What They Don't Tell You About The Rise & Fall of Elves - D&D Timeline

This is Part 2 of our History of the Forgotten Realms series.

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[ArcturusMinsk]

whelp, the draconic civilization just proved to everyone that even an entire society, working together, can still roll a 1.

[Colonel_Spectre]

Sun Elves: Start brutal war
Dark Elves: respond and get punished

Kinda f*cked

[andrzej]

In addition to the history of drows, it's worth mentioning, that the Fearzress (magical energy of the Underdark) is actually the remnant magic of the Corellon's Curse. So the drows now use as the source of their magical power the same magic, that made them what they are.

And please, give Imaskari some love in the next episode, they are greatly unappreciated

[Shatterwings]

I swear and continue to believe the Sun-Elves got a slap on the wrist as to comparatively what happened to the Drow. They should have been equally given the same curse to never see the sun again as the Drow were.

[sbits_yo]

As someone who has been reading Forgoten realms books for the past 21 years, i cant say in words how much i love those Lore videos. Thanks you brother for your time and effort !!!

[cubescihist]

D&D: "In this universe, Good and Evil are OBJECTIVE and ABSOLUTE"
Also D&D: Corellon, a GOOD-aligned deity, curses the innocent and the unborn.

[christopherbottelson]

Every....Single....Dark Elf....
Chills brother...well said...
Love all your material Rhexx, never stop...

[justinmaitland]

The book where the sacrifice of the winged elves was revealed was well done, the bladesinger has such a powerful character arc. Dnd has such loving loresmiths.

[Bloodletter]

Interesting detail about the Ilythiir: Dun-Tharos, the seat of the Rotting Man in 3rd Edition, was built on top of dungeons of Ilythiiri make. So they spread far more east than shown on most maps.

[lordmars]

You missed 4 "big" things

1st. The excuse for the peaceful annexation.
The high elves were elves that escaped the fey. The king of the sun elves traced/claimed his ancestry went back to the lost prince of the green elves (abducted by fey). So pretty please give me the kingdom it should have belonged to my ancestor.

2nd. (Not sure of the cannonicity of this) it wasn't prayer to the gods that caused the descent. It was a ritual on par with the first sundering to force corellon to sanction the dark elves. It backfired horribly killing all the mages involved though its purpose fulfilled. This also led to the sanction of sun elves that had commissioned the ritual.

3rd. When the leaders of the sun elves were cornered in the 5th war they too resorted to foul pacts including a fallen angel that was pretty important if memory serves.

4th. The dwarves had travelled to the western continent during the crown wars. They bore witness to war crimes (I now suspect that storm) and offered shelter to the other sentients. When the other peoples left the new dwarfholds they carried with them the dwarves name for the land Faerüin, a direct callout to the elves actions; this is how the continent got its name. The dwarves took all this as a lesson not to get involved in others politics which has led to their largely isolationist nature.

Dwarves also hate how the subsequent generations of elves act as if their people had never sinned, though that's more likely projection of their biases as the dwarves also don't talk about the spawn wars and their ancestors misdeeds. (This is good roleplay fodder, though last time I used it I just got shouted down with "DUG TOO DEEP, DUG TOO DEEP" which is weird because she wasn't playing an elf and we weren't in middle earth.)

[Xhalph]

Excellent video!

I've previously incorporated Crown Wars history into a drow character. He starts out with typical drow supremacist attitudes, and an evil might-makes-right alignment. In the course of his ruin-delving adventures, he finds evidence that his House was originally founded by dark elf refugees from Miyeritar. This causes an identity crisis, and he's initially disgusted by the thought of being descended from innocent victims. Hopefully he mellows out and becomes more kind-hearted. A big theme for him is, "You can take the drow out of the Underdark, but can you take the Underdark out of the drow?"

Ideally I'd want one of three endings for him. A) He's last seen walking into a magical storm to stop it, mirroring the wizards who fought against the Dark Disaster. B) He retires to his own private demiplane where can finally relax and study The Art to his heart's content. C) He and a group of other dark elves reconcile with the surface elves enough that he is able to go live on Evermeet and study to be a High Mage.

[YeaItsMeMatt]

What an epic tale brought to us by one of the greatest loremasters on YouTube!!! Thank you for all of your hard work brother!! 💚

[cameronpearce]

I love the idea of playing a coven of spellcasters who came from times of great ruin. A survivor from the Saruuk, Dark Elves, Netherese, and Imaskari respectively, maybe trying to avenge their fallen people or preserve what little of their culture is left and ensure such ruin never befalls another civilisation

[josephjohnson]

I created a "Return of Araushnee" campaign 5 years back because I always thought she got a bad deal with the writing of elf lore. Corellon just happened to marry an "evil bitch" out of all the other seldarine? No! So the campaign has your elf or drow characters re-examine clues about the fall and the descent to prove her evil or exonerate her culpability.

In my own homebrew you discover that while the overgod AO deals with deities the overgod OO (the grey one) deals with mortals. And the mortal races would be hampered by how OP the elves were. Corellon was given a choice, willfully diminish them or watch their dominion be shattered from with in. Corellon could not take any action that would demand he shine any less brighter. OO departed and everything was good for a time. With Araushnee's help ( because she was friends with the Goddess Nauladii who returned from the Prime with the mortal Template required to make mortal species) they made elves into a reality and many different flavors. Her people were darker skinned and lived closer to the earth and hunted the things that flourished in dark places, keeping other elves safe as they lived high in the trees mostly ignoring the combat below.

Corellon would be tricked into giving her a bejeweled spider necklace that was in fact was a slime called Lolth from the abyss. Lolth need only Bite her, and did so while she carried the twins. Lolth could not corrupt her heart but her children weren't protected. Seeing his sister suffering, Vhearun breathed in all the poison that was in the womb. When the twins were born Corellon rejoiced at seeing his Daughter but rejected the corrupted Vhearun, even question Araushnee fidelity (which causes the scorpion God to leave the seldarine in disgust). This breaks her heart and lolth seeps in. From that point it was a losing battle against lolth for control of her body. Previous lore picks up here with lolth striking Corellon and being banished. But Corellon realized this was how OO would break him, and a deep melancholy set in that affects all elves thru him. A desire for the perfect past.

The second part of the campaign see the characters help the goddess Nauladii separate Araushnee from lolth. (She had to wait until lolth was a greater God with power enough for both of them to become intermediate goddess.) This allows Araushnee to create a trinity with her children, and creates a proper redemption arc for drow characters. It also touches off a major civil war in the underdark (which would have been part three but we never got that far). Sadly, WOTC and RA want to go a God vs godless civil war for drow, which I think is terrible lore.

[marcvanlieshout]

Dude i love your stuff to me you are like a college professor on the history and physics of dnd. Keep going love ya man.

[Aerowarrier]

I really want to make a campaign where after having some time to get your party known by people, you’re approached by either the mayor of the city you’ve been working in, the leader of the underground crime syndicate, or some outside force that isn’t truly known. Regardless of who contacts you, it leads to you descending into the Underdark to steal/rob/buy a spelljammer from mindflayers, then to travel into some dwarven or gnomish place to get weapons with the end goal being to travel to space and destroy the comet. It turns out that the mayor is a gold dragon and the crime boss is a green dragon, the two of them having pooled their resources to hire people to destroy that comet and free dragon kind from the Draco rage. The third party, however, is a black dragon, who also wants to destroy the comet but intends to drop it on top of the city in the process, ya know typical comic book villain shit like black dragons do

[Blade_]

One of the things i heard/read ( it's been so long, i don't remember where) was that Corellon's anger at Lolth was so great that all he needed was an excuse to curse and banish those that resembled her.

[Shadowslave]

very well done. glad to see such in depth history and lore brought to the internet for ppl to learn. i have met so many players that have no idea why the FR is the way it is. they just look at the FR and whine about how they dont understand and how it should be changed for whatever reason. thanks to you and others like you we can point ppl here to watch a video that summarizes entire works of lore into digestible pieces for ppl that had no previous knowledge of the world and its history. Gratzi Good Creator...

[dylanknight]

Long time watcher, first time commenting. I love your content. I appreciate how much work you put in to these videos 🖤

[christineherrmann]

i'm running Forgotten Realms and we're all playing elves. i knew some of this history, but this is just so well-laid out. Thank you!