Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

(Nancy Kaufman) #1
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
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