Lolth, the Spider Queen

Spurned Goddess of Spiders, Secrets, and Uprising

To say Lolth's name is to incite a wide variety of reactions, depending on who you speak to. Some consider her to be an ungrateful wretch who waged war on her saviours out of little more than spite. Others consider her a brave and powerful symbol of rising up against a perceived tyranny, whose imprisonment proves her right.
Regardless of what one thinks, Lolth's influence on the world and the Gods is undeniable, and her story is laced with both bravery and tragedy.

Divine Domains

Death, Trickery, Twilight

Holy Books & Codes

The Queen's Edict, the book said to have been written by Lolth herself as a framework for how the Drow could best survive in both the treacherous Underdark and the surface world.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

The running theme in Lolth's symbols is spiders. Lolth's most common symbol is fairly simple: a dark purple spider with a red dagger pressed against its abdomen.

Tenets of Faith

Survive against the hardest adversity, and push yourself to live on. The world is dangerous and uncaring, and you must be more.

Push yourself above those who will not stand alongside you. 

The Divine are hypocrites undeserving of your love; strike their agents down where you can.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

Destroy the Gods and free the world from their tyranny.

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Lolth has two main depictions:

• The first is closer to how Lolth appeared in life: a tall elven woman with dark grey skin, dressed in either black armour or a long black gown woven from spider silk
• The second, more monstrous depiction shows Lolth after she fell, and is the most commonly used. In this depiction, Lolth appears as a massive Drider; appearing as a Drow with black and silver eyes from the waist up, with a massive venomous spider from the waist down.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

The story of Lolth is a controversial one, both among those who are her faithful and those who are not. Many argue that Lolth's story illustrates the worst traits of the Gods, traits they would rather see stamped out. But to tell the story of Lolth properly, it must start with who she was before: the Child of the Light known as Lolthloria.

Lolthloria

Before her ascension to Godhood, Lolthloria was regarded as one of the strongest warriors of the Starlight Ascendancy, serving as the bodyguard of one of the long-orgotten Archons of the Stars. When the Gods begun the destruction of the Starlight Ascendancy, Lolthloria fought off their greatest warriors before being given an order: take as many of the young Children as she could, and flee from the wrath of the Gods.
When the Ascendancy fell, Lolthloria and her followers fled underground, far into the deep subterranean caverns of what was known as the Underdark. The Underdark was a dangerous place, said to have been carved by the mad goddess Lamashtu as she pulled herself through the world, leaving abominations birthed from her bloated body in its wake.
While Lolthloria was aware that the Underdark was far from safe, it was at least out of the prying eyes of the Divines. But, she knew that being away from the Divines was not enough; she had to ensure that the people she had taken with her survived too. To ensure that her people would survive, she had them cast off their old identities and take on a new one: the Drow, an old word that once simply meant "Lost in the dark", would come to define them.
Lolthloria gave a single edict to her people: survive, at any cost. For the next few centuries, the Drow would follow this edict at any cost, sparing no expense in order to survive. Some betrayed each other, while some fell into madness and ruin. But eventually, after three-hundred years, the Drow were able to find their footing, and carved out the first and largest of their new homes: Menzoberranzan.
Lolthloria had spent her years as a leader first and a warrior second. But she had come to realise something as she carried on: she was no longer immortal, and she was not long for this world. Lolthloria eventually fell to a sickness, caused by one of the many horrid creatures that crawled the depths of the Underdark. Surrounded by her faithful and her beloved, Lolthloria passed on.

The Spider Queen

On the moment of her death, however, she was visited by an avatar of Astela, who congratulated her on her ability to survive such horrid circumstances and carve out such a large civilisation. For her strength of will and her leadership, Astela was to reward Lolthloria with Godhood, to become the patron deity of the Drow. In her joy, Lolthloria accepted, and Astela granted her ascension to Godhood. In that moment, Lolthloria of the Starlight Ascendancy was reborn as a new Goddess: Lolth, Goddess of Spiders (a holdover from her mortal life), Secrecy (To create an entire civilisation underneath the noses of mortals), and Survival (To allow her people to stay strong in these dark times).
Lolth was known as a fairly neutral goddess, only intervening when absolutely necessary. But her children still loved her all the same, and the praise they heaped upon her empowered her. However, Lolth came to a realisation: that she had effectively been put to death by the Divines, of which Astela was one. And Astela was said to be the ancestor of all of the Children of the Light, and now Elvenkind.
Confronting Astela in the Great Beyond, Lolth simply asked her one single question: if she could have allowed Lolthloria to ascend to Godhood so easily, then why were the Children of the Light put to death in the first place? What crime had they committed that lead an entire race to be snuffed out and forgotten?
Astela's response, or rather her lack of one, said everything Lolth needed to hear.

The War of the Gods

Lolth was the one to ignite the War of the Gods. She ventured down into the Wastes Beneath the World, to converse with the Seven Spurned. She told them her plight, her story, and rather than killing her or trying to kill each other on the spot, as they often would, they listened. For the first time in millennia, the Spurned listened to her. One of them, Vandros, the Spurned God of War, rose from his throne; the first time any had seen him do so, and he said two words to them: wage war.
The War of the Gods was cataclysmic in its scale. The Spurned Gods, united for the first time in known history, were unleashed onto the material plane with Lolth at their side and hordes of Demons at their back. In response, the Gods chose their own champions to act as their own agents against Lolth and the Spurned.
At the war's conclusion, Lolth fought Astela in the Wastes Beneath the World, their battle raging across an unclaimed patch of land. The two cursed each other back and forth, Lolth blaming Astela for the fall of the Children of the Light, while Astela chastised Lolth for being foolish and blinded by her own rage. In the end, Astela was victorious, and bound Lolth to the Wastes, marking her as the newest Spurned Deity.

The Modern Day

In the modern day, Lolth is still worshipped by the patron deity of the Drow in the Underdark, who consider her to be their mother. She has also been worshipped as a goddess of uprising against oppression, representing her standing against the Primeval Deities.
However, some Drow do not stand for Lolth's actions and history, and have turned her back on her. These Drow have since fled the Underdark, and driven themselves into the shadowed kingdom of Lixia, where the sun hasn't touched in over a thousand years.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Unlike the other Spurned, and even many of the other Gods, Lolth still has a very close relationship with her followers. While her imprisonment limits her interactions, her followers can still call upon her for favours and power and she will answer when she can. 
However, she abhors the needlessly treacherous lifestyle that many of the Drow of the Underdark have taken up, and considers it a horrid twisting of the ideals she was trying to impart on them.

Demonkin of Lolth

Lolth's demonkin follow in her footsteps and take on the traits of spiders. Many Drow wish to become Driders - humanoid creatures with the lower bodies of spiders - in simulation of their Goddess' own form. However, for many the ritual ends in disaster, transforming them into a demonic beast known as a Silken Servant, a half-Drow half-Spider who desires only to hunt and feed, retaining little of its rationality.
Lolth can also imbue her followers with the blood of her other demonkin, which transforms them into creatures known as Draegloths. Draegloths are Drow who have imbibed the blood of the demonic Glabrezu, and their forms become twisted to mimic them.

"What do I think? She's the saviour of our people, of course. She took the little foundlings of old and turned them into the thriving race you see before you. It wasn't without sacrifice, mind you, but then nothing ever is!"

- Naggaroth, Leader of the Drow cabal of the Ebon Sting

Divine Classification

Spurned Deity

Religions

• Elli'darine
• The Broken Chains
• The Church of the Spider Queen
• The Spurned

Alignment

Chaotic Neutral

Realm

The Hells

Church/Cult

The Church of the Spider Queen

Honorary & Occupational Titles

The Eighth Spurned, The Usurper, The Fallen Child of Light

Current Residence

The Garden of Silk

Ruled Locations

• The Garden of Silk

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