She sounds an awful lot like the Morrigan from Irish myth.

I like the Raven Queen, a neutrally aligned rather than an evil god of death makes a lot more sense as death is an inevitable and natural result of life.

Raven Queen is one of the most interesting deities in D&D

10:30 Liam O'brian cameo.

Okay... those vulture headed people are CLEARLY Skexxies.

The Lady of Pain, The Raven Queen, even Auriel the Frostmaiden to a certain extent, what is with D&D making their goddesses enigmatic and aloof?

My expectation clicking on this video: AJ talking about my favorite D&D Deity, maybe some Critical Role jokes concerning Vax, how to use the Raven Queen in play. Me half way through the video: "Did I just click on a D&D conspiracy theory video? OH MY GODS I am writing a fanfiction about a Knight who takes on a fief and it has a major temple of the Raven Queen. Anyway I thought in this world of Material Plane she battled Wee Jas and stole her "mask". So this is totally valid thing that I didn't know until now.

OOOOOooooo hey. A Kenku Raven Queen Warlock... thatd be fun to play. XD

She seems like a death god version of Morrigan

I am curious what her relationship with Kelemvor is like. I would imagine they and their clergy get along alright, considering the apparent overlap in their purview.

My take is that she's working to maintain the balance & her gathering up of other gods' powers is because she straight-up doesn't trust most of the other gods not to mess something up, so she's taking away their toys - however, she understands the concept of absolute power corrupting absolutely, which is why she stays as hands-off as possible & doesn't generally intervene too directly (except against undead, which are completely unnatural & therefore fair game) since she's also keeping an eye on herself. The way she gained power from multiple sources willingly pledging a portion of their own even feels like a kind of democratisation of magical power, ensuring that she could be de-powered if she started going off the rails.

What if The Raven Queen eventually turns into The Lady of Pain and, with time travel already established in D&D, goes back and forms Sigil? A powerful entity that has god-like, and seemingly above, powers who refuses to be worshipped and allows no other gods in her presence. If TLoP were a Leshay no one would know as their history is unknown (possibly unknowable?) and that could be attributed to her having purposely worked to obfuscate anything to do with herself. The Leshay can manifest weapons that are part of their being which is similar to TLoP and the random slashing damage taken by those in her gaze or shadow.

I'm just waiting for the day Aj's knowledge of the dnd multiverse surpasses someone like Dalleb and he finally ascends to godtier, becoming the mightiest of gluesticks

It is easier to think of The Raven Queen as the goddess of Dying instead of death.

I’m doing a campaign as a half-gnoll paladin of the Raven Queen. It’s a lot of homebrew lore but for an order locked in a eternal crusade against daemons and necromancers and witches in the arctic the goddess of death is pretty perfect. Plus cults of Nusemnee who pray both to their dead goddess for redemption as well as the goddess of death.

Thanks for this video, really helped me flesh out the lore surrounding the Church of the Raven Queen in my setting.

Loved this. Thank you AJ. Since the start of 5E, I’ve been waiting for the Raven Queen to enter the lore. She’s a more fitting and somber god of death than any other, and one that someone may view as a Valkyrie ending their suffering. Well done.

Strong Skesis vibes from the Nagpa and their whole "steal magic from the Elves/Gelflings"

"Forming a pact with the Raven Queen is popular these days" Funny because all I ever hear about is Hexblade, though ironically enough Hexblades are supposedly connected to the Raven Queen anyway.

10:50.... AHHHH WAS THAT MY BOY VAX (Critical Role) But in all honesty awesome video, very well done! This has just made her one of my favorite God's.

You are on fire 🔥 man keep up pumping out this gold👍🏽😁👍🏽

The Raven Queen is a big part of my current long standing campaign, frankly my favourite deity due to her complexity, lore and her versatility.

13:34 “The Raven Queen is not the type to meddle.” My Cleric casting Commune and asking his 3 yes or no questions. Can I limit that?

Raven Queen is Velka confirmed.

Ghost elves please, only reference to them I know of was the dragon magazine.

I loved this video, really informative and some interesting thoughts. I am currently playing a Hexblade but my DM is involving the Raven Queen a lot more. The line about her being interested in tragedy really struck home considering my back story. The woman i loved was killed and i was blamed and in our last session she turned up as an undead servant of Orcus. Having given up my memory of her i attacked only have her dominate my mind and cause me to attack my party nearly ending in my death. Love the way my DM is running it and having a lot of fun and this video has only increased my enjoyment. Thanks a lot.

I love this video. I learned things that I hadn't found in my research. As I've mentioned in previous video comments, I enjoy using The 3E Epic handbook from a very early part of my campaigns and campaign worlds to tie future events together. I was unaware of the connection between the Raven Queen and the LeShay. Interestingly, in my game, the church of Death is one of the 3 largest. They are the most prestigious tutors on the main continent. Being educated at one of their temples is akin to graduating from Harvard or Oxford. They are very open opponents, and hunters of, Undead. Paladin orders and all. Now I have a little more fuel for my settings document. Thank you fort the amazing information, as always. Best Patreon support I've ever invested in!

So her clerics get you stoned at a funeral in the temple LOL

I love this! definitely gonna use it for my paladin\warlock multiclass, it's gonna be an interesting character to say the least

Played the unearthed arcana Raven Queen Warlock in my friends shadowfell campaign. It's a really fun class, hope they add it to the next expansion

The Leshay are my favorite!!!!! I made mine with the goal of overthrowing Coralon the usurper and returning the Leshay to their rightful place as rulers of the Fey.

Very much been looking forward to this video!!! One of my favorite goddesses.

Great stuff as always! Found your Nagpa video ;)

As always the lore and artwork are amazing, thanks for the video.

She's scary but I love her!

I always assumed she was just a reskin of Wee Jas.

Amazing video AJ

Sooooo this is basically 'The Dark Crystal'

She seems to be a D & D adaptation of The Morrigan (Phantom Queen) from Irish Celtic mythology. A very interesting figure to look into if you wanted more depth on her origins in real world mythology.

Awesome video also I like this logo and intro way better, it fits better

My character in a Curse of a Strahd Campaign is a headless Reborn who is an Oath of Vengeance Paladin who before her murder/wrongful execution via beheading swore an oath of revenge and the Raven Queen heard said oath and brought her back to life as a headless corpse that somehow is still considered a humanoid and not an undead and allowed her to take her vengeance upon those wronged her and her family of nobles but in return she has to serve the Raven Queen for all eternity as one of her Knights of Vengeance against evil.

Sweet, another enemy of Loth ;]

Just what a Kenku Necromancer needs.

Sounds like the Nagpa may have been the inspiration for the appearance of the Skeksis from Dark Crystal

That is insanely good! Thanks for that content

OH yeah. Been looking forward to this one!

I love your videos!

YES AJ I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR IT

My favorite deity, what a surprise!

Innnteresting. As someone whose experience of D&D is largely based off 3 and 3.5e games like Neverwinter Nights in the setting of Toril, the Raven Queen is one I'd never even heard of before I saw this video.

9:22 uh what? somewhat inscrutable?! she is completely inscrutable!

For a copule of sessions my group had lot of stuff going with her cult. Great tool for dm to introduce undead foes

Thanks for the vid sir.

Would it be possible for you to do a video on Solinari, one on The Shadow from the Dark Six or all of the Dark Six, and one on Nuitari? If you could that would be great!

so we can make an elven character with the personality traits of Pain (Nagato) :D Awesome :D btw great video AJ, I can't wait for the arrival of my copy of Mordenkainen's tome of foes :) :) :) So about the video which talks about how to create a golem, shield guardian, and other construct allies with your ambitious little gnome wizard in 5E... :D

Thanks for vid

Playing a Shadar Kai Hexblade, serving The Queen. One of my favorite deities, and has been all kinds of fun within the group, currently. Especially considering I'm the only PC with any real religious standing. X3

Would she be the go to patron for a warlock looking to kill a god?

Honestly the Lashee are probably decanonized in 5e. Their existence has always been a walking plot hole as they exist in decent numbers on the material plane, they’re active in the world, more powerful than ancient dragons as individuals still sometimes work together. By all means they should be the most important creature in the history of any given place, yet they’re not. Don’t worry about trying to shove the Lashee into the Raven Queens story. But in a game that focus on the Raven Queen, if you think it is the case, the Raven Queen might be more interesting with the stipulation that she is LeShee, LeShee might be worth being reintroduced. But better to focus on Nagpa and the shadow ki

I'm running a home brew that involves a vampire trying to uncover a time portal that would allow him to go back thousands of years to prevent his own vampirism. The twist is that he was turned by a powerful lich-like being that had acquired god like power by imprisoning a fledgling goddess . The goddess would become the raven queen. Though eventually freed, and her captor destroyed, he twisted her domain from life into death. I'm bringing in a gang of kenku led buy a Napa who are foils for the party. As they mettle with time I think it would really be cool to see if they can turn the raven queen into a life goddess, and maybe prevent the curse on the Napa and kenku all together.

4:00 "Dark Crystal "

Have you done a video on the Negpa? Im curious to learn more. 🙂

Only because you said to "post any corrections;" Nerull should be pronounced the way it's spelled i.e. Neh-rull like skull; not Neh-rule like cruel. And also it should be pronounced Shay-dar kai as in shade instead of Shah-dow kai as in shadow. While I understand it's splitting hairs, you are a man of words and are looked at as the example to follow with them. Help us be more exact with a more accurate pronunciation of the creative spelling their creators gave them. On a side note, it's a disservice to pronounce Asmodeus as Az-mode-e-us instead of using the same emphasis you'd pronounce Amadeus with. No one would say A-made-e-us; they pronounce it as Ah-ma-Da-yus / Az-mo-Da-yus 😉 Thank you for creating all this amazing content and take the criticism with a grain of salt... I love the channel!

Have you considered how the Raven Queen would feel towards Zuggtmoy and / or Juiblex? The reason I ask is I'm going to play a character that was a Shadar Kai, in the service of the Raven Queen. Was captured, tortured and killed by cultists of Juiblex. Was reincarnated by a circle of the spores druid by order of Zuggtmoy. Came back as a human. Zuggtmoy granted powers in exchange for helping in her war against Juiblex (fiend patron warlock). Character will still be loyal to the Raven Queen. Somewhat grudgingly helpful toward Zuggtmoy, only because of her hatred of Juiblex.

When describing how her priesthood are you pretty much described me I was like well shit

There is some serious lifting of Celtic mythologies here. 4e seems to want to divide elves from what they were in previous editions.

Also, loved the vid A.J. I still use Nerull.

3:33 did the same exact voice lmao. So deep in the nerdology i need to sit back and grab a drink

I'd love more info about the Shadar Kai

I love this video now I want to make a Kenku warlock that has the Raven Queen as his patron☠️☠️

Am sad that the Raven Queen Warlock for 5e did not become an offical thing.

Good video

I remember a god of death in the legend in lower book they got 10 of texts for round but even the god feared his sword that One touch can kill anyone but nobody really talks about the gods there

Hey AJ! Would you happen to have a video on the creator races?

Little late to the party, so I'm not sure you'll even see this AJ, but here's a question in case you do: So I got off my butt to take a look at the Raven Queen Patron UA, and noticed a rather odd line: "She hates intelligent undead and expects her followers to strike them down, whereas mindless undead such as skeletons and zombies are little more than stumbling automatons in her eyes." This seems rather pertinent to a point within the debate over the ethics of Necromancy (at least in regards to the creation of undead). One of the strongest arguments on the topic is that creating undead such as ghouls, zombies, or skeletons traps and tortures the soul of the departed, in perhaps a similar manner to that of the Soul Cage spell. If this were the case however, would that not also draw the ire of the Raven Queen, who in all likelihood only despises intelligent undead for stifling her stream of souls? It seems that this nonchalance would indicate that the creation of mindless undead doesn't restrict or notably disturb the soul which formerly inhabited that body. I know it's UA (meaning a few grains of salt are recommended), but this seems to settle at least one point of a rather longstanding debate. Or have I missed something? Now that I'm thinking about it, a video on general necromancy would be pretty interesting.

She kinda sounds like the Dark Souls Goddess Velka

Any chance you'll cover some of the 3rd edition deities? I'd love to see something on Wee Jas. For that matter Pelor...if you gave your take on the fringe theory of Pelor actually being more of an evil deity and his incarnation as being a ruse for some plan that would be awesome.

If she Had the portfolio of love and death she would be the Goddess or Romantic Goths lol.

Raven queen and the Magpie Queen know each other Get along well actually

I was wondering how the portfolio of Winter and Auril square?

Question: can you post a video on the Scarlet Brotherhood. I am trying to write a good backstory for one of my character but I need more info on them. Please and thank you

Hey, this is pretty good

02:12 I see what you did there

I have a feeling the Raven Queen's "origin story" feels like a retcon to older (pre 4th edition) members of the D&D community. However, I for my part won't miss Nerull. I never found him very interesting to begin with, while I actually like the Raven Queen. Still, I think there is again - the same way we had it before - too much overlap with other "people's" story in this. There already is a god of the dead, Kelemvor, and a god of death, Myrkul, the later just returned from oblivion, in the Forgotten Realms and they are heirs to the portfolio Jergal once held. Of course you can say:" She is part of the 'ethno' pantheon of the elves." Fine with me, but since she succeeded Nerull and no FR deity she actually belongs in Greyhawk and not in the FR. I forgot to mention that in Greyhawk she again has some overlap with an already existing deity, and that would be Wee Jas, who is also a godess of death and magic. And as a godess of death and an enemy of Lolth she completely eclipses Kiransalee, who's portfolio again is death and magic. How about Shar? If we are back in the "Great Wheel" cosmology and the Shadowfell is a shared outer plane, the Raven Queen must be vying for power there with Shar, and she isn't going to beat Shar, who also happens to have death, and magic (sort of), in her portfolio. Last but not least, how about Vecna and Velsharoon? I don't have the SCAG, has Velsharoon not returned like most other deities that died or went missing in the transition from 3rd to 4th edition? Kiransalee Death and Magic Wee Jas Death and Magic Myrkul Death Kelemvor the Dead Shar Death, Magic (sort of) Vecna Death Magic Velsharoon Death Magic The Raven Queen Death and Magic

I won't lie, I had always been under the impression The Raven Queen had been a human god, since in 4e WotC made shadar-kai human-kin and of course that was where she appeared by this name. I appreciated that change, as it gave humans a place in the greater cosmos, as if they were growing as a race and finding a place in the multiverse, it felt right even, that the latest god of death was once a human, a people that have no true "patron" diety of their own and are characterized by their short lifespans. Moreover the elves already had their "dark" elves in the Drow, it felt redundant to double up on them with the shadar-kai. The way they're described makes them seem very "human" as well in that they are daring adrenaline junkies who chase danger and excitement, expressing in equal parts a free spirit, and a purposeful existence. Driven but wild, principled but flexible, dark but not bound by it. It felt very "human". 5e of course returned them to their elven roots and this "expose" on The Raven Queen helps ease that transition by giving it a conceivable reason on a meta level, but I still would have preferred the poetic notion of humanity's contribution to the pantheon being a god of the very thing that universally defines humanity most, mortality and ambition. Also... _"I certainly dont know everything, not by a long shot... Not yet anyway."_ -Probably Vecna, at some point in time.

Hey AJ, can you do a video on Murlynd, the cowboy of Greyhawk?

Queen of cynics. I have no problem with her, esp. as she hates the undead. Another aspect of elven love of nature, even if some parts of nature are unpleasant (like death).

I get the feeling the Raven Queen; is going to kill Loth once the chance comes up.

_Deth_

Reminds of the dark souls video games

Nerull was my favourite.

how in the world could the Raven Queen have possibly stopped the War of the Anti-Seldarine? :/ Aurashnee had been planning that for a LONG time... in the novel Evermeet: Island of the Elves, it outlines what happened in Arvandor. Aurashnee's multiple betrayals, the war, Eilistraee's arrow piercing her father Corellon's heart, the creation of the goddess Angarradh, the transformation of Aurashnee to Lolth and being cast into the Abyss, and so on... unless you mean the Raven Queen tried to stop the Fourth Crown War, which was started by the dark elves of Ilthiir in retaliation for the atrocities of the Vyshantaar of the Sun Elven Kingdom of Arvyandaar when they used Elven High Magic to call forth Morhamor'Sykerlor, the Killing Storm to utterly destroy tens of thousands -if not millions- of peaceful dark elves of Miyeritaar, which had resisted annexation and occupation by Arvyandaar. The Sun Elves had basically nuked the most peaceful and prosperous elven nation on Faerûn, and the center of Elven High Magic. The dark elves of Ilythiir, whose leaders admittedly weren't that "nice" to begin with (some of whom followed the Masked Lord Vhaeraun or followed That Which Lurks, Ghaunadar) realized that the only way to win in a fight the evil Sun Elves was to call on dark powers... aka Lolth, who had only relatively recently discovered Toril (her children Eilistraee and Vhaeraun had been here even before the Sun and Moon elf refugees from Tintageer arrived) anyway... how could the Raven Queen have possibly stopped that war either???

the more I hear the lore of Abeir-toril (Toril), the jankier it gets...

My character is literally in her house now talking to her.

Are you saying the Raven Queen has her own type of elves are they are there any relations to the dark elves like dr'izzet or the neck part looks like straight out of a movie Jim Henson movie in the 80s or the recent of the date that was a few years ago but it was a good one the creatures antagonists the evil creatures the magpies I mean (MAGPOWS)

what is the relation between Shar and the Raven Queen. I mean Sharmerged teh shadow plane and the negative energy plane together to form the Shadowfell, and it seem that the Raven Queen is the master of the Shadowfell? I know their is a all out war opposing Orcus and the raven queen (and worshiping Orcus in the shadowfell is a criminal offense punishable by death) but what about Shar?

Here is a hypothetical question for you AJ and everyone else. What if Vecna somehow devoured the Raven Queen and her portfolios?

I dislike the raven queen, more so the elven version of the shadar-kai but you did a good job so still a thumbs up.

How about Blackrazor next?

So are the ebony guard her paladins? Because I would so be one.