Hello everybody Jorphdan here the PH is silent.
It’s Halloween as of publishing this and it got me thinking about spooky stuff.
So I had a few ideas to talk about creepy figures in the D&D Multiverse and decided
on the Raven Queen.
We’ll save some of the others for next Halloween!
The Raven Queen wasn’t originally part of the Forgotten Realms, but her popularity in
4th edition she managed to wiggle her way into the realms via Mordenkainen's Tome of
Foes.
More of a power than a deity, she exists in the Shadowfell and is associated with death.
It is said the name of the god of death is long forgotten but she is called the Raven
Queen.
The spinner of fate and the patron of winter.
It is the Raven Queen that marks the end of each mortal life in the D&D Cosmology.
The Raven Queen is a mystery really.
To look upon her is to go insane.
Those that have witnessed the tiniest glimpse of the raven queen speak of terrible shadows
clawing their innermost thoughts, or a pale regal elf that explodes into an untold number
of ravens.
Or an unknown presence that pulls them screaming into gloom.
Her realm is the Shadowfell.
She lives there within the Fortress of Memories.
The origins of the Raven Queen is tied to that of the ancient elves.
There is going to be a few discrepancies with this video as the lore has changed from 4th
edition to 5th edition.
Or rather there is the 4th edition version of this and there is the Forgotten Realms
updated 5th edition version of events.
I’m not sure if one rewrites the other or if they both exist in their own pocket worlds.
That’s up for you to decide.
In the 4th edition lore the Raven Queen was a mortal queen, a warrior or a figure of great
power.
Despite all her power she was still under the thumb of death, and would die.
The God of Death at the time was Nerull, who was seeking to become king of all the gods.
The god of death was so taken with the Raven Queen that he made her his queen and called
her Nera.
It was through Nerull that the Raven Queen learned to harness power from the souls of
the dead.
Using this new found power she usurped Nerull and took up his mantle.
She then became the Raven Queen and was called Nera no longer.
The other gods allowed this to happen with one exception.
The Raven Queen was to become the god of death and not of the dead.
Her position would be to safeguard a soul’s passage from the natural world to whatever
lay beyond.
The Raven Queen hated being chained up like this, not able to devour and use souls for
whatever purpose she willed.
So she left the Astral Sea and created a palace in the Shadowfell.
There she could unlock the secrets of soul magic in peace.
It is at this point that the Raven Queen very carefully chose sides with other deities to
gather more portfolios and thus power.
Again this is 4th edition lore, but she sided with Corellon in the war against Lolth and
claimed Lolth's domain of fate for her own.
She did the same Khala, the then god of winter that was fighting against the other deities.
She sided with the resistance to stake a claim in the portfolio of winter.
Khala being a 4th edition deity and not in the Forgotten Realms.
5th edition Lore the Raven Queen is heavily tied to the elves.
She was one of the early elfs and a great queen.
Her followers apparently loved her more than they loved the gods.
While Corellon and Lolth were fighting she attempted to gain godly status by using the
souls of the dead and the magic of her people.
Her goal was to become a beacon for the fractured elf pantheon and unite them once more.
Legend says she attempted to get Corellon and Lolth to work together and find peace
but her true motives are lost to myth.
Now certain elves loved the Raven Queen and aided in her ascension to god status.
The elves that offered their magic and their very souls to the Raven Queen became known
as the Shadar-kai.
Now we’ve spoken about the Shadar-kai in an earlier video, they were humans that made
their way to the shadowfell.
But this was changed at least for forgotten realms mythology and/or 5th edition mythology.
They are now elves that are tied to the Raven Queen.
For more information you can watch this video on the Shadowfell in the top right corner
of the screen.
Using her Shadar-Kai the Raven Queen hoped to forge a path through the Feywild into Arvandor.
Arvandor is the location of the elvish pantheon, it’s the first layer of Arborea which is
part of the great wheel cosmology.
Some evil wizards discovered the power that is the Raven Queen and started syphoning off
magical energy from her followers the Shadar-kai.
She reached out to stop them in a panic and caused a backlash of magical energy.
The Raven Queen and her followers, the Shadar-kai, were pulled into the Shadowfell.
Here the elf queen that was attempting to rise to godhood died, and the Raven Queen
was born.
To solidify herself here in the Shadowfell she pulled a bunch of dead memories around
her.
Creating a cloak of identities that sustains her.
They’ve given shape to the Raven Queen keeping her from dissipating into nothingness.
This also keeps her mysterious as she fills her realm with shadows and memories.
She even crafted a home for herself and the Shadar-kai here in the Shadowfell called the
Fortress of Memories.
It is built upon the remnants of dead gods and mortals, filled with mournful memories
and echoes of the past.
You can read about this more in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, which is the main, and I believe
only book for 5th edition Raven Queen Lore.
I feel they wanted to make a counterpart to the Eladrin.
We have elves of the feywild we need elves of the shadowfell.
Tying the Raven Queen’s history in with the elves made sense.
For more 4th edition lore I recommend Dungeon Magazine 171, which you can find a link to
in the doobly do below.
The Raven Queen is not inherently evil, nor is she good.
Death is a fact of life.
She might be distant or detached but she is not an evil figure.
The Raven Queen is death's guardian and holds the path for each soul as they wander their
way into the afterlife.
Her three areas or portfolios are death, fate, and winter.
Each is related, but the last two are reflections of her main role as the god of death.
Few people worship the Raven Queen, and those that do offer blunt advice and realistic expectations.
They do little to soften the Raven Queen’s presence in the world and often reinforce
her shadowy reputation.
She is a unique deity, or power in that you can be both a cleric of the Raven Queen or
a Warlock of the Raven Queen.
Either trading your soul for power, or some other deal that would fit your campaign story.
Thanks for watching everyone!
Thanks so much to my patrons on Patreon that keep these videos going.
If you’d like to find out more information on becoming a patron click the link at the
end of this video, or in the doobly do below.
I hoped you enjoyed today’s video, the Raven Queen is just a fantastic character in the
DnD Universe.
Thanks again for sharing these videos with your gaming group and I’ll see you all in
the next video!