Arak and the Shadow Rift

[Dr Bloodworth]

I recently tracked down a reasonably-priced copy of Gazetteer V and have a question somewhat concerning the zelldrow PrC. I don't have any of the pre-Conjunction material concerning Arak - were its denizens always zelldrow (shadow fey which became drowish) or true dark elves from other worlds, retconned into shadow fey later? I was always under the impression it was the latter.

Figure I'll ask people who know better.

And am I right in understanding (not having seen the timeline for a while) that Keening didn't exist pre-Conjunction?

[Strahdsbuddy]

Keening DID exist pre-conjunction, 588 to be exact.

A funny thing about Arak. In the original Black Box, it is blatantly described as populated by Drow, though no further details are given. Arak's land was absorbed by Darkon during the Grand COnjunction, and it seemingly ceased to exist. The supplement/adventure "The Shadow Rift" rewrites the esidents of Arak as a special brand of fey, more like those of Celtic myth, and no reference to Drow is ever mentioned. Tristessa is cetainly considered a Drow, but also a former resident of Arak, so the confusion is difficult to do away with unless you are content to just plain change the history of Tristessa.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Keening DID exist pre-conjunction, 588 to be exact.

A funny thing about Arak. In the original Black Box, it is blatantly described as populated by Drow, though no further details are given. Arak's land was absorbed by Darkon during the Grand COnjunction, and it seemingly ceased to exist. The supplement/adventure "The Shadow Rift" rewrites the esidents of Arak as a special brand of fey, more like those of Celtic myth, and no reference to Drow is ever mentioned. Tristessa is cetainly considered a Drow, but also a former resident of Arak, so the confusion is difficult to do away with unless you are content to just plain change the history of Tristessa.

In Secrets of the Dread Realms, Tristessa is retconned into a Shadow Fey--a zelldrow of sorts.

[Jester of the FoS]

Yup. No drow.
As stated, the original Black Box has the land as an evil dark elf land but they quickly realized evil humanoids and a race of sociopaths were not gothic. So they were removed in the Conjunction and ret-conned out.

[Ryan Naylor]

In the Black Box, the Arak were drow, but they were retconned out in the Red Box. Keening was there, but I don't remember what was said about it.

I'm not sure when Tristessa "became" a drow(ish) banshee, but I think it was from about Darklords onwards. She's definitely drowish by Domains of Dread.

Then the Shadow Rift adventure retconned the Arak into shadow fey.

Secrets of the Drad Realms retconned Tristessa into a shadow fey.

Then Gaz V tried to tie all this together coherently.

So the current official position is that the Arak "have always been" shadow fey. The drow story started because they're elf-like and live in the bowels of the earth, and was compounded when some real drow found their way there and started the Cult of the Spider Queen. Being a fairly mutable race, the Arak worshippers turned into zelldrow. And Tristessa is a zelldrow banshee.

But just to be clear, not all Arak are zelldrow, and zelldrow themselves are quite rare.