Todd Kenreck: We're talking more with Jeremy Crawford about the Raven Queen, one of the most mysterious figures in the D&D multiverse and also about some of my favorite elves, the Shadar-kai.

Jeremy Crawford: The Shadar-kai are tangled up in the ancient family history of the elves and really in some ways you could say tangled up in the web that Lolth wove for the elven people. Lolth gave this promise to elves of power, possession, fixed bodies, a place in the mortal world. When she made this promise, elves began to fracture. During this time in the elves' ancient history, it is said, and this is a story we go into in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, there was a mighty elf queen who saw this chaos that was going on among her people, among elves, and she thought if I could marshal enough magical power, I could not only ascend to godhood, but I could help restore order to our people. An order that at that time Corellon and Lolth seemed incapable of providing.

Now, the timeline of this is a little murky and we're purposefully a little murky about this because it has to do with prehistory. The story goes that she was successful marshaling her followers who called themselves the Shadar-kai to start gathering this power and may of her followers began to give of their own power to her, but there was a problem. These evil wizards saw this magic being channeled into their queen and they thought maybe we can get some of that. While the queen and the Shadar-kai were trying to hatch this plan, which also because might wonder well what was in it for the Shadar-kai. It sound like their queen would get a great deal, but here is also part of what was in it. Part of the promise is that with her power, she would open a pathway back to Arvandor for elves.

Because when Corellon turned his back on elves, they were basically cast out of their own heaven. She was saying essentially I will provide a way. A different offer from what Lolth offered. Lolth offered power in the world. This queen offered a road back to heaven, back to Arvandor. Very enticing, so you can understand why the Shadar-kai would be willing to help in this effort. But, there are those evil wizards. Basically, they looked at her and to them she was a nice big magic battery, and so they began to try to draw from her the magic that had been given to her and it was a great catastrophe. In the process, she was utterly destroyed, but had so much magic in her that she reformed in the Shadowfell as a new being, the Raven Queen.

via GIPHY

When she reformed there as this new god, her people came with her and thus the Shadar-kai became a people of the Shadowfell, a people of the gloom. Those evil wizards also had something happen to them. The magic transformed them and the Raven Queen cursed them and they became monsters who also appear Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, the nagpa. Nagpa appeared in D&D way back. In basic D&D, they are these humanoid bird like people, powerful with magic, sometimes they're compared to the Skeksis in The Dark Crystal movie. Again, there's this bird motif having to go along with the Raven Queen because there are also stories that associate the kenku with the Raven Queen, but we're here to talk about the Shadar-kai.

The Shadar-kai, they with now the Raven Queen in this realm of sorrow and gloom and colorlessness, they began to feed on the energy of that place. In many ways, you can think of the Shadar-kai and the Eladrin as being mirror images of each other. The Eladrin are the elves who are the people of the Feywild who began to shaped by its fey magic. In contrast, the Shadar-kai are the elves who began to be shaped by the sorrowful gloomy, monochromatic magic of the Shadowfell. Like Eladrin, they can also teleport. But they in terms of aspect rather than having the vibrant seasonal colors of the Eladrin, they are a people who are pale gray, wear dark clothes, and are often inscrutable and very dangerous and often are doing the will of the Raven Queen, who seeks to collect secrets from around the multiverse and hoard them in her fortress of memories, a fortress that is endlessly enticing to figures like Vecna who would love to get their hands on the cosmic secrets that are safe guarded there.

Many Shadar-kai roam around the multiverse when they're not dwelling in the Shadowfell to gather bits of memory and various items of historical importance to bring back to their queen. But, then some break free of this influence and become wanderers in the multiverse like many others. That's why given that possibility Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes gives you the option to play your Shadar-kai. The Shadar-kai, as I mentioned, have a teleportation ability similar to Eladrin, but rather than having a seasonal kicker like the Eladrin have on theirs, once Shadar-kai get to be third level, they have a resistance that they gain when they teleport. When they teleport, they also become spectral like a ghost because again of their association with the gloomy realm of the Shadowfell.

Also, because of living in the Shadowfell or being descended from those who lived there, Shadar-kai also now have resistance to necrotic damage. In our play test version of the Shadar-kai, which we previewed in Unearthed Arcana, that resistance ability Shadar-kai got it first level and play testers rightly pointed out that it was very powerful. We ended up pushing that up to third level similar to how a race like the Tiefling or Drow get certain magical abilities from the race as they reach higher levels. We solved that particular balance issue a similar way in the Shadar-kai, which we also by the way did in the Eladrin. Eladrin start off with the ability to just face step, but when they reach third level, then their season has the ability to give them a little kicker to spice up that teleportation.

Now, some people wonder about the Shadar-kai's origins because appropriate for a people basically who live in shadows, there have been various tales over the years in D&D about where these people came from. When they appeared in third edition D&D, they were described as a Fey people, which is again true of all elves, at least originally. They all started out as a Fey people. Then when the Shadar-kai reappeared in fourth edition D&D, that Fey thread in their storyline was not emphasized. They still were these pale people often in goth gear, many of them teleporting around, but that part of their story was not the emphasis. Now that we're focusing on them once more, we wanted to revive their original Fey heritage and clarify their relationship to the rest of the elven family.

Now, they have dwelled in the Shadowfell for long enough. Then in many ways, they are the least elfy of the elves. Again, I said that they are like the total opposites of Eladrin. Eladrin in some ways are the most elfy of elves and the Shadar-kai are the least elfy of elves. It's almost like they can remember their very distant ancestors who were a part of the large elven family, but the Shadar-kai would rarely even think of themselves as elves, even though they have that common ancestry. Because they have so much more now, a people of the darkness. Now, this doesn't mean that they are all dark entirely in their souls. It is possible to have a heroic Shadar-kai, particularly because the Raven Queen herself is not necessarily a force for evil.

The Raven Queen is primarily a force of inscrutability, a being who will sometimes help the forces of good in the multiverse and other times might seem to be assisting the forces of evil and other times not helping either very much in a way like Mordenkainen, who gives his name to this book, is a figure of the balance. Mordenkainen, it is often said is this figure who is terrified of either good or evil becoming too powerful in the D&D multiverse for fear that too much power in any one camp could destabilize everything and cause annihilation, and so he often pulls strings to keep the cosmic balance and his mind keep the cosmic existence in place. Some would think that the Raven Queen might play a similar role, but again it's difficult to tell because she is such a figure of mystery for when she was reformed in the Shadowfell after that original elven queen was annihilated and then became the Raven Queen.

It's unclear how much of that original elf is still in her and how much is she now an embodiment of the Shadowfell itself, how much is she actually a face of an entire plane. Not unlike a figure like the Lady of Pain in Sigil, who is a similarly inscrutable cosmic force said by many to be even more powerful than a normal god. Because in some ways there's almost inaccurate to refer to the Raven Queen as a god the way other gods are gods. Her origin is different. The source of her power is different. She is tied more intimately to a plane than most of our gods are. Again, similar to how the Lady of Pain is tied to the city of Sigil rather than a free roaming entity, which is much more typical for the divine beings of the D&D multiverse.

There are a lot of juicy mysteries around the Raven Queen and her people, the Shadar-kai, are similarly mysterious. I think people will have fun playing them once Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes is out.

Todd Kenreck: Are you going to play one?

Jeremy Crawford: Am I going to play one? I really like the Shadar-kai. When I'm not playing an Eladrin, I think it would be fun for a change of pace to play a Shadar-kai and I think I would want to walk the tightrope of playing this gloomy person though who has a heart of gold, who is the person in goth eye makeup who is actually trying to save the world. I think that would be a fun contrast. Shadar-kai aesthetically do have a number of things in common with vampires. They're pale, they often have a certain elegance to them, but in a gothy way rather than the vibrant elegance that you might associate with people like the Eladrin. Also, something that's an interesting twist about the Shadar-kai is when they are outside of the Shadowfell, they have the youthful appearance that you would associate with other elves.

It's just again very pale, so almost looking like vampiric elves. When they are in Shadowfell, they actually look elderly, which is very unusual for elves because elves don't normally look old the way other humanoids do. But in that plane, there is something about it that gives them an elderly cast. Wrinkles appear upon them. Many of them actually like to leave that place, especially those of them that might be subject to a bit of vanity. It's like whenever they go home, they say I look so old when I visit the folks.