Players Characters Guide ~ Extra

Introduction
The drow might be an evil race and one that is permanently at odds with other races , but many players are nonetheless attracted to playing drow characters. Knowing this, the DM Staff has created a well sourced all in one reference document for drow players in order to familiarize them with drow roleplay on this server. In creating this document we on staff are trying to “make it make sense” in spite of things such as conflicting sources, how lore is interpreted, etc. so that we all may focus on role playing and mitigate disagreement between players over matters of lore and its interpretation.

Purpose of this Document
The purpose of this document is to provide you as a player with a condensed, compiled reference source for lore specific to the underdark and drow race as well as to outline policy regarding drow roleplay.

Sources and Methodology
This document is sourced wherever possible using a methodology of verification and abrogation based upon what works best for continuity of setting. Some sources are given more authenticity or abrogated based upon this and other factors. There have been many books written over the decades both for gaming and entertainment purposes. Wherever possible, sources in this document use the D&D 3.5 system and will have higher authority than older editions, but there will be exceptions to this.

A Note On Past Experiences
We cannot stress enough that while we understand things may have been done differently on the last server you were on or other servers you currently play on. This server is its own server. We have our own lore interpretations of lore, our own styles and ways of roleplaying a drow, and our own OOC policies here. What took place on your server may or may not be viable here.

Thread Table of Contents


General Underdark OOC Policy


Special Terms of Playing a Drow
Playing a drow is not like playing other races, it is not even like playing other forms of evil. Drow are vicious, cunning, lustful, chaotic and sadistic by nature with few exceptions. As such, we have special terms for those who wish to play a drow on in this server. Before staff will allow any player to play a drow character on this server there are a few special terms that you as a player must understand and agree to.
By creating a drow character on this server you as a player understand and agree to the following special terms:

♦ That you certify that you are at least 18 years of age.

♦ You understand that drow society is political, ruthless and people get hurt and die along the way.
♦ Roleplaying a drow in not pretty and the carebear approach is not appropriate in the underdark.

♦ You understand drow roleplay may include prolonged scenes of intense and mature subject matter.

♦ That you waive the right of consent for viewing graphic violence and other forms of mature content related roleplay as these are normal situations in the underdark.

♦ You as a player consent to increased likelihood that if you are roleplaying in the underdark and discovered as a heretic the consequences to your character can be quite dire.

♦ That a player may always request Fade to Black (FTB) if their character is the subject of such things.

Please understand that we do not do this to be inflexible with players. No one told you to create a character that is of the most infamous race in all of Faerûn. That was your decision as a player and we request and require all players to role play appropriately in regards to race, class, alignment, faith, etc.

We do this to protect those who play drow and are willing to accept the good, the bad, and the chaos. So that you as a player understand what is involved in drow role play clearly, and so other players do not have their immersion spoiled. If a player cannot abide by the setting and the special requirements to play a Drow we highly encourage that you in your capacity as a player that you play something else.


Expectations of Drow Players With IC Authority

Those players who are acquire positions such as House Masters, Members of the Church of Lolth, Masters of the Melee Matharge, Sorcere, Arach-Tinilith and even being a daughter or son of a matron are positions of trust. When we as staff members reward you for your efforts in character there are certain additional expectations we have of you:

♦ Unity. Not IC, but OOC. We are working together as a community, no matter what our characters are doing. We expect you to set the standard for this in everything you do.

♦ We expect you to fulfill the challenging, yet rewarding role. You will have one MAIN character that you spend most of your time on, or will switch to if needed.

♦ Your character will be tested especially if your character is a cleric or priestess. The closer your character gets to the center of the web the more difficult the tests will be. The consequences for failing those tests will also be more severe.

♦ Plotting, the capacity to make small player driven plots within the House. It doesn't have to be big, but simple things like pitting two characters against each other in a series of tests, or ensuring that

♦ Accept the fact you CAN and likely be overthrown and lose your position, and that this isn't a personal attack on you. It's an attack on your character.

♦ Understand that if you show a pattern of unreliability you may lose your position and will likely not regain it. 14 days without notice and 30 days with notice is the standard in that regard.

Please understand, we do not implement these policies to burden you as a player. However, continuity and the nature of the role play demands that if we allow players to rise to such positions they must be able to fulfill the responsibilities inherent in that role. It is not fair for a player to rise to a position of IC prominence and then rest on their laurels or otherwise absent themselves while other players are doing things to ensure their characters progress and/or maintain their positions.

Drow Psychology

Quote :

“By the six hundred and sixty-six layers of the Abyss,” said Waerva, “what ails you? If you’re having seconds thoughts, the time for that is well past.” “I’m not. I want to be something better than milady’s secretary. I want a surname. I want to be a high priestess and a noble.”
The War of the Spider Queen, Book I (p. 47)

The drow are, to the last, a motivated and driven race. The perception that a drow's individual worth is determined only by the influence she wields over society isn't simply a cultural attitude; it's a psychological one as well. A drow who holds no power is a failure in her own eyes, and this more than anything else drives her behavior. It is thus not merely external pressures that cause the drow to plot and scheme; it is an ingrained need that borders on instinct. For the most part, drow are driven by a trinity of emotions that exist, to varying degrees, in every member of the race.

Pride
So far as each drow is concerned, she is a superior specimen of a superior race. A drow never forgets either a victory or a slight.

Anger
Closely intertwined with their pride is a current of rage that runs through the entire drow population. They are a primal and instinctive people, quick to lash out at those who offend them. Drow are quick to resort to violence, and revenge is one of their most potent motivators.

Fear
They are not often aware of it, and would be insulted if someone else were to suggest it, but the drow live every day of their lives in mortal terror. For all their cruelty, all their power, the drow are bitterly fearful creatures, always afraid to lose what they have, yet driven to risk it all for just a little bit more.

Everything the drow do stems from the interactions between these three emotions, bolstered by societal pressures. Even their fanatical devotion to Lolth is based on fear: fear of invoking the goddess's anger should they abandon her, and fear of being cast adrift in the world without divine guidance.


Drow Alignment

Quote :

“Right. Chaos is life. Chaos is creativity. Chaos makes us strong. I remember the creed, but as a practical matter, don’t you see that all this confusion could serve as a mask for the city’s enemies?”

The War of the Spider Queen, Book I (p. 49)

The drow are a highly chaotic, individualistic people, a fact addressed multiple times throughout this chapter. They worship a deity who dwells in the Abyss and is a paragon of chaotic evil. Yet for all that, the Monster Manual gives drow alignment as "usually neutral evil."

The truth is, the drow are at least somewhat cooperative with one another, almost in spite of their own nature. Their ambitions and desires require that their society remain at least somewhat stable. They employ few true laws, but they are tightly bound by traditions and codes, and even if they follow them primarily out of fear, they follow them nonetheless. It is ironic that a lone drow is likely to drift toward chaos, but that despite their rivalry with one another, the presence of multiple drow in a given community literally forces them into a level of cooperation beyond what truly chaotic individuals would maintain.


Long Term Planning

Quote :

I threw in with Sabal simply because she was dangling from the bottom rung of the Mizzrym ladder. I thought it would be an amusing challenge to lift her to the top.”

The War of the Spider Queen, Book I (p. 48)

Whereas this long-term view of life manifests in surface elves as a seeming unwillingness to make decisions quickly or to understand urgency, the drow are just as busy and active as anyone else. Rather than acting slowly because they have more time, drow prefer to squeeze as much out of their extra years as possible.

Where a surface elf might take ten times as long as a human on a given task, Despite their chaotic nature, the drow are consummate long-term planners. to ensure he gets it right, a drow instead works at a feverish pace, but might undertake ten tasks at once.

This "hurry up and wait" mentality — rushing through numerous plans that might not come to fruition for years or longer — only adds to the highly emotional and easily frustrated nature of the drow psyche, but it also ensures that if one plan collapses, a wise drow has half a dozen more to fill in the gap.


Dominant and Submissive Interaction

Quote :

Male commoners, obliged to lower their eyes to every female and step aside for every noble of either gender, compensated by sneering and swaggering their way among the creatures less exalted than any drow.

The War of the Spider Queen, Book I (p. 48)

The drow view all interaction between individuals — not just members of their own society — as hierarchical. They have no ability to treat another person as an equal. Every communication between two or more people, regardless of its purpose, falls into a dominant and submissive pattern.

This is not something drow choose to do; it's simply how they think. The notion of a society of equals is a foreign one, and though drow who deal frequently with other races learn to accept that others do not believe as they do, they never entirely lose the urge to establish dominance in each and every interaction they enter into.

Part and parcel of this notion are the drow ideas of kindness and individual privacy — or, more accurately, their complete lack thereof. A drow who is not strong enough to keep her affairs secret deserves to be exposed and exploited.


Instinctive or Cultural?

Quote :

It was something the drow had never come to fully understand and appreciate, and she preferred that ignorance. To the drow, the chaos was a means for personal gain; there were no straight ladders in the tumult of drow life for one to climb. But the beauty was not the ascent, she knew, if they did not. The beauty was the moment, every moment, of living in the swirl of the unknown, the whirlpool of true chaos.
The War of the Spider Queen, Book I (p. 2)

One question of drow psychology that never occurs to the drow themselves, but is of great interest to outside scholars, is whether all these attitudes are ingrained and instinctual, or whether they are a product of culture and upbringing. Many believe that, due to the influence of Lolth and countless generations of violence and scheming, drow attitudes are now entirely innate.

Take a drow infant to the surface and raise her among kind humans or elves, they say, and she would still grow into a calculating, violent manipulator. Others contend, however, that the drow are not unlike abused children. They perpetuate a cycle of viciousness and cruelty because it is all they know, because they are both learning from example and lashing out at an unkind world in anger and resentment.

If that cycle could be broken, they argue, if a population of drow could be raised away from the influence of Lolth and the culture as it currently exists, they could grow to be very different individuals. This is, perhaps understandably, the vast minority opinion among those who study the drow, and in any event it seems unlikely to be tested anytime soon.



Society and Culture

Quote :

For a moment he felt a pang of loss, but he quashed the sensation. Friendship and trust were for lesser races. They weakened a dark elf, and he was better off without them.
The War of the Spider Queen, Book I (p. 367).

It is a paradox of the drow that their culture, while encouraging selfish ambition and advancement through deception and murder, is still one that focuses — almost in spite of itself — on the good of the community over the good of the individual. Drow society, as a whole, lacks any concept of personal worth. An individual's abilities or accomplishments are not, in and of themselves, of any importance whatsoever. Like many other sentient beings, the drow think in terms of dichotomies: If something is not good, it must be bad; if it is not strong, it must be weak. Thus, if a drow with authority over others is worthwhile, a drow with no authority is worthless.

The culture does not reward skill for skill's sake, or celebrate individual success or ability. It is not that the drow choose to downplay these factors; rather, they literally have no notion that they should matter. It is as foreign an idea to them as judging a person's worth based on shoe size would be to most surface-dwelling races.

The only true measure of importance in drow society is how thoroughly and effectively an individual can direct, shape, and change that society, and how much authority an individual has over other drow and the community's needed resources. Although personal ability and accomplishment, or birth into a powerful bloodline, often leads to such control, it is the influence itself that determines a drow's station and status.

Nothing but status and influence determine individual value, and life itself is of no intrinsic worth. A weak drow is nothing but a commodity to be traded, abused, and eventually exhausted by those more powerful. Drow do avoid randomly slaughtering others who offend them, but this is due to a concern that they might accidentally slay the relative, servant, or slave of someone more powerful, not out of any sense of the value of life.

This core belief in power has developed the drow culture as it exists today, which is a society in which every interaction is determined by a dominant/submissive hierarchy at both the individual and collective levels. A drow divides everyone rather they are drow or otherwise into only three categories:

♦ Someone with more power, who must be appeased and placated (at least until she can be replaced)

♦ Someone who is a useful tool to one's own advancement, who must be exploited in all possible ways

♦ The weak, which are worthless except as labor or disposable troops

A drow who refuses the orders of one with more power has earned whatever tortures that act brings down upon her, and can expect no pity or aid from by others.

The drow are experts in the application of pain and death; they are considered cruel by other races. This, too, is an outward sign of the beliefs at the heart of their cultural development. Pain caused to a superior or a rival is a necessary means to an end; pain caused to a subordinate is unimportant because the subordinate is unimportant.

The drow are cruel, in part, because they have been taught all their lives to see no difference between torturing an underling, whipping an animal, or even repairing an old garden tool. It cannot be stressed enough that societal authority and influence are the only measures of worth the drow understand.

These philosophical underpinnings result in a culture of constant scheming, in which every member of a community is perpetually conspiring to gain greater power over her neighbors while struggling to keep others from gaining power over her. Paranoia is rampant, with every word and deed carefully examined to ensure that it does not contain a hidden danger.

Law and Tradition

Quote :

“Oh, you would have returned,” she continued, “but only because your mothers would have sent you back or else killed you for shaming them. They have sense enough to cleave to the sacred traditions of Menzoberranzan even if their degenerate offspring do not. “Your mothers wouldn’t mind if I slaughtered you, either. They’d thank me for wiping clean the honor of their Houses. But Lolth desires new priestesses, and, despite all appearances to the contrary, it is remotely possible that one or two of you are worthy to serve.
The War of the Spider Queen, Book I (p. 19).

Drow culture is both heavily tradition-bound and highly innovative, a peculiar combination found rarely among the other races. Drow innovation is, as with so much else in their lives, driven by the constant drive to achieve dominance over other drow. A creative battle plan, a brand-new spell, a shorter method of production for made goods; none of these have any value to the drow in and of themselves.

Creation for creation's sake is foreign to their way of thinking. When such innovations are put to use to increase the creator's station, however, then they have proven their worth. Thus, the very same traditions that keep the drow at one another's throats also encourage innovative thinking.

These traditions, although binding, are rarely codified into formal written law. The drow are an innately chaotic people, both in terms of individual temperament and religious doctrine. They bow to tradition due to social pressure and the efforts of those in power, but they react poorly to formalization of those traditions.

The lack of formal codes of law in drow society also equates to a lack of formal law enforcement. A drow community has no watch or police force per se. Rather, each aspect or segment of the community is responsible for enforcing its own power as far as its authority extends.

An offense against a major house is answered by members of that house. The Church of Lolth punishes those who transgress against the Queen of Spiders and her faith. Individual drow react to slights and offenses as their own abilities and status permit. On rare occasions, a drow institution might request the aid of another organization in seeking justice or vengeance against an adversary.

Drow punishment, regardless of whose hands deliver the sentence, is often brutal and efficient. In some instances, the punishing force simply strips the transgressor of power and property. More frequently, the individual becomes a bound slave to the house or church. Torture and execution are common as well. The drow do not believe in imprisonment as a punishment in and of itself, nor do they believe in second chances.


Government and Rule

Quote :

Lolth was the only deity anyone worshiped, and her clergy ruled in the temporal sense as well as the spiritual one.

The War of the Spider Queen, Book I (p. 11)

To say that the drow are governed by a matriarchal theocracy is both accurate and misleading. It is certainly true that the ruling members of drow society are the priestesses of Lolth and the matrons (and other matriarchs of the great houses), but calling them a "government" is a misnomer. Just as the drow are guided by tradition but have no formal law, they are overseen by these influential personages but have no formal government.

A drow community is governed, so to speak, through the unsteady cooperation of its three most powerful institutions. The Church of Lolth is the most influential faction among the drow. The priestesses of this church interpret and disseminate the will of Lolth, conduct rites and rituals to honor the darkgoddess, and technically have the authority to demand anything in her name. If the drow were to have a formal government, it would be made up of these individuals.

On a practical level however, although the priestesses are indeed the social leaders of the drow overall, the church often lacks the power to take drastic action without the support of the great houses. Powerful matriarchs frequently hold power in both the church and a house. As such, what is self-interest for one will often be self-interest for the other.

It is also important to understand that the church is not a monolithic entity, guided by a single voice or a single goal. It is made up of individual priestesses, all of whom are loyal to Lolth, but all of whom have the same drive to dominate the weak and advance their own cause as any other drow. Thus, although a drow priestess can bring substantial might to bear against a lone individual or small family who offends her, she cannot muster the resources of the church against an entire house, unless the house has blatantly and conspicuously turned against Lolth as a whole.

The houses of the drow hold the bulk of the community's economic and military power in their hands at varied levels. In some communities, a specific house might be a greater power even than the priestesses of Lolth, directing the activities of religious leaders with behind-the-scenes threats or open shows of force. The high priestess of a community might also be a highly ranked matriarch of a great house, using one to advance the schemes of the other.

Each house is tied to the other houses in a complex web of treaties and conflicts, alliances and betrayals. Should one house become too powerful, others ally to bring it down (even while appearing, on the surface, to support them, playing both sides against the middle). Further, although the church usually lacks the power to single-handedly destroy a house, neither can a house afford to make an enemy of the church under any save the most dire of circumstances.

The military is the final drow institution that, in some communities, could be a governing body. Drow communities do not have standing armies, since this would require a formal government. Multiple smaller forces make up the larger soldiery of a drow city. These consist primarily of house-loyal militias, church soldiers, and independent mercenary companies. For the most part, then, the "military" is simply the enforcement arm of a house or the church.


Gender Roles

Quote :

Before her little brother departed to Tier Breche, Greyanna had barely noticed him. Of course, you didn’t pay attention to young males unless you were unlucky enough to be put in charge of them. They were the silent little shadows creeping about the house, cleaning, ever cleaning, straining to master their inherent magical abilities, and learning their subordinate place in the world, all under the impatient eyes—and whips—of their minders. As far as she could remember, Pharaun had been as cowed and pathetic as the rest.

The War of the Spider Queen, Book I (pp. 32-33)

The supremacy of the female is deeply ingrained in drow culture. Females are seen as stronger, smarter, and more emotionally controlled than males, and — above all — holier and more devoted to Lolth. Males, on the other hand, are viewed as spiritually, intellectually, and physically inferior, useful primarily for physical and skilled labor and breeding purposes.

A male drow is seen as superior to a member of any other race, but inferior even to female drow of lower status. This attitude comes from a variety of separate but related sources. The first and most obvious is Lolth herself. The goddess has, over the course of drow mythology and history, taken multiple consorts, all of whom have been eventually discarded. Whether this is the cause of Lolth's opinion of males or a symptom of it, Lolth believes that only females are worthwhile servants.

Much like the spiders they revere, drow females also hold power due to biological reasons. In many spider species, the females are far larger and stronger, and males often do not survive the mating process. Drow childbirth is a physically strenuous occasion, and though the drow feel little if any affection for their young, they understand the importance of continuing the family and house lines. Thus, the females, who are both essential to reproduction and capable of withstanding it, are clearly both stronger and more blessed than the males. Whether the drow think as they do because of their emulation of spiders is unclear and ultimately unimportant.

Finally and perhaps most important, females are already ascendant within drow society. Matriarchs and priestesses have enough trouble clinging to power in the face of other ambitious females; the last thing they want is to double the pool of potential rivals. Thus, the tradition of female dominance continues, in large part, at the behest of the females who are already dominant.

Male drow hold little if any power, but not all of them are mere property, even if many females see them as such. Some of the most skilled crafters, warriors, and arcane casters among the drow are male. In fact, the submissive status of males in drow society actually inspires many of them to excel.

Male drow can lay claim to little authority, and they are constantly at risk of being discarded by their female leaders, so only those with skills and abilities that are not easily replaceable can be relatively confident of their positions.

Denied the right to formally influence society, male drow have become masters of finding subtle and nontraditional roads to power. Many become teachers of arcane magic or military strategy, attempting to form strong bonds with their students — particularly the females who might well hold power in the next generation. Others join the soldiers of a powerful house or the priestesses of Lolth, working their way up in the ranks. At the very least, these positions grant them some measure of authority, and if they are fortunate enough to be officers during wartime (or devious enough to start a well timed war), that authority can grow to rival that of some matriarchs.

Of course, some drow males attempt to seduce powerful females, using lust — and even the rare emotion of love — to influence drow leaders behind the scenes. In the lower echelons of drow society, away from the movers and shakers, males and females hold similar roles. A member of either gender might be a household servant, a shopkeeper, a soldier, or an artist. The males tend more toward physical labor and the females toward skilled crafts — not because females are weaker, but because they often have more opportunities to choose their own path than males do — but this is only a tendency, not a societal constant.

Lolth

Quote :

In a minute or so, she entered a long gallery, where wall carvings told the history of Lolth as it had occurred and as it was prophesied: her seduction of Corellon Larethian, chief deity of the contemptible elves of the World Above, their union and her first attempt to overthrow him, her discovery of her spider form and her descent into the Abyss, her conquest of the Demonweb and her adoption of the drow as her chosen people, and her future triumph over all other gods and ascendancy over all creation.
The War of the Spider Queen, Book I (p. 170)

Intermediate Goddess
Other Names: Queen of Spiders, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, Mother of Lusts
Symbol: Black spider with female drow head hanging from a spiderweb
Alignment: Chaotic evil
Portfolio: Spiders, evil, darkness, chaos, assassins, drow
Domains: Chaos, Drow, Evil, Darkness, Destruction, Spider, Trickery
Favored Weapon: A spider (dagger)

Lolth (loalth) is a cruel, capricious deity who is believed to be insane by many because she pits her own worshipers against each other. Malicious in her dealings with others and coldly vicious in a fight, she covets the power given to the deities worshiped by the surface races. She can be kind and aid those that she fancies, but she thrives on the death, destruction, and torture of anyone, including those of her own worshipers that have displeased her.

Lolth was once Araushnee, the consort of Corellon Larethian, and bore him Eilistraee and Vhaeraun.
She betrayed her lover, tried to invade Arvandor with a host of evil spirits, and was banished to the Abyss in the form of a spider demon. She is the ruler of the drow pantheon and is allied with Loviatar and Malar. Her foes include the Seldarine (the entire elven pantheon), Ghaunadaur, Eilistraee, non-drow Underdark deities, and Gruumsh.


Religion
If drow life and culture are driven by a single force, it must be their faith. The drow are pantheistic in only the loosest sense of the word. Humans worship a variety of deities equally. Elves revere Corellon Larethian above all others, but their religion is replete with other deities that are nearly as important. But for the drow, there is only Lolth. Lolth is not referred to as a goddess, but “the goddess” among the majority of drow. This comes as a surprise to many scholars, who believe the drow pantheon to consist of multiple deities. There are other deities among the dark seldarine, no matter how strongly an individual drow might revere them in secret, they are secondary at best, barely visible in the shadow of the Spider Queen. It is she, and she alone, who stands as the heart of dark seldarine.

Religious practice is not a voluntary activity among the drow. Because the priestesses rule drow society (to the extent that any one institution can be said to do so), they ruthlessly enforce the worship of Lolth, demanding participation in her rites and often punishing failure to take part by making the transgressor their next sacrifice.

The priestesses rarely find themselves forced to take such steps, however. Worship of Lolth is so heavily ingrained in the culture that most drow participate willingly, out of a mixture of reverence and terror for their goddess.

The Eights Legs of the Spider (Central Doctrine of Faith)
♦ Fear of Lolth

♦ Evil

♦ Sanctity of Arachnids

♦ Trickery

♦ Assassination

♦ Chaos

♦ Darkness

♦ Destruction

♦ Hedonism


Rites and Rituals of Lolth
As should be expected from so violent a society and so rapacious a deity, the holy rites of Lolth are brutal and bloody affairs. Living sacrifice is a central tenet of all but the most minor of rituals. The drow worship not out of love, but out of fear, and their faith demands that their fear be spread to others. Lolth watches, Lolth tests — and above all, Lolth consumes.


Prayers

Quote :

“Great Goddess, Mother of the Dark, grant me the blood of my enemies for drink and their living hearts for meat. Grant me the screams of their young for song, grant me the helplessness of their males for my satiation, grant me the wealth of their houses for my bed. By this unworthy sacrifice I honor you, Queen of Spiders, and beseech of you the strength to destroy my foes.”

Prayers to Lolth are always uttered in Elven. Undercommon is fine for normal conversation, but devotions to the goddess are not to be sullied with words adopted from other races. The drow frequently pray before entering into a dangerous situation, beginning an endeavor, or simply preparing for a day's work.

They do not, however, ask Lolth's aid in the coming trials, or seek her blessing on a task. Requesting help is a sign of weakness, insulting to the goddess, and just begging to be stricken with some horrific malady or misfortune. Instead, prayers to Lolth are requests to be tested, so that the petitioner can display her strength and skill, or promises that the day's successes will be achieved in Lolth's name and devoted to her glory. "Elliya Lolthu," Elven for "Test me, Lolth," is among the most common phrases uttered in drow prayer. In drow it is“Zud'dar Ussa Lolth”. Other varieties of this blessing are "Lolth zud'dar dos" or Loth test you and "Lolth zud'dar udossa" or Lolth test us.


Minor Rites
An individual drow might perform a minor rite when she is celebrating a personal victory, and seeks to offer Lolth her due. More than a simple prayer, these rites usually involve some form of symbolic sacrifice, such as poured wine, burnt riches, or a small amount of the petitioner's own spilled blood. Such rites require an icon, idol, or symbol of Lolth, before which they are performed.

They include the recitation of long prayers asking Lolth to accept the offered gifts and to provide even greater challenges in the days to come. Unlike prayers, which are often uttered in public, and major rites, which are large affairs, minor rites are personal activities. They rarely involve more than one drow, and never more than a handful.


Major Rites
The drow conduct two types of major rites to Lolth, both of which involve the participation of multiple individuals and blood sacrifice to the goddess. The first is a religious ceremony, in which drow gather to pay homage to their dark queen. Priestesses lead the ceremony with prayers and chants, normally within a temple of Lolth or before a great altar or idol. At least one sacrifice — normally of a captive or slave, but occasionally of a drow citizen — occurs at this time, blood spilled to feed the Spider Queen.

The second is a contest between priestesses or, more rarely, other powerful drow, designed to prove worthiness in the eyes of Lolth. Most of these events include direct combat and competition, either in melee or spellcasting, but others involve tests of knowledge and ritual, or even the acquisition of specific goals.

The winner proves her worth and gains additional magic, higher position in the priesthood, and similar prizes. The losers, assuming they survive, are often demoted, maimed, or transformed by Lolth's anger into driders or other horrific creatures. The drow conduct major rites to celebrate community wide events and victories, whenever a priestess seeks advancement to a high office, and at regular intervals for no purpose other than the veneration of Lolth.


Offerings to the Spider Queen
The most minor of offerings include the burning of precious oils and incense, gems and other riches. Lolth's tastes in sacrifices are very specific. She prefers sentient creatures over non-sentient ones, humanoids over non-humanoids, elves over other humanoids, and drow over elves. She prefers more powerful (higher level) sacrifices to weaker ones, and her own priestesses over all others.

Obviously, this last type of sacrifice occurs only rarely. To keep the church from falling apart, the priestesses seldom initiate violence among themselves, and if one priestess does come to blows against another, the lot of them likely come to the aid of the victim, if only to preserve the status quo.

They do sacrifice their own as punishment, however, or if one makes too many enemies among the others. This factor keeps all the priestesses wary of one another and constantly scrabbling for sufficient power to ward off sudden attacks, which is exactly the way Lolth wants it.

There is one tradition of slaughter and sacrifice among the faithful that is particularly dangerous for any drow to undertake, but rewarding if they are successful. Monthly sacrifices of surface elves on the nights of the full moon are done deliberately to offend Sehanine Moonbow of the elven pantheon.


Tests of Lolth

Quote :

Dyrr,” he said, “surely you have observed that there is no end to the wiles of the Spider Queen. The only certainty of our existence is that Lolth is a capricious and demanding deity, a goddess who delights in teaching very harsh lessons indeed.
The War of the Spider Queen, Book III (p. 89)

Only the strong can be allowed to thrive; the weak must be culled. This is a central tenet of drow culture and a primary law of Lolth. To better ensure that only the strongest of her subjects obtain power, Lolth occasionally subjects them to tests of their abilities. Many drow, usually those who live unremarkable lives, never receive such a test.

Those who hold power must endure at least one or two in their lifetimes, and priestesses and powerful matriarchs are tested on a regular basis. In most instances, failing a Test of Lolth results in death.

A significant minority of the time, however, the failed subject is instead transformed into a drider (or, more rarely, some other hybrid horror). Until recently, the drow shunned and hated the driders, seeing them as nothing but failures and signs of Lolth's displeasure. Recently, however, that attitude has begun to change; The most common trials are described below.

Test of Loyalty
A relative or ally of the drow to be tested is granted a vision by Lolth, claiming that the subject of the test has turned against her and must be slain in ambush. As the attack begins, the subject hears Lolth's voice telling her that she is being tested; she must prove willing to slay an ally at Lolth's command.

Test of Strength
This is simple combat against a rival drow or a monster of power equal to or greater than the subject of the test. Defeat, or showing mercy to the foe, results in failure of the test. Although these are the most common Tests of Lolth, they are also the least important.

Test of Lies
The subject must manipulate certain individuals that are revealed to her by the voice of Lolth — into believing specific falsehoods. Even under threat and torture, she must continue to make these lies fully believable.

Test of Mettle
The drow, in a confined space, is covered with swarms of venomous spiders. She must extricate herself without harming any of the arachnids, and survive their poisonous bites in the process.

Test of Doubt
The drow is stripped of many, or even all, of her powers, including her racial abilities and spellcasting (both arcane and divine). This degradation can even include the sudden acquisition of negative levels. In a few instances, the drow is turned into a drider or other creature, as though she had already failed a test. The drow must not only survive, but thrive in her weakened state — often for days, weeks, or longer — without losing faith in Lolth. Only the most powerful and highly placed drow suffer this test, and those who pass are the stronger for it.












The Church of Lolth

Lolth’s church promotes the superiority of the Queen of Spiders over all other beings. It is responsible for the perpetuation of the evil rumors and fear the surface elves hold for the drow and their deity.

The drow's priesthood is unusual — perhaps even unique — because it is not inherently any more faithful or zealous in its worship than the rest of the population. Almost all drow venerate Lolth, for they understand the consequences of failing to do so. The Church of Lolth is less a haven for the society's devout and more a reliable path to power. Short of working one's way up through the ranks of a powerful house, the priesthood is the surest means of advancement in drow society. And although the priesthood rarely accepts drow of low station, it does so with more frequency than the houses do.

That said, the drow understand that the life of a priestess is not one of ease. The church not only conducts Lolth's rites and rituals, it serves as the glue that holds together a society of scheming and bickering houses. Its members must be strong and merciless, and perhaps hardest of all;must moderate their own schemes to consider the needs of the church as a whole. This doesn't mean that drow priestesses do not plan to achieve their own ambitions at the expense of others; in fact, the priesthood is filled with more political infighting and secret deals than in any three houses put together.

The priestesses understand, however, that although Lolth favors drow who advance their own power, she also wishes the race as a whole to thrive, and a priestess whose personal schemes threaten to weaken the community swiftly finds herself falling out of favor with both the goddess and her church.


Becoming a Priestess

To become a priestess of Lolth, a female drow must meet two specific requirements. Male drow are never accepted into the priesthood, and can at best hope to be a favored servant of a priestess or in rare cases a Yath’sargtlin, which is a divine champion of the church.

First, she must show an aptitude for divine magic. Among the drow, every priest must be a cleric or other divine caster, such as a favored soul, even if she has only a few levels in the appropriate class.

An exception exists to the rule that all drow priestesses must be divine spellcasters. Lolth resides in the Abyss, and many of her favored servants and minions are demons. If the powers of a drow warlock stem from bargains with (or descent from) Lolth-associated demons, she is considered blessed by the Spider Queen. If these individuals meet all the other priesthood requirements, they can hold status even though they are technically arcane spellcasters.

Second, an aspiring cleric must subject herself to the first of many Tests of Lolth. Many lay drow face these trials at various points, but priestesses endure them on a relatively regular basis. Strictly speaking, these tests are between the individual and Lolth, and outside interference is forbidden. On a practical level, however, drow priestesses are rarely accepting of new competition (unless the newcomer is somehow indebted or subservient to them, of course) and might provide new initiates with a bit of extra challenge.

Once one has become a priestess, the hard work is far from over for a Yath’abben. Advancement requires constant effort to prove loyalty to Lolth, to exercise control over other drow, and to take advantage of the other priestesses' weaknesses. The best route to promotion among the priesthood is to open up a position by discrediting or assassinating someone of higher rank. Combined with the requirements of surviving regular Tests of Lolth, this climate of backstabbing makes the life span of a priestess relatively short for all but the most clever and powerful of drow.

Thus, the Church of Lolth remains relatively low in membership, but those drow priestesses who survive more than a few years are truly potent and merciless individuals.

One very important distinction exists among the drow, one that visitors often fail to notice or to comprehend. Although a priestess of Lolth must be a cleric (or other divine caster), not all divine casters are officially priestesses. A drow might be fully devoted to her goddess, and even have levels as a cleric, without formally joining the church.

The ability to cast divine spells indicates that a drow has Lolth's favor, but it doesn't inherently grant her any authority beyond what she can take for herself. She does not speak for the church and cannot count on the authority of the priesthood to support her actions.


Duties of the Clergy
Anyone who has read this far and still expects drow priestesses to counsel the faithful in times of emotional turmoil or crises of faith has clearly not been paying attention. Lolth's church is not a sanctuary for other drow in times of trouble, but a home for her primary minions and enforcers.

The duties of Lolth's priestesses are twofold. One, they are responsible for leading the drow in the rituals demanded by the Queen of the Demonweb Pits. Although any cleric of Lolth can lead others in prayer or minor rites, only a true priestess can lead a community as a whole, or conduct the formal sacrifices Lolth demands.

Their second purpose, closely related to the first, is enforcing the worship of Lolth and Lolth's dictates. Priestesses have the authority to demand attendance at Lolth's rites and to levy punishment on those who fail to participate or otherwise act against the Spider Queen's interests.

Beyond this, Lolth's priestesses have no strict duties. Some perform various social ceremonies such as marriages, but this is usually done as a favor (eventually requiring repayment, of course) to another powerful drow. They often serve as leaders in times of conflict, crisis, or war, but such roles are filled equally often by house matrons. Priestesses, when not conducting rites to their Queen, are engaged in the same sorts of schemes as all other drow — they simply have the advantage of divine mandate, or at least of powerful allies and resources, when doing so.


Hierarchy of the Priesthood in House and Church of Lolth and House Clerics

A strict formal hierarchy one would be antithetical to the chaotic mentality, of the drow. The Church of Lolth lacks layers of ranks and official designations, and those titles that do exist often vary from community to community.