Raven Queen
- The Raven Queen did not possess or manifest a physical form, instead appearing as a miscellany of symbols, perceptions, and images.
- The Raven Queen was obsessed with collecting and observing mementos and fragments of memories and essences.
- Many sages speculated that she was in fact insane, believing her methods and behavior little more than aimless curiosity or a desperate attempt to prevent her fragile existence from fading into oblivion. Others maintained that there was a cosmological function that was performed by the Queen's actions, as she purified souls by forcing mortals to deal with their fears and pains. It was believed that her true intentions were only known to the Lady of Pain.[10|10]
- It is believed that when Corellon and Lolth were locked in conflict, she tried to use the souls and magic of her people to elevate herself to godly status, thus salvaging the fractured pantheon of the elves. Afterward, the legends suggest, she would attempt to implore Corellon and Lolth to come to their senses.
- As she rose in power, many powerful elves offered their souls and magical abilities to help her achieve her goal. This is the origin of the shadar-kai. They believed she would unify the elves as she used their souls to forge a pathway through the Feywild to Arvandor
- As she grew in power, a group of evil wizards among her followers saw an opportunity to siphon off the energy of the shadar-kai for themselves. They performed a ritual that was ultimately stopped by the Raven Queen. Unfortunately, things went sideways when her supernatural rage corrupted their ritual and sucked her into the Shadowfell where she was killed.
- From her ruined mind and body, the Raven Queen was born.[1]
The shadar-kai watched as she fell deeper and deeper into a divine madness. Her pain and turmoil over the betrayal of her wizards, the destruction of her kingdom, and her failure at attaining godhood all contributed to her descent into an unquenchable sorrow. At the same time, the energy of the corrupted ritual was still transforming her, breaking down her form from a physical one into an entity composed of symbols, images, and perceptions. To keep herself from dissipating entirely into nothingness, the queen used the last vestiges of her personal power to pull dead memories from the Shadowfell about her, creating a cloak of identities that sustained her. Over centuries, those dark memories accumulated and coalesced to give shape to the entity now known as the Raven Queen.
The Raven Queen has come to rely on Zaithar's skills in deception, spycraft, and stealth. She sends Zaithar on sensitive quests to gather intelligence and enact her will in other planes. While many believe the Raven Queen to be mad and preoccupied with collecting meaningless trinkets and souls, Zaithar has come to understand that the queen has larger plans, however mysterious they may be.
Divine Realm
One of the Raven Queen's divine realms in the Shadowfell was a castle known as the Fortress of Memories. It was a place of overwhelming sorrow, overflowing with memories taken from mortals and fragments of dead deities, material objects collected by the shadar-kai and brought to her as gifts, and apparitions of creatures and places associated with strongly emotional stories. Swarms of ravens occasionally flew out of the fortress, taking her cryptic messages to the far reaches of the multiverse and acting as the Queen's eyes and ears while away.[2|2]
The Raven Queen was also said to claim a domain in the Shadowfell known as Letherna, a fortress of black ice within a frozen forest through which the souls of the deceased had to pass before reaching the afterlife, according to some versions of the World Axis cosmology.[14|14]
Activities
The whole existence of the Raven Queen was focused on collecting memories and strong emotions, typically associated with loss and tragedy. To that end, she dispatched shadar-kai to the far confines of the multiverse to wait for such an event to unfold, as scouted by her ravens. Then they collected mementos, such as trinkets, memories from the living and sometimes the souls of the dead, and brought them back to her.[10|10]
The Raven Queen also claimed domain of the souls of all shadar-kai, which always returned to her after their deaths.[10|10]
She was said to have forged the first weapons infused with shadow magic. These sentient blades, such as the Blackrazor, were found in many locations throughout the multiverse and were capable of binding with their wielders. For that reason, the Raven Queen was a popular hexblade patron among warlocks.[15|15]