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  • press.exeupdates@press.invincible.ink
    Jun 19, 2026, 3:30 PM

    The Woman in the Well and why Corellon Sucks

    Look, let me be clear: This is a safe space for the haters of Corellon Larethian. I can’t attest for how well and how long I’ve been able to hold this opinion, but after watching this lengthy video from Distracted Elf, it crystallised a whole variety of things I assumed were ‘pretty much true’ in the timeline of my experience with Dungeons & Dragons.

    Corellon Larethian is an ongoing character, a god, from the Forgotten Realms. His origin is the 1980 book Deities & Demigods by James Ward and Robert Kuntz, which introduced the character, and then he – and yes, I’m using he for Corellon, fight me for the gender identity of a fictional character – was further developed by his integration into the Forgotten Realms by one Ed Greenwood.

    One could pick through Corellon’s over-detailed mythic history for days, and it’s great fun to do that, because the guy sucks indescribably, and I think it’s important to hold to the actual textual values of the thing we pay money for. 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons is my favourite edition but make no mistake, it is not perfect, and because I like it so much, when I find the ways it sucks, it stings all the harder. 3rd edition was written by bozos, 5th edition is for newbies, but 4th edition shouldn’t have awful writing in it, it’s the one I like. Anything in the other forms, that’s not my circus and not my monkeys, but I know where this particular poo was flung from.

    […]

    press.invincible.ink/the-woman #DnD4e
    an icon of a well
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Replies

  • Clairehokaze@treehouse.systems
    Jun 19, 2026, 7:44 PM

    @updates Despite having played several editions of D&D for nearly half my life now, I've generally avoided looking too deeply into most of the official lore as I've generally not being too impressed by the surface-level or what I know from general osmosis.

    And once again I am proven vindicated by my general "I've not read much on him, but I'm pretty sure Corellon is a twat and a prime example of why No Gods No Masters applies just as much to the 'good' aligned Gods" attitude

    Like, kudos to having the sorta dissonant "wait, what!?" stories we see in real-world religion and mythology for authenticity, but it's still not giving me any reasons to care for this guy

    (and with how tightly Elves are tied to his mythos, it's no wonder I'm not particularly fond of most D&D settings' Elves either, despite "long-lived nature/fey/arcane twinks" otherwise being an acceptable if basic archetype to start from)

    And I agree with the bit at the end on your using masculine pronouns for Corellon despite the occasional lip service to gender fuckery allegedly going on - there's little evidence of it, the guy is *exclusively* described as a guy outside of the one little "oh, but Androgyny (TM)" mention in pretty much every place I've seen him come up and his stories all seem to be the sort that happen to male deities the most.

    If a player at a table wants to up the genderqueer vibes in order to have a core deity that represents that, then I'll of course encourage that and keep most of my Corellon slander to myself as we engage in our game's AU where the patron of elves does actually live up to that fluidity in some way but it's honestly rare these days I'm at a table where either the Forgotten Realms or the Dawn War pantheons are in play to begin with

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