The Spider Queen of the Black Forest

The Spider Queen of the Black Forest

Lying in one of the thickest parts of the Black Forest is a dreaded being, one recently escaped from the Underdark, the dreaded Spider Queen. An escapee from the clutches of a Drow city and someone who is hunted by the inhabitants of the Valley of the Black Ones, she is biding her time buildings up a web of intrigue & death using arachnids as her agents. One day she will make her move against her old captors & hunters, and strike against others who could harm her.

Physical Description

Identifying Characteristics

The Queen has took on slight discolourations here & there on her body, and miniscule chitin growths, both in the pattern & shape of spiders.

Special abilities

The Spider Queen is a cleric of Lolth, and has access to the many boons such an evil goddess can provide. She can heal her followers, create toxins to enter the bodies of enemies by touch alone, turn undead, and immunity to poisons of almost all types. Another power granted to her by Lolth is the ability to command all spiders, and spider-related monstrosties by linking mentally with them over a considreable distance.
A brutal power also exists in the Spider Queen, and one most Drow Matriarchs would crave. She is able to utter a number of magical words of power while a captive is held in a web being slowly bit & poisoned by spiders of many kinds. This causes the victim to painfully & disgustingly ransform into a Drider after a successful & lengthly time. Any interruption will either cause it to fail or cause transformations that go out of control, eventually causing the victim to be ripped apart in a gruesome transformation killing it.

Apparel & Accessories

The Spider Queen wears clothing made of a mix of tough chitinous armour pieces, and a high head dreass of the same material, and spider silk. These provide highly durable and strong protection while being liightweight & flexible. Minor decorations are worn made of the chitin of favourite spiders, and the more colourful the better. She has two daggers & a longsword made from the pincers of spider mouths, with shaped chitin handles.

Specialized Equipment

The headdress is a symbol of authority to her 'subjects' and seems to have two effects. One is that it releases a phermone trail allowing for spiders nearby to see her as an ally & not attack her. The second is that it augments any magic she uses especially those of domination.
A number of the baubles & highlights affixed to her chitin & spidersilk clothing contains the spirits of many types of spider, and has an unusual effect. It seems to give her immunity to many poisons & toxins, especially those found in spiders. It also prevents her being bothered by any allergies given off by spiders hair.
Her daggers & longsword are magical in nature, took from parts of spiders that serve Lolth in the Underworld. They can wound most creatures to some extent, and are poisoned dripping toxins that are the bane most living things.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

The Spider Queen has started to come to promenance in recent weeks, but her story starts a number of years ago when she had turned 6 years old. At that time, her village was south of Salzburg near the base of the mountains. There the unnamed village worked collecting run-off from the mines & the city collecting what salt they could.
Unfortunately old salt caves nearby that had ran out, held a dark secret. During a long dark autumn night, the village was destroyed. Coming out of the old mines a Drow raiding party sallied forth. They were a small off-shoot of the Black Elves that lived under many of the mountains in the region and were generally loathed by their siblings being called religious fanatiucs and thought of as beiung blinded by their worship of Lolth. They attacked with no mercy killing many of the adults, especially the elderly, and infants. Taking any child or young adult that could work as slaves, they made off to the Underdark.
By the time the local Austrian authorities and their masters the Franks found out it was too late. Every 3 months the Drow carried out further raids over the next 2 years before the caves were destroyed & sealed. By this time the girl who would become the Spider Queen had been enslaved by the Drow for all that time and now was 8 years old. Took in as a slave for the temples of Lolth she either worked most of her days keeping the tempes tidy and helping wit hthe upkeep or she would have become either spider food or as a sacrifice.
Forced to work in such conditions, her young body & mind was dosed in the dangerous magical effects pulled out of Lolth's domain during the worship & sacrifice to such a monster. Growing older she also was repeatedly bitten & survived attacks from the spiders and those cursed by Lolth to take on partial spider form.
Eventually she was able to escape recently. A raid by a large force of Black Elves descended on the Drow enclave after the latter tried to impose the worship of Lolth on the surrounding cities of the Black Elves. Intolerant of such acts, the athiestic Black Elves turned out in force, even hiring mercenaries from the Valley of the Black Ones, and 'accidentally' revealing the Drows location to the surface dwellers. Such a force could not be held back and it resulted in a resounding defeat for the Drow.
Though many slaves were captured or killed, not all were accounted for, and with it not being the main purpose of the attack, many fled. Some went deeper into the Underdark, while others made it to the surface. The girl took her time getting to the surface as she was originally deep in the Drow enclave. Not wanting to be cut down or recaptured she hid at first amongst the spiders nests, praying to the only deity she knew, Lolth. Lolth answered and started to provide her with power of her own. The spiders she hid amongst started to help her at a base level picking up simple mental commands from her.
After waiting a number of days, she felt this power slowly strengthen, and the remaining & spiders & monstrosities that bore Lolth's mark upon their flesh, felt her call that it was time to move to richer feeding grounds. Then they left.
Travelling through the maze of the Underdark, they found their way to the Valley of the Black Ones, storming through it overthrowing any opposition in sheer force of number. Once out, they made for the north exit eventually arriving in the Black Forest in it's west. There she found the darkest overgrown part she could find. There she had the spiders construct a large circular nest of spiderwebs with a space for the spiders themselves, the monstrosities, and with a throne room of sorts for the Queen at the centre. Since then, a few weeks ago, her numbers have grown, and prey species have dropped noticeably in the area. Whole genus of animals, live stock, as well as hamlets & villages have disappeared.
The surrounding peoples & nations have begun to take notice and are starting to question what is happening. A few have ventured in to try to get to the rot cause with few returning traumatized at best. The Black Ones have asked arund too, sending out their Messenger to gather information from their outside associates to try to find where the Queen is located. They will pay handsomely to find out where she is, and moreso for anyone who brings them her head.

Accomplishments & Achievements

The Spider Queen achieved something few ever has.... surviving and subsequently escaping from the darkest aspect of the Drow. Though she suffered and now hunted by many, she is safer than she was before. Very few can claim the same.

Failures & Embarrassments

Her greatest failure is her inability to connect to other sapient species, especially her humanity. All such peoples now are cruel evil beings in need of cleansing.

Mental Trauma

Emotionally & mentally scarred by her time as a slave of the Drow, the Spider Queen has come to view all sapient life as needing cleansed. More so if they are of Black Elf descent or are religious. Any slaves are to be freed under her command, though forced to serve her, tending to the spiders & spiderlike monstrosities she now leads. Ever since she was touched by Lolth and the corresponding magics of Lolth's temple, the Queen is constantly bombarded with sights & sounds of a world crawling with arachnids and dominated by creatures mutated into monsters bearing the mark of the spider. V?isions come to her daily in some form or another and she believes by destroying civilisations she will be free of these.

Intellectual Characteristics

The Queen is splintered psychologically. Her mind is damaged enough that she cannot think of anything above growing her horde of followers, doing Lolth's bidding & lashing out at others. This has led to her being hyperfocused on spreading her broods of spider-kind across the world and her mind is fixated on this. Any other type of thought is irrelevant and she is unable to break this.
In doing so, the Queen can only concentrate her intellect into domination, the 'children' she rules over and how best to utilise these 'children' i her plans. She wants to protect them all though she knows that many of them will die to se her plans to come together. Her hatred of the Black Elves is much more focused, and she learns everything she can about them to bring them down first.

Morality & Philosophy

The Spider Queen believes that all other life should become prey to the Mother of Spider, Lolth. Only by doing so can a balance be reached. Any willing to accept this will be blessed transforming into monsters that share characteristics of the Sacred Mother. If this requires force then force will be used. If it requires subterfuge then underhanded tactics will be used. The world will become one giant arena for all of these as the dominant lifeform, when all others perish or are used as food.
Those that refuse to take on the worship of Lolth are cursed above all else and only the Drow have any chance of redemption. For this they need to give up on slavery as the Sacred Queen has chosen her representative from the slave class. Those of the Drow that refute this shall be warped into the creatures known as Driders to serve the new empire of the web on earth.

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

The Spider Queen wants slavery to end, at least in those societies she encounters. Those who refuse are attacked, at least covertly at first. Those that agree are generally only used as a food source for her 'children' ths spiders. Her hatred of the Black Elves is legendary, especially the Drow. This causes her to attack & torture them to death for the horrors she witnessed as a child & young adult. Now the Queen is trying to build up a large enough following to cause severe damage to their societes in Europe.

Likes & Dislikes

The Spider Queen feels a strange affinity for spiders and similar arachids while having a hatred of sapient species. In the latter case her hatred of Black Elves, and mainly the Drow, are vehemently hated above all.

Virtues & Personality perks

She doesn't seem to mind arachnids and other ceratures, and avoids hurting them where possible. Other animals are seen as prey but doesn't seem to bother her with their presence.

Vices & Personality flaws

She now finds it impossible to empathise with other sapient creatures and her love of spiderkind overrides the way she deals with others.

Personality Quirks

Her movements and thinking is based around the creatures she tends. What speech she has appears as a whisper and grating like two bits of chitin rubbing together.She doesn't seem to have the full range of emotions as a human does, and appears to look upon others as prey.

Hygiene

Quite filthy, the Queen rarely washes, and is constantly observed to have both spider webs & smaller spiders on her at all times. Some even seem to nest in her hair. Sometimes her mouth & lips seems stained with blood & other body fluids.

Beautifully twisted individual Was a slave to the Drow Escaped the Underdark

Character Location

Central Europe

Alignment

Neutral

Species

Human

Ethnicity

Franks

Other Ethnicities/Cultures

• Germanic

Age

30

Sex

Female

Gender

Woman

Eyes

Light Brown

Hair

Dark Brown

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Lightly tanned

Height

5' 5"

Weight

79 lb

Related Plots

• The Forest or Plain

Known Languages

Common (Frankish), Elvish, Undercommon.