Overview
Lolth is cruel and capricious, and embodies the absolute evil of the drow. She is malicious in her dealings with others, and coldly vicious in a fight, coveting the power of the deities worshipped by the surface races. Some believe Lolth to be insane because she is constantly pitting her own worshippers against each other in a constant struggle for status. She claims that she does this to cull the weak and make her chosen race stronger, but she does enjoy watching others suffer. She can be kind and provide aid to those she fancies, but she thrives on death, destruction and torture - including her own worshippers if they have displeased her. Lolth expects the drow to be shrewd, calculating, and aware of the dangers, and the opportunities, around them. She has no use for sentiment, weakness or love. Lolth expects her people to rule their immediate environment, eliminating foes that are weak enough to be destroyed and biding their time before attacking more powerful opponents.
Description
Lolth can appear as a giant black-widow spider with crimson eyes, or as a human-sized exquisitely beautiful female drow. In her drow form she often clothes herself entirely in clinging spiders, but she sometimes wears drow chain mail artfully styled into dresses or tunics. Sometimes she combines her two forms, appearing as a giant spider with a coldly beautiful female drow head.
Holy symbol
Lolth's symbol is either a spider, or a black spider with a female drow head, hanging from a spider web.
Favored weapon
In her drow form, Lolth wields a dagger or a whip. In her spider form, she uses her natural attacks and can use web against opponents. Lolth may also summon live spiders to aid her against her foes. Her priesthood can select either a dagger or a whip as their favored weapon.
Realm
World Tree cosmology
In the World Tree cosmology of Realmspace, Lolth resides within her realm, known as the Demonweb Pits, which encompasses the whole of the outer planar realm of the same name. She chooses to share the plane with her subordinate deities, including Ghaunadar, Vhaeraun, Kiaransalee, and Selvetarm. The Demonweb Pits is formed of interwoven strands of planar matter, like a monstrous spider web spun across the very fabric of the planes. Between the strands is nothingness - pits of infinite depth and formless void. Unwary travelers who get stuck on the strands often become prey for fiendish spiders, myrlochar, demons or even worse creatures. The various divine realms are strung like tiny baubles along the fabric of the Demonweb, while Lolth's fortress takes the form of a great iron spider which clambers constantly over the strands of the Demonweb.
Great Wheel cosmology
In the Great Wheel cosmology, Lolth resides within her realm, known as the Demonweb Pits, which is located on the 66th of the Infinite Layers of the Abyss. The Demonweb Pits, also known as Lolth's Web, is an immense network of tunnels and web strands that resembles a huge spiderweb. The Demonweb folds in upon itself so that the dizzying array of web tunnels interconnect with fractal complexity. The web tunnels consist of stone pathways, surrounded by curved walls of sticky webbing which form tube-like corridors. Between the tubes and strands is a billowing infinity of putrid gray clouds, and far beneath, in wells of utter darkness, lie the dreaded Demonweb Pits. Each strand is strung with portals which lead to those planes or worlds that are the focus of Lolth's political or military machinations. Each gate is concealed behind solid metal doors that apparently lead off the pathways into the gray fog and are guarded by at least one of her yochlol servants, who only allow the worthy or the condemned to pass through. Lolth's palace, also known as the Ship of Lolth, is an immense mobile iron fortress shaped like a gigantic spider that slowly crawls along the planar web to feed.
Worship
Lolth rules the drow through her priests, who are exclusively female and organized into noble houses made up of clerics related by blood. The oldest priestesses rule the house, followed by the rest of the clerics in order of age. Each house includes non-cleric drow related by blood or by marriage. The priestesses serve as absolute rulers in Lolth's name, and are the leaders, police, juries and executioners of drow society.
In Spelljammer
Lolth is widely worshipped wherever their are drow communities, and as such can be considered native to various crystal spheres, including Realmspace, Greyspace, and Pirtelspace. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the drow do have a presence in wildspace - not extensive, but enough to cause concern. The space drow, or "void elves" as they prefer to be known, are organized into "nations" of varying sizes, based around a single matriarchal house. Each space-going nation typically has its own goals and agenda. Sometimes these align, but more often they are totally independent from (or even actively inimical to) the efforts of other drow nations. Space-faring drow have a philosophy quite different from that of their groundling brethren. Rather than seeing themselves as a hunted race that must survive and prosper through stealth, and then only against overwhelming odds, the "void elves" believe that they have a destiny toward which they are inexorably moving.
Appendix
External Links
- Lolth article at the Forgotten Realms Wiki, a wiki for the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.
- Lolth article at the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Wiki, a wiki for official Dungeons & Dragons content from 2nd edition AD&D.