Elven Pantheon

Long, long ago, as the multiverse spun and tumbled its way into being, the elven pantheon arose from the beauty of the land, their aspects taking on all that was pure in creation. Some of them grew out of the beliefs and emotions of the elves, while others seemed to have existed before the elves ever drew breath.

When the powers were dividing up the planes, Corellon Larethian, the creator and overpower of the elven race, chose the forests as the place where his people would live. However, before Corellon could lay true claim to the woods, a rival - Gruumsh of the orcs - rose to protest his lot. The two gods struggled for eons (though elven mythology calls it only a day and a night), each contesting the other in a fury of blows and hatred. Corellon's blood mingled with the tears of the moon and fell upon the soil, and from this sprang the elves. Born of the fury and despair of the earliest powers, the elves have known passion throughout their long existence. They thank their patrons with unflagging worship and belief, making the elven pantheon one of the most pervasive of the multiverse.

Chant is that of all the pantheons in the cosmos, the elves're the most focused on the totality of a basher: body, spirit, and mind. In all things, even art and warfare, they seek aesthetic perfection and harmony. Crudity is for lesser beings, and elves have no wish to be identified with those creatures.

The elven powers are called, collectively, the Seldarine. This translates roughly as "the brothers and sisters of the wood," though it's clear that not all of the gods are, in fact, siblings. Generally, the elven powers are androgynous, appearing as male or female without compunction. Still, most of 'em have a favored gender, and that's how their believers know them. Some legends hold Corellon and Sehanine Moonbow to be the two creators of the elven race, while other tails claim that Corellon birthed them all. Whatever the truth, the Seldarine are a fairly close-knit group, and they've got few of the rivalries common to other pantheons.

'Course, this excludes the powers of the drow. Lolth and her compatriots were once part of the same pantheon as the rest of the elven deities, but Corellon and the others expelled them when they learned that the Spider Queen taught heresy to the mortals, leading them into darkness. The Seldarine couldn't tolerate the loss of their worshippers to evil, and so the battle known as the Elfwar split the pantheon in two forevermore.