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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hexmage-EN" data-source="post: 8671996" data-attributes="member: 79428">The original 4E lore for the Raven Queen was that she was a mortal who was claimed by the god of death as his queen and slew him to usurp godhood. The other deities intervened since the last god of death had been a tyrant who collected the souls of the dead, so to limit her power they made it so that she could only preside over the judgment of the dead and their delivery to the realms of the gods. The Raven Queen didn't much appreciate this meddling, and while not actively antagonistic she did make sure to grab more power for herself when she could (such as agreeing to help defeat an evil goddess of winter in exchange for gaining control over the domain of winter). On the other hand, she and her followers oppose Orcus (who apparently has many followers in the Shadowfell), and one of her goals is to build an army to destroy the Prince of Undeath for good.Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes introduced the Raven Queen into 5E (possibly because of how significantly she was featured in campaign one of Critical Role) but inexplicably changed the lore to make her nearly unrecognizable. There she is described as a former elven queen who wanted to gain godhood and help bring peace to the elven pantheon only for the ritual she was using to be sabotaged.Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, as a Critical Role product, ignores the Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes treatment for the Raven Queen completely, instead essentially reverting to her 4E lore, but with an added twist. In this take, the Raven Queen was a mage living in an extremely high magic society called the Age of Arcanum who invented a ritual to instantly destroy the god of death and take his place. The other gods accepted her with the caveat that the knowledge of the ritual she created was to be hidden away. Despite this, several other mages of the time attempted to recreate her ritual. Though most only succeeded in killing themselves, one inadvertantly unleashed the evil gods upon the world. In a way, the goddess of death brought about the death of the Age of Arcanum.Also she has a really cool temple in the Shadowfell called Raven's Eyrie (according to the 4E supplement The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought & Beyond).[ATTACH=full]251730[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

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