Basoen Elkartasuna

The Fair Folk of the world worships a pantheon of deities known as the Basoen Elkartasuna. This complex term can be roughly translated as the fellowship of brothers and sisters of the wood, implying the wide diversity in interests among the gods of the elven pantheon and their desire for cooperation. They act independently of one another, but the elven powers are drawn together by love, curiosity, and friendship to combine their strengths, accomplish a task, or in the face of outside threats.

Corellon Larethian, the acknowledged ruler of the Basoen Elkartasuna - joined by his consort Sehanine reinforces this freedom of action and compels no Basoen Elkartasuna to perform any task. Instead, the gods of the elven pantheon seem to sense when something needs doing, and they simply gather when necessary. Except for Fenmarel Mestarine, the Basoen Elkartasuna reside in the realm of Arvandor, a term that means the high forest in Elvish on the plane of Arborea on the layer known as Olympus.

Relations ascribed to the various powers of the Basoen Elkartasuna vary widely from culture to culture; some legends hold them all to be brothers and sisters, while others believe Corellon (and sometimes Sehanine) created the other powers from the natural environment of Arvandor. Other sages link the Basoen Elkartasuna in various romantic relationships. In most representations every member of the Basoen Elkartasuna can appear as any gender. The androgynous nature of the Basoen Elkartasuna reflects the gender equality found in most elven societies.

Aside from disagreement over the nature of Angharradh, there is general agreement among the elves of Ermendia as to which powers make up the Basoen Elkartasuna. Each elven realm and subspecies places its own emphasis on the relative importance of various powers to the point where some members of the Basoen Elkartasuna fade from memory in some isolated elven cultures.

Formal membership in the Basoen Elkartasuna is determined by Corellon and Sehanine. Many of the drow powers were once considered part of the Basoen Elkartasuna. They were exiled from Arvandor by Corellon's decree following an invasion by a coalition of evil gods assembled by the traitorous Araushnee and her complicitous son. Of the drow pantheon, only Eilistraee might someday formally rejoin the Basoen Elkartasuna, but it is more likely she will simply remain a close ally of the pantheon to which she once belonged. The Dark Maiden did not intentionally participate in Araushnee's schemes. Still, she willingly accepted banishment nonetheless, foreseeing the day her role as an outsider would be needed to guide those drow who rejected the self-destructive dogma of the Spider Queen.

The Basoen Elkartasuna are closely linked with the gods of the Seelie Court and other Fae deities, and the Fair Folk often include prayers to other faerie powers when worshiping the Basoen Elkartasuna. All faiths that venerate one or more members of the Basoen Elkartasuna practice tolerance for followers of the other elven gods and for religions of closely allied species. The Seelie Court is more or less assumed to include the deities of the fea and spirits the elves regularly allied with. It is ruled by Titania and Oberon. The enemy of the Seelie Court is the Unseelie Court, ruled by the Queen of Air and Darkness, who is served by unseelie faeries, quicklings, and bramble faeries, among others. While such powers have close ties to the elves, they are not counted as part of the Basoen Elkartasuna.

While the gods of the elven pantheon are actively involved in the collective lives of their worshipers, few intervene directly in events affecting a particular individual or even a small group of elves. Like the Fair Folk, the Basoen Elkartasuna tend to have very long-range perspectives, and they never intervene directly in the unfolding history of the Realms without a great deal of consideration and discussion.