[Lawtan]

Originally Posted by Quiet Man Cometh

Well the one word I know in Drow checks out. :P

Eilistraee died?

Yes...she played a chess game with Lloth, and sacrificed herself to save a playing piece.

Rant on series of changes to make Faerun "darker" (Spoiler happy)

1) They killed off Eilistraee. She was essentially a "savior" to the drow - able to keep her worshipers from becoming the playthings of a Demon Lloth sacrificed the Drow race to. While her father - an elven god - took her worshipers in post-mortem, all future drow are cursed without the possibility of liberation from their fate. As such, good drow are now extinct, making "black elves always evil and soulless."
I realize that they were trying to make the world more grim, but I see that they just made things more black & white, and possibly a tad racially insensitive. By taking the souls from the drow, they took the soul out of dealing with drow post-Eilistraee.
2) They killed off Mystra, the goddess of magic, and thus made magic very hard/near impossible to maintain. This killed off many magical characters, leaving the remainder bitter and unwilling to help.
First, Faerun is a fantastical, magical place to explore and have adventures! You don't irreversibly destroy a core part of that - Magic!
Second, you killed the attraction of so many groups/characters post-Mystra.
3) You destroyed Neverwinter! I mean, first you keep a sympathetic character in the Tomb of the Betrayers after hanging him because his trusting nature let an enemy in by accident...after which you killed the man's lover who (surprise, surprise) went a little nuts after you forced her to watch her love hang for treason! And now you burn the Jewel of the North into ashes! Nope nope nope nope nope.
4) The murder of Eilistraee invoked no retaliation, and the murderer of Mystra got a "slap on the wrist" - Cyric, you killed magic. At the least creating such instability as killing a goddess of the fabric of the universe should have critically injured a him.

I understand the "we need to make the world darker" deal, but then have invasions that destroy towns, and sacrificial cults. As it is, they are just killing developed characters to kill them. That, and it seems like every world like this is doing the same exact thing, which rather than creating a greater challenge, is just killing my ability to like the characters (Mr. Freeze went from tragic romantic scientist to 2-bit necrophiliac...no!)

Rant over - my opinion on matters: Dark does not equal smart/mature