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CHAPTER

2:

ELVES

HE

MOST ANCIENT TALES SPEAK OF ELVES

a s the

children of the god Corellon. Unlike

many

similar myths involving other races,

these tales are true.

Elves are all descended

from a deity, and their origin

Jed to a trag-

edy that shapes their culture to this day.

The gulf between the elves and Corellon

,

and the

split between Corellon and Lolth, arose

from

the same

transgression. That one incident set

all the

many races of elves on th

eir present paths, determined

their unique life cycle,

and triggered an unflagging

hatred

between the drow and the elves of

the Material

Plane. No other event has had s uch momentous

impact

on elven history as the one that began it a

ll.

A RACE DIVID
ED

O NCE WE FOLLOWED I N CORELLON

' S FOOTSTEPS, BUT

we strayed from that

path. For our whole existence, we pay

penance for a misstep.

It is just? Mayhap not, but when is

love just?

Is loss and longing a matterforjudges to

decide?

The heart knows what the soul

wants.

• Amlaruil Moonflower, Last
  Queen of Evermeet

Long before elves existed, Corellon

danced from world

to world and

pla ne to plane. A bein g of consummate

mutability and infinite grace, Corellon

was a god like

no other-able to

take the form of a chuckling stream,

a teas ing breeze,

an incandescent beam, a cavor ting

fiame, or a crackling bolt of lightn

ing. On nothing more

than a whim, Corellon's body co

uld become a school of

fish, a swarm of bees, or a flo

ck of birds. When consort-

ing with

other gods, Corellon often adopted their

ap-

pearan

ces- male, female, or something else- but

just as

often

kept their company in the form of a rose bl

ossom

or a delicate doe.

Corellon's flamboyant,

mercurial personality showed

through

no matter which for m the entity took.

Corellon

loved wholeheartedly, broke oaths without

reservation,

and took pleasure from every encounter

with the other

divine beings of the

multiverse.

Most of the gods

accepted Corellon's mutability

and passionate

behavior, but these traits infuriated

Gruumsh , the

greatest of the ore gods. Gruumsh's

wrath was almost universally res

pected , even among

the divine powers, but Corellon

blithely took no heed of

h im. Perhaps it was this seeming

hauteur that enabled

Gruumsh to get close enough

to wound Corellon, ignit-

ing the legendary conflict

that cost Gruumsh one of his

eyes. Depending on who

does the telling, the battle was

a clash

of titans fought across many planes

and worlds,

or

it was little more than an a nnoyance to

Corellon. But

the legends all agree

that the first elves emerged from

the blood that Corellon shed.

CHAPTER 2 I ELVES