The Seldarine (Gods of the Elves)

The Fair Folk of the Realms worship a pantheon of deities known as the Seldarine, a complex term that can be roughly translated as the fellowship of brothers and sisters of the wood, implying the wide diversity in interests that exists among the gods of the elven pantheon and their desire for cooperation. They act independently of one another, but the elven powers are drawn together by love, curiosity, and friendship to combine their strengths, to accomplish a task, or in the face of outside threats.
Corellon Larethian, the acknowledged ruler of the Seldarine - sometimes joined by his consort, who is either identified as Sehanine reinforces this freedom of action and compels none of the Seldarine to perform any task. Instead, the gods of the elven pantheon seem to sense when something needs doing, and they simply gather when necessary. With the exception of Fenmarel Mestarine, the Seldarine reside in the realm of Arvandor-a term that means the high forest in elvish on the plane of Arborea on the layer known as Olympus.
Relations ascribed to the various powers of the Seldarine vary widely from culture to culture; some legends hold them all to be brothers and sisters, others believe Corellon (and sometimes Sehanine) created the other powers from the natural environment of Arvandor. Other sages link the Seldarine in various romantic relationships. In most representations, the elven pantheon includes more gods than goddesses, but every member of the Seldarine can appear as either male or female. The androgynous nature of the Seldarine reflects the gender equality found in most elven societies.
Aside from disagreement over the nature of Angharradh, there is general agreement among the elves of Faerun as to which powers make up the Seldarine. Each elven realm and subrace places its own emphasis on the relative importance of various powers to the point where some members of the Seldarine fade from memory in some isolated elven cultures.
Formal membership in the Seldarine is determined by Corellon (or by Corellon and Sehanine, according to some myths). Unlike the dwarves, who still count Laduguer as a member of the Morndinsamman despite his banishment by Moradin, the Fair Folk do not include banished members of the elven pantheon when they use the term Seldarine.
Many of the drow powers were once considered part of the Seldarine. They were exiled from Arvandor by Corellon's decree following an invasion of Arvandor by the anti-Seldarine, a coalition of evil gods assembled by the traitorous Araushnee and her complicitous son. Of the drow pantheon, only Eilistraee might someday formally rejoin the Seldarine, but it is more likely she will simply remain a close ally of the pantheon to which she once belonged. The Dark Maiden did not intentionally participate in Araushnee's schemes, but she willingly accepted banishment nonetheless, foreseeing the day her role as an outsider would be needed to guide those drow who spumed the self-destructive dogma of the Spider Queen.
The Seldarine are closely linked with the gods of the Seelie Court and other sylvan deities, and the Fair Folk often include prayers to other faerie powers when worshiping the Seldarine. All faiths that venerate one or more members of the Seldarine practice tolerance for followers of the other elven gods as well as for religions of closely allied nature (the cult of Skerrit the Forester being a prime example). The Seelie Court is more or less assumed to include the deities of the sprites, sea sprites, pixies, nixies, atomies, grigs, satyrs, korred, nymphs, brownies, leprechauns, dryads (and hamadryads), unicorns, pegasi, centaurs, swanmays, killmoulis, treants, pseudodragons and faerie dragons, seelie faeries, faerie fiddlers, and gorse faeries. It is ruled by Titania and Oberon, and certain of the previously listed creatures are considered more tightly a part of the Court than others. (The enemy of the Seelie Court is the Unseelie Court, ruled by the Queen of Air and Darkness, who is served by unseelie faeries, quicklings, and bramble faeries, among others.) While such powers have close ties to the elves, they are not counted as part of the Seldarine.
While the gods of the elven pantheon are actively involved in the collective lives of their worshipers, few intervene directly in events affecting a particular individual or even a small group of elves. Like the Fair Folk, the Seldarine tend to have very long-range perspectives, and they never intervene directly in the unfolding history of the Realms without a great deal of consideration and discussion. Notable instances of intervention by the Seldarine have resulted in the creation and settlement of Evermeet, the Descent of the drow, the decision to summon representatives of the elves to the Elven Court of Cormanthyr, the founding of Myth Drannor under the guiding principles it embodied, the creation of the Harpers, the initiation of the Retreat that began in the Year of Moonfall (1344 DR), and the defense of Evermeet in the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR).

History

Elven mythology holds that the Fair Folk were born of the blood which Corellon shed in his battles with Gruumsh and bathed in the tears of Seha' nine (or Angharradh). (Most members of the pantheon have an enmity for or at least a dislike of the goblinkin pantheons; those of the ores, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, kobolds, and urds.) Some legends state that the first elves appeared in the Realms fully formed and shaped in Corellon's image, woven by magic from sunbeams, moonbeams, forests, clouds, seas, and shadows. Other myths claim that at least some of the elven subraces-the gold elves and moon elves, in particular-migrated to Abeir-Toril through magical gates from one or more other worlds, most commonly identified as "Faerie." Myths discussing the natural origins of the Fair Folk are closely tied to the ability of many members of the Seldarine to assume nonelven, natural forms far greater in size than is common for their avatars. For example, Rillifane Rallathil has appeared as a massive oak tree, Deep Sashelas has appeared as a giant, towering (vaguely humaniform) wave of sea water, Aerdrie Faenya has appeared as a white cloud, and Corellon Larethian has appeared as an azure crescent moon or star.
One is struck in elven theology by the close relationships between the Fair Folk, magic, and the natural world. Most of elven faiths emphasize elven unity with life and nature, and they tend to blend the distinction between elves and their environment, much as the Seldarine are held to be spirits of Arvandor. For example, the Fair Folk have spirits, not souls, and many elves believe they will be reincarnated as animals, plants, faerie folk, or even elves once again. Similarly, elves are creatures of the Weave, tightly bound to and part of the web of magic that envelops Abeir-Toril.
The Fair Folk refer to themselves as Tel'Quessir, an elvish term meaning ‘the people.’ They refer to all other beings as N'Tel'Quess, a less-than-diplomatic elvish expression meaning not'people. The Tel'Quessir originally included seven known subraces of elves, each of which is believed to have appeared in the Realms over 25 millennia ago and all of which have interbred with humans to form half-elves. The earliest elven inhabitants of Abeir-Toril were the Sy-Tel'Quessir, commonly known as green elves, forest elves, sylvan elves, or wood elves, the Ly'Tel'Quessir, commonly known as lythari, and the avariel, also called winged elves. While the Sy-Tel'Quessir may still be found in many of the great forests of the Realms, the avariel and the Ly'Tel'Quessir have all but vanished from Faerun and today many believe them to be creatures of legend only.
The Ssri-Tel'Quessir-also known as dark elves or Ilythiiri, the name of the most successful tribe-emerged from the southern jungles of Faerun around the same time that the Ar-Tel'Quessir, commonly called gold elves, sun elves, sunrise elves, or high elves, and the Teu-Tel'Quessir, known variously as moon elves, silver elves, or gray elves, appeared in the northern reaches of Faerun. The Alu-Tel'Quessir, commonly known as aquatic elves, sea elves, or water elves, appeared in both the Great Sea and the Sea of Fallen Stars sometime thereafter. Although the two geographically isolated populations of sea elves have since diverged in skin tone, they are still in-terfertile and considered a single subrace. Finally, elven crossbreeds, incredibly rare for most of elven history, have slowly emerged as a small but distinct population in the Realms. While most half-elves are of mixed human and elven heritage, legends speak of halfling-elf and dwarf-elf crosses as well. Only in Deepingdale, Loudwater, Dambrath, and the Yuir-wood are half-elf populations even relatively stable, however, for their offspring are invariably the same race as the other parent if both parents are not half-elves.
In keeping with the generally tolerant natures of the Seldarine, elven churches, particularly that of Hanali Celanil, are far more welcoming and accepting of half-elves than elven society in general.
The First Flowering of the Fair Folk occurred as the Time of Dragons came to an end. The elves settled into five major civilizations along the western coast and southern reaches of Faerun. From north to south along the lands now known as the Sword Coast were Aryvandaar (gold elves), Illefarn (green elves), Miyeritar (dark and green elves), Shantel Othreier (gold and moon elves), and Keltormir (moon and green elves). In the southern realms were three smaller realms in the major forest south of what is now known as the Vilhon Reach-Thearnytaar, Eiellur, and Syopiir (green elves)-and two realms in the forests that once covered the Shaar- Orishaar (moon elves) and Ilythiir (dark elves). The relentless aggression of the expansionistic Vyshaantar Empire (Aryvandaar) and the unbridled cruelty of destructive Ilythiir played out over the course of five Crown Wars that eventually shattered elven power in Faerun.
After the fourth Crown War, the Seldarine were forced to intervene, and the Ssri-Tel'Quessir, found only in Ilythiir after the destruction of Miyeritar, were transformed into the obsidian-skinned, white-haired beings they are today. Named dhaeraowan elvish term for traitor, since corrupted into drow-these elves were banished to the sunless reaches of the Under-dark. After the Descent, at Corellon's insistence, the elders of the elven race assembled in the great forest to the east to debate the cause of the divisiveness and strife at a place of decision and judgment that became the Elven Court. After much debate, the Vyshaan were found to be culpable and the Vyshaantar Empire was destroyed in the fifth Crown War that followed the verdict. In the ten millennia since the last Crown War, elven civilizations have risen, and in some cases fallen, on Evermeet the Green Isle, in the Vale of Evereska, in the High Forest, in the great forest of Cormanthor, and in distant woodlands of the Yuirwood, but the destructive intra-elven strife of the Crown Wars has never been repeated on such a wide scale. The Fair Folk have never recovered in population, however, and the age when the elves ruled Faerun has long since passed. In fact, with inception of the Retreat in the Year of Moonfall (1344 DR), the elven presence on the mainland of Faerun has fallen to its lowest levels in 25 millennia.

The diversity of the elven pantheon reflects the wide range of elven subraces, for each subrace is closely associated with a subset of the Seldarine and each elven power is closely associated with one or more of the subraces. In particular, Corellon Larethian, Hanali Celanil, and Labelas Enoreth are closely associated with the Ar-Tel'Quessir and Hanali Celanil, Sehanine Moonbow (or Angharradh), and Solonor Thelandira are closely associated with the Teu-Tel'Quessir. Similarly, Rillifane Rallathil, Shevarash, and Solonor Thelandira are closely associated with both the Sy-Tel'Quessir and (with the exception of Shevarash) the Ly Tel'Quessir, while Deep Sashelas is closely associated with the Alu-Tel'Quessir. Before the Descent, the Ssri-Tel'Quessir were closely associated with Araushnee (now Lolth), Eilistraee, Vhaeraun, a relationship that still exists between the drow and the dark gods they worship. The deep schism between the drow and the other elven subraces is also reflected in the divisions between the Seldarine and Araushnee and her brood, just as the deific battles between the Seldarine and the anti-Seldarine reflect the strife of the Crown Wars.
By some measures, the Seldarine contain a pantheon within a pantheon. In centuries past, before the Cha-Tel'Quessir (halfgreen elves of the Yuirwood) appeared in Aglarond, the Sy-Tel'Quessir of the Yuirwood adopted and co-opted ancient powers previously venerated by primitive humans who had preceded even the elven settlement of the forest. Little remains to mark the worship of these ancient powers, although their legends are still retold in the oral tradition of the Cha-Tel'Quessir.
At the heart of the Yuirwood is the Sunglade, dominated by two concentric rings of stone menhirs. While each stone of the outer ring bears an inscription to a different member of the Seldarine, each stone of the inner ring is inscribed with the symbol of one of the gods of the Yuir. Of those ten stones, only four symbols are still legible: Relkath of the Infinite Branches, Magnar the Bear, Elikarashae, and Zandilar the Dancer. A fifth menhir is believed to have once held the sign of the Simbul, the goddess of the edge and the moment of choice, from whom Alassra Shentrantra's common appellation is derived. All but one of the gods of the Yuir, weakened by the long absence of their faithful, were absorbed by the Seldarine when the Fair Folk first arrived in the Yuirwood, and they are now simply wild, primitive aspects of Rillifane Rallathil, Shevarash, Labelas Enoreth, and the other elven powers. Only Zandilar the Dancer retained any degree of independence after the coming of the Sy-Tel'Quessir. However, she too declined in power and was forced to merge with the Mulhorandi goddess Bast (now known as Sharess) after an unsuccessful gambit against Vhaeraun the Masked Lord that she initiated in the hope of averting the defeat other adopted worshipers by the drow. Details of those aspects of the gods of the Yuir that are still remembered may be found in the entries for the corresponding powers of the Seldarine or, in the case of Zandilar the Dancer, in the entry for Sharess.

The good and neutral elven gods, including:
Corellon Larethian, God of the Elves
Aerdrie Faenya, God of the Air
Deep Sashelas, God of the Oceans
Erevan Ilesere, God of Mischief
Fenmarel Mestarine, God of Outsiders
Hanali Celanil, God of Beauty
Labelas Enoreth, God of Longevity, Time
Rillifane Rallathil, God of Nature
Sehanine Moonbow, God of the Moon, Elven Death
Shevarash, God of Vengeance (against the drow)
Solonor Thelandira, God of Archery and Hunting

Type

Religious, Pantheon