine Corellon was the leader of the Seldarine, the elven pantheon, and was generally close with all of them, except Fenmarel Mestarine who was Lolth's, his former wife's, partner in adultery. He was married to Angharradh. Of the three children he had with his first wife, only Vandria Gilmadrith remained with him in the Seldarine. Others

He was allied with various deities from the Faerûnian pantheon who dealt with nature or magic as well with the leaders of the dwarven, gnomish, and halfling pantheons, because to Corellon, human expansion was a source of fear.

He was allied with his daughter Eilistraee. This relationship was polite but distant, and Erevan Ilesere was closer to his daughter than he was. He was also known to be on good terms with the other deities of magic Azuth, Mystra, and (through Sehanine) Savras.

There was an archfey known as the Rose King who claimed to be Corellon's demigod son. Although this was never proven, the archfey's own daughter, Liria Valthorin, became a devout follower of the elven god, leading an organization known as the House of Flowers against the drow that caused the death of the Rose King. Enemies Gruumsh

According to orcs, the relationship between Gruumsh and the elven deities degenerated to hostility after the latter participated in a prank with the gods of other pantheons. They rigged a lot drawing to determine where each race was entitled to live and there were none for the orcs. Gruumsh was mocked, but destitution for the orcs was averted by Gruumsh creating a niche for the orcs to live. Henceforth, the orc pantheon was an enemy of the others, including of the elven one.

While the orcs deny it, Corellon was said to have cut out one of Gruumsh's eyes. Dark Seldarine

Corellon counted the whole drow pantheon, the Dark Seldarine, as his enemies. These included Lolth, his former wife; Vhaeraun, his son; and Selvetarm, his grandson, with only his daughter Eilistraee an exception.

Lolth was once Corellon's wife. She tried to take over his position as the head of the Seldarine and failed. For this crime, she was sentenced to banishment. She changed into a spider monster and attacked Corellon. Corellon couldn't kill her and she escaped. Lolth hated Corellon and, due to her inability to fight him directly, her hatred took the form of hurting surface elves. She considered this at best a secondary priority. Having fun at urging and seeing the drow fighting themselves was more important to her than putting efforts in killing the people of her former husband.

After Vhaeraun's betrayal during the War of the Seldarine, Corellon Larethian exiled him. He gave up on the idea of getting his son Vhaeraun to abandon his ways. He even vowed to kill him, if he ever tried to hurt his sister, which was an empty threat, for the Masked Lord did threaten the Dark Maiden's life, without known action against him on Corellon's part.

Other

Other enemies of his were the goblinoid and orc pantheons and Bane, Cyric, Malar, and Talos.

History

Prior to the War of the Seldarine

Corellon originally came from the plane of Ysgard. At some point, he decided to conquer part of Arborea by driving out the resident giants and thus Arvandor was founded. The surviving giants went to the land, the elves abandoned their emigration to Arvandor and founded Jotunheim on Ysgard, the first layer of Ysgard.

Corellon once had many forms for every elven aspect, but he settled into that of a male gold elf warrior when he made Araushnee his bride. This was to create a duality with her: male and female, warrior and artist, day and night. He also gave dominion over the dark elves to his wife. They had twin children, the elder called Vhaeraun, the younger called Eilistraee, who was the favored one.

By this point, his enmity with Gruumsh was already quite old. According to legends, it started with him participating in rigging lots to the detriment of Gruumsh (see Relationships). But he managed to draw the god to the negotiation table. Gruumsh attacked him there, destroying Sahandrian. Corellon fought back but lost, owing to a combination of elven arrogance and support from a traitor—unbeknownst to him, his wife Araushnee had caused his blade to break. While running for his life to reach Arvandor, he was tracked down by the orc god and there Sehanine Moonbow appeared and restored his sword to him. The two gods fought and Corellon disarmed and gouged out one of Gruumsh's eyes, but the battle ended because Corellon couldn't kill an unarmed and wounded enemy. Corellon then went home to Arvandor, because Gruumsh promised he would fight him if he stayed and the elven god didn't want to risk his own demise. In elven myth, drops of Corellon's blood mixed with the tears of Sehanine (or in some stories Angharradh) and from this emerged the first elves. Meanwhile, from the mingled blood or Corellon and Gruumsh was spawned the Elf-Eater.

Back home, he was assaulted by Malar, who was persuaded by Araushnee to attack Corellon. They fought and the elven god won.

War of the Seldarine

Araushnee again tried to kill her husband, by starting a war with an army of pantheons opposed to the Seldarine, like the goblin pantheon, bugbear pantheon, kobold pantheon, and others, though this army was expected to lose. The real plan that Araushnee and her son and confidant Vhaeraun pursued, involved arranging for Eilistraee to give her father a cursed scabbard that drew arrows to the wearer, and let her daughter shoot her father to death by drawing her arrows. The battle began, but by this point Corellon knew that he had a traitor in his pantheon. When Ghaunadaur appeared (unplanned for by Araushnee), Corellon understood the depths of depravity the traitor was capable of for the ooze god could only come to Arvandor when a real force of evil was there. He was attacked by an ogre god and tried to draw his weapon but Sahandrian stuck in the cursed sheath and Eilistraee's arrows hit him.

Two factors saved Corellon: the sturdiness of his ribcage and the fact that Eilsitraee used ogre-sized arrows too big to pass through his ribs. Araushnee tried to poison him with a dose of Eilistraee's hunting poison, but was saved by Sehanine Moonbow. The moon goddess created his new wife Angharradh with Aerdrie Faenya and Hanali Celanil. After healing her husband, Araushnee and Vhaeraun were put on trial. Sehanine recounted her story and the sentence was banishment for Araushnee. Eilistraee went willingly into exile at the request of her brother for she had visions of undefined dark times (which would be providing a force for good for the drow against the evil of Lolth and Vhaeraun).

Araushnee was declared a tanar'ri and after a short fight against her former husband escaped. First Flowering

Around −17,600 DR, non-dark elves chose to create a dark elf–free piece of land. They tried to create it, and would have botched it if not for Corellon's and other elven gods' direct intervention. Evermeet was created with the First Sundering—the literal sundering of an entire continent—as a side effect. The Protector and Angharradh appeared before Starleaf and gave her the Tree of Souls. Crown Wars

The sun elf nation of Aryvandaar wanted to get rid of the dark elves as a species. They devised a ritual that tied the dark elves to faerzress and thus to the Underdark, keeping them there. Towards that end, Corellon's magic, channeled through his priests and high mages, turned all dark elves into drow and they were forced into the Underdark around −10,000 DR.

After the Fourth Crown War, Corellon urged the elves to form the Elven Court. They decided House Vyshaan to be the responsible party for the Crown Wars and believed they had Corellon's mandate to kill them. The Fifth Crown War started and ended thus around −9200 DR. Age of Humanity

Some time before 714 DR, before the fall of Cormanthor, elves wearied of competing with humans over land and wanted land for themselves free of encroaching human expansion. Under Corellon, the Seldarine started the Retreat, a mystical compulsion felt by elves to abandon their lands for Evermeet. Most of Corellon's orders followed the call and left Faerûn.

In 1379 DR, a High Magic ritual performed by Q'arlynd Melarn transformed hundreds among those drow who were not tainted by Wendonai's blood or who followed Eilistraee into dark elves, and Corellon thus permitted the souls of the newly transformed dark elves to enter his domain in Arvandor.

Post-Spellplague

After the Spellplague of 1385 DR, Corellon's power stayed that of a greater deity, something that couldn't be said about the other deities of the Seldarine.

Corellon Larethian

Greater deity

Basic Information

Titles

Coronal of Arvandor
Ruler of All Elves
Creator of the Elves
Father of Elvenkind
First of the Seldarine
Preserver of Life
The Protector
The Big Fairy (derogatory)
Lord of Cowardice (derogatory)

Adjectives

Corellite

Pantheons

Seldarine

Served By

Aerdrie Faenya, Angharradh, Deep Sashelas, Erevan Ilesere, Fenmarel Mestarine, Hanali Celanil, Kirith Sotheril, Labelas Enoreth, Rillifane Rallathil, Sehanine Moonbow, Solonor Thelandira, Tethrin Veralde

Attributes

Alignment

Chaotic Good

Symbol

Quarter moon or starburst

Realm

Olympian Glades of Arborea/Olympus/Arvandor/Crescent Grove

Portfolio

Arts, Crafts, Elves, Magic, Music And Bards, Poetry And Poets, War And Warriors

Favored Weapon

Sahandrian (longsword)

Following

Worshippers

Elves

Alignments

NG, CG, CN

Domains

Charm (Captivation)
Magic (-)
Nobility (Hubris, Leadership)
Protection (-)
Rune (Language, Legislation)
War (Tactics)

Favored Aspects

Monsters

Aasimar
Solars
Baelnorns
Centaurs
Dryads
Celestial elves
Gold dragons
Hybsils
Lillends
Lythari
Nymphs
Silver dragons
Unicorns
Song dragons

Minerals

Beljuril
Diamond
Moonstone
Star ruby
Star sapphire

Colors

Blue
Silver

Manifest- ations

A blue aura

Shooting stars

A rising, blue-tinted crescent moon

A blue star