Eilistraee 1

Here is my rendition of Eilistraee, a goddess of the Drow (Dark Elf) race in the Dungeons and Dragons game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilistraee.

I did stray a little bit from 'canon' by giving her a body/face tattoo; I felt just the plain drow skin texture was kind of dull to me. The second image if from an above angle, although it kind of looks like she is rising out of the moon.

And now for my short rant about Drow ^_^:
Note: Big SPOILER WARNING for those who haven't read the "Lady Penitant" series yet (sorry for not saying this in the first draft):

I've read up on what fans think about the after effects of the "Lady Penitant" series, and from what I see it seems that many fans are not happy with the death of Eilistraee.

While I don't like it as well, I have always been of the opinion that your home game never needs to follow the 'canon' world. I"ve never played in any of the standard settings (except Dark Sun and Dragonlance), any other time I have played D&D has been in a DM's home grown campaign world.

If I ever run a campaign again, Eilistraee will still be alive.

One other thing some fans disliked was that, due to Eilistraee's sacrifice, some of the drow were 'redeemed' and became 'Dark Elves', losing their jet black skin and taking on a dark brown skin instead.

Some saw this as "you can only become good if your skin lightens'.

I however, don't necessarily see it like that, and kind of applaud the fact that an 'official' brown skinned race is part of D&D.

Lets face facts, most of the humans of any fantasy world are usually caucasian (unless set in a continent specifically ment to have another race, like Kara-Tur [asian] or Nyambe [fantasy africa]). As I have always said, "There's no love for the Brother on Middle Earth"

One final thing: If I run a campaign again, I plan on using a 3rd party supplement called "Plot and Poison": http://www.gamewyrd.com/review/205

It expands on the drow pantheon by Lolth (or the 'Spider Queen') raising 8 mortals to become her 'Claws', each in control of a particular school of magic. They are all vying with each other to get worshippers, and become Lolth's 'First Claw', her most favored.

I could see a campaign wherein Lolth 'dissapears', like in the first book series, and a civil war starts among the drow as the claws fight for dominance. I could even see Eilistraee making her presence known more strongly then, in hopes of finally winning the drow over to the light.

If I were a bastard, I would go so far as to say that Eilistraee falls to the same fate that the original good aligned "Spider Queen" did (according to Plot and Poison): giving so much of herself, and then having that power return magnified to her through more worshippers in an endless cycle that drives her insane. Maybe then Lolth would return as the 'new' Eilistraee (although who knows if she has truly turned over a new leaf?).

One other thing about Plot and Poison: it has at least one interesting class, called the Dominant (name self explanatory :-), and a companion prestiege class called the Submissive (think "Meat Shield'/Gofer). Shows I wasn't the first to introduce a bit of 'naughtiness' to the game, huh? ^_^

Okay, that rant went on much longer than I thought it would :-)