History of the Eladrins

The Time of First Dreaming

The eladrins are born from the dreams of the Guardian, an ancient nature spirit or celestial protecting a garden paradise of stories in what is now Pelion. (Source: James O'Rance)

The Time of Diaspora

The eladrins spread throughout Arborea, forming four primary tribes associated with the four elements. (Source: James O'Rance)

The Time of Mysteries

The eladrins are unified for the first time under Capra, their first monarch though she did not seek or receive an official title. Capra teaches her people about stories, secrets, mysteries, and the Tenets that define the path of goodness and freedom. The Time of Mysteries ends when Capra disappears.

(Source: James O'Rance)

The Time of Diplomacy

The eladrins, in confusion without Capra, almost go to war for the first time when they encounter the archons, strange celestial beings obsessed with laws and punishment. When an eladrin is arrested for something she did not realize was a crime, only the intervention of the guardinals prevents violent retaliation.

(Source: Dave King)

It is not so much later that the eladrins first encounter fiends from the Abyss, and unite with the other celestial races in a great crusade against all fiends. This goes very badly for the celestials as the fiends halt their Blood War to unite against the Upper Planes, laying waste to much of Arborea and other upper planes. It is some centuries before the plane recovers.

(Source: Hellbound)

This period is also when the fiends first begin tapping mortal souls to replenish their numbers. A faction of archons calling themselves the Watchers responds by going to the Material Plane to forcibly indoctrinate mortals to law and good. The eladrins, remembering Capra's Tenets, respond by working in secret to protect the mortals and their freedom. Eventually the eladrins prevail and the Watchers are banished from Mount Celestia forever.

(Sources: Planes of Law, Dave King)

The Clash of the Titans

Perhaps buoyed by the power of eladrin stories, the first gods appear. A war erupts between the gods and the giants who ruled the plane up to now. The conflict is so heated that the plane is torn apart, the fiery layer of Muspelheim joining Ysgard and the layer of the Primal Garden completely devastated, becoming nothing but dust. The origins of the eladrins are forever obscured beneath the sands of the layer now called Pelion. Those giants devoted to chaotic good are sheltered by the eladrins, and emerge to become the titans still native to the plane. Other giants are driven to Muspelheim and Jotunheim, imprisoned in Carceri, or cut into pieces to create worlds on the Material Plane.

Many eladrins take on less elemental forms, becoming superficially similar to the elves who migrated to Arborea from Ysgard before the war.

The Reign of Starglow

The tulani Gillian Starglow is crowned Queen of the Eladrins, uniting them for the first time since the Time of Mysteries. The aura of perfect beauty and love that surrounds her make her an irresistable choice, and inspires the creation of the Court of Stars using the most powerful of eladrin magics. Ultimately the pressure becomes too much for her and after some centuries she steps down, disappearing as Capra did to parts unknown. Ever after, the eladrin monarch is known as the Queen of Stars in her honor.

(Source: Dave King)

The Time of Shame

Some time after the abdication of Gillian Starglow, the tulani Shailiana is crowned Queen of Stars. She rules wisely and well for many turns and seasons until she is captured by agents of Levistus, a baatezu prince. A thousand eladrins volunteer to give their essences for her ransom, but when the Queen is returned she is irrevocably insane. After a few years of her increasingly disastrous decisions and horrific mood swings she is killed by her right-hand ghaele knight, who then kills himself.

(Source: Dave King)

The next queen is Naizewen, who is everything that Shailiana was not.- determined and forthright, stern and sincere. It seems impossible that such a bold and willful eladrin could break even beneath the torture of the baatezu.

(Source: Dave King)

The Harrowing of the Abyss

Naizewen proves her determination by declaring war on the rulers of the Abyss, horrific shapers of chaos called qlippoth, in vengence against the razing of Arborea after the ill-fated celestial crusade. Although the guardinals and some of the older eladrins caution against this, the younger ghaele rally eagerly to Naizewen's cause. Millions of eladrin warriors march on the Plain of Infinite Portals, while the Queen uses the war to justify increasing restrictions on the activities of eladrins at home.

The war lasts a long time, with staggering losses on both sides, but this time the baatezu and yugoloths do not intervene. The turning point of the war is the siege of the factory-city of Amalrehtan - when its walls are broken, the tanar'ri slaves of the qlippoth flee to deeper layers, inspiring tanar'ri across the Plain of Infinite Portals to rise up against their masters. Without their minions, the qlippoth are easy prey for the eladrin armies, and ultimately the eladrins are victorious. The shattered remains of the once-mighty race regroups in an obscure layer, under the leadership of their Lady Shiggarreb.

(Source: Armies of the Abyss)

The genocidal hatred created by the eladrin conquest and the subsequent tanar'ri wars of annihilation against rival demon breeds cause fiendish creatures called bebeliths to form in the Astral Plane. As manifestations of this hatred, bebeliths spend most of their existences hunting tanar'ri.

(Source: A Guide to the Astral Plane)

In the aftermath of the war, Queen Naizewen's restrictions on eladrin activity grow even tighter. She begins executing dissidents. A tulani named Morwel suspects something is amiss, and her researches reveal that Naizewen has been altered by minions of Prince Levistus. She kills the queen herself, and after revealing the cerebral parasites, altered organs, and bloody sacrifices made by their leader to her people, she is nominated to be the next Queen of Stars herself.

(Source: Dave King)

The eladrins agree that The Time of Shame and the Harrowing of the Abyss are best forgotten, and they do their best to hide records of the events. Within a few centuries, only the oldest eladrins and qlippoth remember what happened. As far as most know, Morwel has always been Queen of Stars.

The baatezu expect the fractured Abyss to be an easy conquest, but the tanar'ri prove an unexpectedly strong force even without their former masters. The yugoloths also intervene to prevent the baatezu from making the best use of this opportunity.

After being caught attempting to do to Bensozia, the Dark Lady of Nessus, what he did to Naizewen, Levistus is imprisoned within the ice of his layer, his throne given to a rival noble named Geryon.

(Source: Guide to Hell)

The Time of Wooing

The new Queen of Stars, Morwel, gives full pardons to all those persecuted during Naizewen's reign, and the eladrins find themselves at peace again at long last. Morwel announces a new focus on romance, and everywhere eladrins are joining one another in romantic twosomes, threesomes, and moresomes. It is not long before Morwel herself is courted. For a time, she indulges the fancies of the firre Jiosef, but although she is charmed by his poems she ultimately she decides that their relationship has no future.

(Source: Dave King)

Jiosef is soon forgotten when Morwel is overwhelmed by the by the courage and wisdom of the ghaele Vaeros. Although a powerful warrior and a veteran of the Harrowing of the Abyss, Vaeros is also a tireless advocate for peace, having now sworn against the use of his sword except in the defense of innocents.

The love between Vaeros and Morwel becomes the stuff of poetry and song, an inspiration for the tired eladrins after their long period of suffering. Eladrins tattoo images and descriptions of the couple on their flesh and create weavings and sculptures of the two in every erotic position they can think of. The Court of Stars had not been brighter since the reign of Gillian Starglow, and it had never been happier.

This time of joy ends when Vaeros hears of a group of eladrin prisoners of war still held captive in the Abyss, in the foundry-city of Vorath, now held by the tanar'ri lord Cabiri. He unsheathes his sword and goes after them with a small, hand-picked squad. The prisoners are freed, but at the cost of Vaeros' life.

(Source: The Book of Exalted Deeds)

The Time of Mourning

The death of Vaeros strikes at the heart of the eladrin people. The eternal twilight of the Court of Stars darkens to night, and the eladrins retreat into their hidden caves and glens. Little is heard of them for centuries, although it is certain they still act to serve the cause of freedom and beauty in disguise.

Morwel, unable to deal with her grief, casts her memories of Vaeros into Pelion, there to be swallowed up by the sands. She still sorrows, but cannot remember why.

It is during this time that the lands of Delavar and Darklove break off relations with the Court of Stars. Delavar, under the care of the tulani Salafin, slides all the way to the Abyss, Morwel too wrapped up in her grief to notice until it was too late. Only Salafin's daughter, Rhiina Surkai, is rescued due to the efforts of the girl's father.

(Source: the long-defunct Planescape.com)

The Lord of Darklove, meanwhile, becomes enraptured by his own obsessions, creating an Arborean realm that celebrates the passions inherent in the macabre. While he has never lost sight of the good, his lands are no longer recognizable as an eladrin holding. His fiend and colleague Myharial Blazingstar becomes, during this time, so desperate for joy that he founds a sect dedicated to the spreading of joy throughout the planes. These Joybloods, as they come to be called, help inspire some of the renewal to come.

(Source: Heiner de Wendt)

The Time of New Spring

Much later, a tulani weaver named Faerinaal hears the tragic story of Vaeros and Morwel. He becomes determined to create a work that will restore joy to Morwel's heart. He practices until he can weave threads from sunlight and laughter, and create tapestries that make stones weep with happiness and mountains shiver in ecstasy. He journeys to Morwel's silent court and gains an audience with the Queen of Stars herself. Carefully, he weaves from her eternal tears a thread so fine and light that none could look at it but be delighted. Morwel was unmoved. Next, Faerinaal turns the single thread into a tapestry, showing a picture of Queen in all her beauty. Morwel looks at the picture and sobs. Now Faerinaal weaves into the picture threads of sympathy and understanding, of healing and hope. Morwel claps politely and asks him to leave.

Frustrated but still committed to his quest, Faerinaal wanders the planes, studying under the greatest weavers in the Great Ring. He studies under the spiders of Grandfather Tree who served Lolth before her banishment, he studies under the Morae, Shekinester, and the Norns. He learns to weave the threads of Destiny itself.

Faerinaal returns to the Court of Stars and shows the Queen his new skills. He shows her how the threads of Fate may turn dark and gloomy, but always there are new connections, new possibilities. He shows her how though two spirits may join in perfect union, new unions may also appear, as strong as the first.

Morwel nods in comprehension, but her tears continue to flow.

At last, Faerinaal throws down his tools and simply embraces his queen.

For the first time in many cycles, Morwel smiles. And she hugs him back.

Thus begins the romance of Morwel and Faerinaal, and a new time of happiness blooms among the eladrins. Faerinaal proves a skilled and wise diplomat as well as an excellent warrior and craftsman, and the eladrins experience a time of plenty.

Meanwhile, in Pelion, the memories cast away by Morwel begin to change and coalesce. From the lost thoughts of perfect love a new being forms, a bralani eladrin who calls herself Gwynharwyf.

Gwynharwyf wanders the wastes like other bralani, finding simple pleasure in the wind and sand. Soon, though, she feels pulled by urges she can neither explain nor understand, and she leaves Arborea to fight evil in the Abyss, destroying many tanar’ri cities and razing the ruins of the ancient, and near-forgotten, qlippoth. For a time she is as successful as any lone eladrin has ever been in the plane of ultimate evil chaos.

That is, until she is captured by a lord named Cabiri, now ruler of a layer of the Abyss known as the Elemental Forge. And Cabiri makes the mistake of gloating over his prize.

Word of the imprisoned eladrin hero reaches the Court of Stars, and despite Morwel’s imploring, Faerinaal unsheathes his sword and, with a small, hand-picked band of warriors, he goes after her.

The small band of eladrin warriors shatters the walls of Cabiri’s gloomy stronghold, surprising and slaying the demons and demonically-infused elementals who guard it. The eladrins make their way through Cabiri’s horde, killing every fiendish creature who opposes them. After a tense fight with Cabiri himself, they dissipate his body (but not the amulet that contains his essence). And Gwynharwyf is freed.

Gwynharwyf, who has never felt any interest in anything but slaughtering fiends, feels a strange stirring within her when she sees Faerinaal, as if he is a kindred spirit in some deep sense. And she is also stirred by his kindness, something the rough bralani have little time for. Faerinaal, for his part, feels great admiration for the warrior, though she has chosen a life very different from his own.

The eladrins make their escape from the Abyss and return to the Court of Stars. Faerinaal introduces the liberated captive to the Queen of Stars, and this is when Morwel looks her in her eyes and recognizes her lost love Vaeros, or at least Vaeros’ story reincarnate in a new form.

And Gwynharwyf recognizes Morwel as both her creator and her destined love.

Of course, there is nothing for it but that Gwynharwyf join Faerinaal as Morwel’s second consort. And though she can never restrain herself from leaving the Court often to fight and more and more often lead others into combat against evil, against the Abyss and Baator alike, still she always returns to the arms of her loves.

(Source: Book of Exalted Deeds)

And this brings us to the present.

Court of Stars:

http://www.oocities.org/TimesSquare/Arcade/2894/ps/court.html

Gillian Starglow:

http://www.nondeterministic.org/dreams/upper/arborea/gillian.html

Jiosef:

http://www.nondeterministic.org/dreams/upper/arcadia/jiosef.html

Darklove:

http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0006D&L=planescape-l&P=R13813

Joybloods:

http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0005A&L=planescape-l&P=R26932

Archetypes:

http://www.oocities.org/Athens/7117/planes/arborea.html

The Guardian:

http://www.oocities.org/TimesSquare/Arcade/2894/ps/garden.html

Capra:

http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0005A&L=planescape-l&P=R15848

Delavar:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010504055449/www.planescape.com/adnd/planes/abyss/0l.htm

General history:

http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0002D&L=planescape-l&P=R3327