by John Talisant

        The Grand Conjunction. The Time of Great Upheaval. No matter what name it is called by, the year 740 on the Barovian Calendar was a time of drastic change for the Demiplane of Dread. (For those of you that don't know Ravenloft history, the Grand Conjunction was when the Demiplane was almost torn asunder after the dire prophecy of the Dukkar, Hyskosa, came to pass in six signs.) After this time, several domains disappeared from those, relocated or destroyed. I am John Talisant, though many of you might know me by different names, this is the one I prefer, and I will be you guide on the largest enigma of Ravenloft today.(I will constantly change between the essay itself and the thoughts in parentheses to explain certain points.)

        The Gothic Horror-Fantasy realm of Ravenloft has held players and DMs alike captive within mystery after mystery from it's inception into the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons multiverse. Today is no different. For, even after the pass of the Grand Conjunction 11 years ago(only about 5 or so in the "real world"), one facet remains a constant reminder of that black time: the Shadow Rift. It is a gaping hole torn through the Core of the Demiplane. What it's unfathomed depths hold, no one knows for certain. All that IS certain is that even those closest to the fabric of the land, the Vistani, make a sign of protection when it is mentioned in their presence. That this pit of utter blackness frightens even these mysterious people scares the denizens of the domains even more. What horrors lurk beneath it's mist-shrouded surface? We may now know.

        When it first appeared, usurping the place of G'henna and Markovia, it caused panic in the peoples of the surrounding domains, especially that of Tepest. This was all the excuse needed for a man by the name of Wyan to become the hunter of those he deemed responsible for the destruction of those lands: the fey. What Wyan didn't realize is that, by becoming the grand inquisitor of the witch hunts to destroy those who consorted with the fey, he was playing right into the hands of a more sinister being. In 751, when a young woman name Bryonna was convicted by his own daughter, Lorelei, Wyan would lose everything most dear to him, and learn that all is not always what it seems.

        When a group of adventurers came forward to prove Bryonna's innocence, Wyan eagerly agreed to see their proof, for he was unsure of the young woman's innocence or guilt himself. After several harrowing quests, which involved confronting a sirine in her island domain, making a pact with a Vistana woman, freeing a geist from it's tortured existence, destroying a new form of vampire, and confronting the Darklords of Tepest themselves, the Three Hags, the heroes finally had the proof they needed to take suspicion off of Bryonna, and place it on Lorelei! Wyan, heartbroken, jailed his daughter and scheduled her burning at the stake for consorting with the fey, in this case a boowray (from the Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium Appendix III).

        However, the heroes found that their quest was not over. Unbeknownst to them, Wyan held an item coveted by a powerful being, and this was the item that he sent the boowray to fetch for him. When the adventurers left the village to return to the Vistani seer, this item was stolen from his possession, along with his daughter, Lorelei. After a tarokka reading from the Vistana, whereupon the heroes learned their nemesis' name was Loht, the Prince of Shadows, Wyan rushed into the cave and begged the heroes to rescue his daughter. The item stolen was a thing of shadows, the Eye of Vhaerun, and one of insidious evil: it became, when looked upon, the beholder's greatest desire. Not knowing why their enemy wanted this artifact, the adventurers set off in pursuit.

        Their pursuit led them to the dead domain of Keening, ruled by the banshee Tristessa. After an encounter with a patrol of creatures called the Umbra who made shadows do their bidding, they entered the caverns below Mount Lament which the Umbra call home. After ascending two levels of the undead creatures and giant spiders, the adventurers reached the place within the mountain Tristessa made her temple to the spider goddess Lloth. It was in this room that Loht's scheme (it actually wasn't fiendish enough to say so) finally unfolded. He used the Eye of Vhaerun to convince Tristessa that he had brought back her child, who had died alongside her when Loht ordered her dead. She, in turn, granted him permission to take the Sword of Arak from the altar in which it was lodged. After this, when the heroes attacked him, he melded with the shadows in the temple and fled, towards the Shadow Rift, leaving the heroes to their own desires on how to escape and what to do with Lorelei.

(The preceding three paragraphs were a summary of the events that took place in the Ravenloft adventure Servants of Darkness, which I heartily recommend to any Ravenloft DM, as it provides a lead-in for the adventure included in The Shadow Rift, and, in itself, is a wealth of information on Keening, Tepest, and a more detailed look on Tristessa. The following information is what I believe about the Shadow Elves, their relation to the Shadow Rift, and is compiled from many sources, including descriptions of The Shadow Rift accessory, and certain references in Servants of Darkness, the old D&D accessory GAZ13 The Shadow Elves [Available on the TSR website], as well as my own assumptions and feelings. My final source of information is Domains of Dread, the revised Ravenloft campaign setting.)

        The single most puzzling fact that was uncovered in the last year is that the denizens of Arak were not Drow, as most believed, but Shadow Elves. Only in one other place have I heard that name used to describe Dark Elves, and that is on the planet Mystara (from the Mystara campaign setting). These Shadow Elves were separated from the aboveground elven races during a cataclysm that rocked that planet many centuries ago, and nearly mirror the Drow in society. However, certain parts of Ravenloftian Shadow Elf beliefs and society place them apart from the Mystaran Shadow Elves, and show at least SOME Drow influence on them.

        Their stature, violet-cast skin, and white hair color match the Ravenloftian Shadow Elves and Mystaran Shadow Elves exactly. Also, the belief that males are dominant in leadership roles and females are equal, if not lesser beings, translates easily, as well as the female priestess roles. But there the differences begin as well. In Mystaran Shadow Elf society, males can also be born to the priesthood (which are called shamans, as are females), and the main difference is that Mystara has no gods, only Immortals, formerly mortal beings who gained god-like status through their actions. How could they have learned of Lloth is they worship the Immortal Rafiel? The mainstays of Mystaran Shadow Elf culture, soul crystals, seem to have no bearing on the Ravenloftian Shadow Elves we have seen. Also, Mystaran Shadow Elves are not inherently evil like the Drow, and I have never heard of any of them having the many powers Loht does!

        Of course, you say, "But he was a former Darklord! He must have had these powers from then!" To that I say at least some of his people seem to be able to steal the shadows of others. (See the preview of The Shadow Rift located in the back of the Shadowborn novel) There must be some explanation for the powers that were given these elves!

        Perhaps a band of evil Shadow Elves from Mystara found a way into the Demiplane of Dread from their homeworld, through the Mists or otherwise. Then, over time, the Dark Powers recognized their evil and granted Loht his own domain, Arak, and his people certain other powers that would give them an upper hand in their domain. Or maybe, this is the theory I hold the most credence to involving the Mystaran Shadow Elves, they found their way into the Demiplane of Shadow, and, over time, absorbed some of the essence of that place. Then they found their way through a portal into the Demiplane of Dread, whereupon Arak formed. This seems like an interesting, and possibly true, theory. But again the question I brought up above: How could they learn of Lloth? And there is even MENTION of the Drow race in certain documents in the domain of Keening! (See Servants of Darkness, page 50, bottom of the first column)

        This is not a simple matter, and I can only assume that either the Ravenloftian Shadow Elves and Drow coexisted at one point, or that Ravenloftian Shadow Elves are, in fact, an offshoot of the Drow race. How would I explain this phenomenon? How could Drow elves gain the magnificent powers exhibited by the Shadow Elves? That is the premise of my further theories regarding Arak, The Shadow Rift, and the Shadow Elves.

        First, I don't believe that Arak was formed when some Drow blundered into the Demiplane of Dread. I believe that, the same as my Shadow Elf theory above, the Drow found their way into the Demiplane of Shadow. When they did so, they must have ticked off a powerful being native to that place, who sent minions to destroy the interlopers. While this was happening, several Drow women must have either given birth or become pregnant. The powerful effects of the element of Shadow, and the magic of the place itself, imbued the babies with powers beyond the Drow. Centuries passed, and most of the Drow were wiped out, leaving the new race, self-christened the Shadow Elves, to fend for itself. It was around this time that the Sword of Arak was crafted from the shadowstuff of the Demiplane. (So explains the origins of Shadow Elves, why the Sword of Arak was created, and the Sorcerer-fiend mentioned in all of the previews for The Shadow Rift, as well as the "great enemy" in the last paragraph of the Sword of Arak's description in Servants of Darkness.)

        During this time, the Shadow Elves must have been searching for a way out of the Demiplane of Shadow, and found one: a small portal. Soon after, the elves poured out of it, and into the newly created domain of Arak, with the leader of the Shadow Elves it's Darklord: Loht. The year was 575, Barovian calendar. Soon after, the new race found out it's strengths and weaknesses in the new land: the sunlight of the land above killed them, because they had become almost one with the shadows, but they had magnificent powers when dealing with the men above: they could kill them by stealing their shadows. The Shadow Elves easily wiped out the unsuspecting humans and demihumans populating Arak's surface. But not before learning of a mysterious subterranean race of elves called the "Drow." Prince Loht ordered that any more humanoids found above would be captured and questioned about this race, for all memory of it had been scoured from his, and the other Shadow Elves', memory. His curse would be his obsession, and it would lead to his people's downfalls. Another man whom they questioned, a Necromancer, offered to share his secrets with the Shadow Elves for his life. They agreed, learning how to create the Umbra, and then "rewarded" him by killing him painlessly for doing so.

        The goddess Lloth, finding that her children, the Drow, had been caught in the Demiplane of Dread, sent news through the oldest Shadow Elves that she remembered them, and would reward those who started her religion again. One of the "firstbrood", Tristessa, began the Cult of Lloth, and became the spider goddess' most devout worshiper. When the true firstborn of the Shadow Elves, Loht, heard about the revitalization of the religion, he flew into a rage and killed nearly all those practicing it. This was because Lloth had not helped them in their crusade to leave "The Shadow." All the priestesses but Tristessa, for her followers numbered almost a quarter of the Shadow Elf population and kept the armies of the Darklord away from her, were destroyed. Lloth, sensing this travesty, sent Tristessa a "gift": a Drider baby to wipe clean from Arak those who would kill her followers. (Explaining the creation of undead Shadow Elves known as Umbra, the reason information on the Drow was needed, why Tristessa was allowed to give birth to a Drider, and the cause of the destruction of the cults of Lloth, and the realization of Loht's curse.)

        This birth, however, inspired many of her followers to leave her. It also gave Loht a reason to kill her, because she was coming dangerously close to becoming a rival. He proclaimed that she was cursed, not blessed, with this child as a warning to stay away from Lloth. With the help of formerly loyal followers, he kidnapped her and proclaimed her sentence to be the death most reviled by the Shadow Elves: Death by the Sun. As the sun rose and burnt the flesh from her and her son's bones, she vowed that she would rise and trouble Loht once again, it was 588 on the Barovian calendar. The Dark Powers heard her cry, and granted her the domain of Keening, Lloth, also hearing Tristessa's curse, made sure that it would come true. The many Shadow Elves who still followed Lloth excavated tunnels to the new domain, and one of them stole the fabled Sword of Arak from the throne room of Loht. He was powerless to stop them once they were gone, and he did not realize the sword was gone until the elf holding it had placed it within the altar of Lloth in Tristessa's new temple. (Explaining the true reason for Tristessa's death, the loss of the Sword of Arak, and another portion of Loht's curse.)

        After this minor incident, all was well with Arak for several hundred years. However, the portal from the Demiplane of Shadow had not closed. This was the reason that Shadow Elves were still born as Shadow Elves and not Drow: the shadow essence from that place still pervaded Arak. In the year 740, however, everything changed. When the Grand Conjunction came about, Loht felt himself freed from his domain. He left quickly, under the cover of day, to invade Tristessa's domain and recover the Sword of Arak, leaving his people to their own ends. However, en route when the Grand Conjunction collapsed, he was not in his domain, so he was tossed about as the Demiplane of Dread re-formed. When he returned to see what had become of Arak, he was taken aback: what had once been his kingdom was now a pit of utter blackness, as were the two neighboring domains of Markovia and G'henna.

        What Loht didn't realize is that once his evil presence left the domain, and the Demiplane reset itself, looking for a suitable evil to replace him, it didn't find one. Instead, it found the portal to the Demiplane of Shadow. The whole domain of Arak was sucked through, and the resulting rift in the fabric of the Demiplane caused the other two domains to be misplaced as Islands of Terror. His evil was no longer so much that he needed a domain himself, so Loht was left to wander of his own desires, albeit with all of the powers he had gained as a Darklord. Loht realized the pit for what it was, and, with that, he set out to wander the land, free of his burden and captivity at last. (Explaining what happened to Arak during the Grand Conjunction, the truth behind the Shadow Rift, and what happened to Loht.)

        The Sorcerer-fiend from the Demiplane of Shadow also found out what happened: he now had the Shadow Elves back in his home. Not wishing to destroy them, and not wishing them to escape, he instead enslaved them. Soon, he desired more power, so he sent his Shadow Elves to the surface to steal the shadows of the mortals residing there. When news of this reached Loht, he realized what was going on and tried to figure out a way to reclaim the Sword of Arak. When he heard of the Eye of Vhaerun, he secured the help of several fey from Tepest to retrieve it for him. (Explaining the events leading from the Grand Conjunction up to Servants of Darkness.)

        Now, perhaps you disagree with me on this. Perhaps you don't think this is how it happened. I am merely providing a hypothetical situation, as well as my own thoughts, for you to digest. My beliefs and yours don't truly need to match, and I expect people will come out against this, claiming it as "heresy" and "non-canon." To those people I say, we'll see when we hear the truth...(I believe that the accessory The Shadow Rift will clear up everything regarding Arak, the Shadow Elves, and the Rift itself. But until then, enjoy this.)

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