Games - Lolth

	Games - Lolth

Lolth (Lloth in the drow dialect), the Demon Queen of Spiders, is the goddess of drow elves in the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy role-playing game. She is also known as the Spider Queen and the Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

Lolth was created by Gary Gygax for the World of Greyhawk
campaign setting, later appeared in the Forgotten Realms
setting, and is now a member of the default pantheon of D&D gods.

In those various settings, the drow pantheon of gods consists of the leader Lolth, as well as Kiaransalee, Vhaeraun, and Zinzerena. Other drow gods may be present in different campaign settings.

Lolth's clerics wear red and black, and drow tunics and helms. Her sacred animals are arachnids. She is worshipped on the full moon in underground marble temples. Enemies and riches are sacrficed to her monthly.

:The following information covers Lolth's representations in those two campaign settings.

Description

Lolth is a demon and a goddess worshiped by the drow; she displays formidable power and great cruelty with an affection for arachnids. Goddess of darkness, drow, evil, and spiders (and assassins and chaos in the Forgotten Realms), Lolth has, through deceit and domination, garnered the ears of the dark elves and eventually established herself as their one true deity, keeping them under her thumb by creating a society in which only the strong survive and her priestesses are strongest. Most servants who fail her (and there are many ways to fail the capricious goddess) are either slain or transformed into creatures called driders: centaur-like creatures that have spider-like bodies below their waists instead of a centaur's equine features. Lolth is also served by a race of shapeshifting tanar'ri called the yochlol. In their natural form, yochlol resemble molten blobs of wax.

Lolth is a Chaotic Evil Intermediate Power. Her symbol is a black spider with the head of a female drow (and in the Forgotten Realms) hanging from a spider web. Lolth dwells in her divine realm in the Demonweb Pits, a demonic realm formed entirely of a single great fractal web, where she is served by legions of powerful mystical slaves. Lolth's residence in this realm is a mobile iron spider-shaped stronghold. In the default Dungeons & Dragons cosmology, the Demonweb Pit is located in the 66th layer of the Outer Plane called the Abyss. In the current iteration of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, the Demonweb Pit is a plane to itself. However, there appears to be some controversy regarding the status of the Demonweb Pits in that particular campaign: the 3rd edition campaign setting says that the Demonweb Pits are a separate plane, but in the novel Extinction by Lisa Smedman they are explicitly referred to as part of the Abyss, namely the 66th layer (as in the "default" cosmology). Lolth's Third Edition domains are Chaos, Destruction, Evil, and Trickery (and Drow, Darkness, and Spider in the Forgotten Realms).

History

Lolth was banished to the Abyss by Corellon Larethian, who has forevermore been her enemy.

Forgotten Realms

Lolth began, in the days before Faerûn existed, as a minor elven goddess named Araushnee, in the Seldarine. Araushnee, known as the Weaver of Destiny, was the goddess of weavers and a spinner of fate, yet despite her small role she came to be loved by the head of the elven pantheon—Corellon Larethian. Their union bore them children in the form of the deities Eilistraee and Vhaeraun. However, Araushnee was a jealous schemer and her influence over Corellon was not enough. She planned to overthrow her consort and take control of Arvandor. In order to do this she made a tentative alliance with Corellon's arch-nemesis Gruumsh, god of the orcs, and attempted to have Corellon assassinated by him through use of her position as Corellon's loved one. These attempts to destroy the First of the Seldarine failed, and worse, the most powerful goddess of the Seldarine—Sehanine Moonbow, who had long been suspicious of Araushnee, discovered these plots and confronted her. Araushnee managed to imprison the other deity though, and roused to action she, Gruumsh, and her son Vhaeraun eventually brought to her cause a great alliance of many great and minor deities of the orcs, goblins and other goblinoids, kobolds, giants, giant kin, ogres, and other such creatures. This army of deities, joined also by the savage deity Malar, the ice queen Auril and the primordial evil Ghaunadaur, marched on Arvandor, to be met in battle by Corellon and the rest of the Seldarine, including Araushnee's other child Eilistraee.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Lolth ]

Searches on eBay

lolth