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dailyadventureprompts · 2 years

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You've done a few Monsters Reimagined posts about gods already, so I was wondering... any ideas for reimagining Lolth? I know in your Drow post you suggested just ditching the spider cultist stuff, but I do think Lolth herself has some potential. (I have some ideas of my own, which can be summed up as "to high elves, Lolth IS an evil trickster, but to Drow she's the goddess of law, art, magic, and anything to do with webs, and CORELLON is the trickster" but I'm curious what ideas you have)

Deity: Lolth, Queen of Spiders and Weaver of Lies

Its said that in the dawn era when the world was still settling the first mortals caught one of their gods in a lie. It was a benign, harmless thing, but that first falsehood turned sour in the god’s mouth, and when spitting to earth it took a shape with many legs, and scuttled off into the dark

Setup: None can say where Lolth or her cult first emerged, as a goddess of deception she has worn many guises and worked to obscure her true origin since perhaps the first moment of her existence. even her commonly recorded name; Lolth, is but the most recent of her aspects, one that many scholars believe she has abandoned in recent ages as more and more of her followers awake to the cruelty of her doctrine, leaving behind a hollow idol the way a spider sheds its carapace when it grows.

Lolth is a goddess of deception, not the simple half truths that everyone lets slip now and again (though some more orthodox faiths claim that these lies give life to spiders), but to the falsehoods that warp the perception of individuals, communities, and entire nations: they are out to get you/ I didn't push you, you fell/ our way is the godly way, all others are degenerate. When one of these delusions takes root and begins to skew lives, the goddess weaves another thread into her tapestry of deception, wrapping her victims in a false reality the way a spider wraps its prey. Lolth too is an enemy of objective reality, sowing madness in the minds of mortals or using her agents to muddle and destroy historical records.

Logically it doesn’t make sense to worship a goddess of deception, nightmares and gaslighting, until one asks who might benefit from others falling prey to such afflictions. Tyrants, abusers, con artists, the ones that think they’re clever enough to lie forever or the ones so prideful they believe that their opinions override reality. These are the ones that feel the tug of the spider’s string, and delude themselves into thinking they are puppeteer rather than puppet.

Adventure Hooks

After the death of their high priestess, a cult of darkelves found their connection to the spiderqueen severed, throwing them into a theological crisis that left most of their leadership dead as each tried to backstab their way into proving that they were Lolths next chosen. Faced with a total lack of guidance, the cults lesser acolytes and henchmen have taken to following the last survivor off this divinely ordained massacre: A former apprentice of the high priestess who died performing a grand rite and was transformed into a deathlock for her trouble. Kept around as both jester and example of what fate awaits those who waver in their faith, this cackling cadaver has forgotten much of who she was and now calls herself Hollowhead, a cruel nickname given by her mistress when she realized her dead apprentice always had spiders on the brain, literally. Now tugging at the neck chain that once secured her to the high priestess’s throne, Hollowhead leads the cult out to enact whatever whim her goddess puts in her head, with the features on the menu being sacrifices, rampant poisonings, and gross transfigurations.

In one of their many adventures, the party end up clashing with a charming huckster who’s gone and made an enemy of some very powerful people. Perhaps he’s backed a guild leader into a bad business deal, or swindled a fortune out of the party’s prospective patron. Perhaps he introduces himself as a mentor for a young party of roguish individuals and then leaves them holding the bag in the midst of a heist. When he dies (either when the party catches up to him or months later after he’s been justly tried and tossed in a dungeon) he realizes that he’s called upon the weaver of lies one too many times in the course of filling his pockets, and is at risk of having his soul claimed once it passes into the underworld. To avoid this terrible fate, the huckster pulls one last trick, stealing himself from the goddess’s clutches and wandering the world as a ghost. Never one to be denied her prize, the goddess dispatches a monstrous construct from her realm, a Retriever, to fetch the trickster’s wayward soul and flatten anything that stands in its way: such as the party, who the huckster has been quietly haunting for some time as a means of tagging along with their adventures.

On the trail of a missing merchant caravan, the party encounter a village Where Everything Is Fine, with the one exception being the library dedicated to Ioun seems to have been boarded shut. Folk here vaguely remember the merchant passing through, but having come a long while the party decide to rest in the rustic and comfortable inn to enjoy some good food and the owers’ charming hospitality, only to wake up with one of their number missing. Find out their horrifying fate under the cut

They find their missing friend some hours later living a completely different life, having been married to an attractive and attentive stranger for some years and never once having contemplated becoming an adventurer and leaving the village Where Everything Is Fine. Snapping their friend out of it is as easy as noticing the faint trace of webbing near their ear and squishing the spider that’s crawled in there carrying a number of delusions with it, but there’s no telling which one of them could be next to forget. Checking inside the boarded up library reveals a few haggard townsfolk and a VERY paranoid priestess of the goddess Ioun who’ve been hold up inside while the rest of their neighbors went all Norman Rockwell/Stepford wife. To hear them tell it, things started happening after the innkeeper’s wife showed up with bruises after the two had a raucous shouting match infront of a large crowd of patrons. The two had always had a rocky relationship but she insisted over and over again that Everything Is Fine… and people started to agree with her. Desperate to preserve the illusion of a blissful homelife, the innkeeper’s wife has made a spontaneous pact with Lolth, and her increasingly blasphemous self delusion will stop at nothing to ensure that no one ruins her fantasy. Depending on how tactful you want to be consider having her turn into a giant spider monster, with her abusive husband hollowed out, alive and aware but filled with innumerable skittering young.

Titles: Queen of Spiders, Weaver of lies, Mother of Deceit, Lady of truth (for the faithful)

Signs: Excessive spiders, or spiders where there should not be spiders (such as in your mouth or ears), a pervasive sense that someone is lying to you or that what you perceive is not real, faces momentarily showing opposite emotions.

Symbols: Spiders and their associated iconography, more subtle symbols may include objects in groups of eight, like eight stars in a ring upon a flag or eight jewels set in a fractal spiral upon a broach. Other cults unconnected to spider iconography use that of weaving: looms, spinning wheels, dropspindles, and may occasionally substitute silkworms for spiders where regionally appropriate.

Followers:In addition to her active cults, such as the most well known among the darkelves or creatures like the chitine Lolth is a proactive goddess when it comes to choosing champions, most often selecting for those with the capacity for controlling or deceiving others, or those victims who would replace their abusers rather than see their torment end. Some few desperate also worship Lolth as a means of protecting themselves from deception or madness, but the queen of spiders is likely to exact a heavy toll for such protection, if she extends it at all.

Also yeah, no sexy spider goddess art for you folks. Her many-legged majesty may take on a pleasing guise when trying to entice you to do something but when it comes time to throw down you’re going toe to toe with something that exemplifies madness and lies and treachery

Art

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illithidactivities · 3 months

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tagged by @hungerofhadarr !! thank you!!

Name: Miz'ri Jhalavar

Nickname(s): None other than whatever pet name falls out of Astarion's mouth at any given moment. She may have a Folk Hero background, but it wasn't one that garnered her a hero name (she broke up a slaving ring out near Neverwinter shortly after she left the Underdark, and then took up monster hunting)

Pronouns: she/her

Star Sign: no idea lol

Height: idk like 5'5" probably

Orientation: biromantic demisexual

Race: Drow

Romancing: Astarion

Fave Fruit: She's extremely fond of grapes and oranges. Things that really require the sun and remind her of summer.

Fave Season: Spring and Summer. She loves the sunshine, though fall is a close second with the colors. Winter... meh. Each of them have their own merits, though, to someone who grew up without seasons.

Fave Flower: Lotus flowers. She thinks they're so pretty on the water.

Fave Scent: Summer rain. A good roast cooking over a campfire. Honeysuckle and fresh spring grass. Fresh mint.

Coffee, Tea, or Hot Chocolate: Hot chocolate. It's the one thing she looks forward to in winter.

Average Sleep Hours: Depends, but probably around 4 hours. She may be an elf, but she likes to sleep when she can.

Dogs or Cats: She's a cat person at heart, but Scratch is her best buddy.

Dream Trip: She wants to see everything. All the realms and all the planes of existence. She wants to walk the world with someone she loves.

Amount of Blankets: When she gets to lay in a bed, she nests. Mountain of pillows and blankets.

Random Fact(s):

She has scarification marks from her youth. Her family were part of a particularly zealous sect of Lolth-sworn drow, and her grandmother was a High Priestess. Her family practiced scarification to show their devotion, so she has a whole back and both arms full of intricate spider web scars carved into her by her grandmother's hand. The biggest one, gifted to her on her coming-of-age birthday, starts at her nape and drapes down her back and over both shoulders like a shawl.

Her right eye is forever a slightly lighter shade of pink after the damage done to it by her half-illithid transformation. The scars on her face from various monster hunts are also slightly different--less deep than they had been.

Tagging: @seldaryne, @whynotsableye, @mypunkpansexualtwin, @meishuu, and @ottobooty!

#miz'ri jhalavar #bg3 #drow tav

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lairofsentinel · 4 months

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oc meme

Thank you @galedekarios, who linked me in her oc meme

name: Chardry Kalenhad

His name comes from nothing drow since it was given by his human mother. Technically, I wanted something that sounded ok, and at the same time, that would reflect his humour and a metaphor of many things in his background: a dry, brittle char, like a dry leaf. The concept of dryness is a bit attached to him. So, Chardry. lol.

nickname: Chay [by his mother and his friends]. Othorion may call him whatever he fancies.

gender: male

star sign: .... uh... some friend told me he "felt like a Scorpio". I have no idea, so let's keep it as a Scorpio.

height: 160 cm

orientation: gay

race: drow

romancing: Othorion Shadowwater [Rose's Oc], quite married, to be fair.

fave fruit: he doesn't have any, food is something he never cared much about. As long as he can eat to cover his energy needs, he is satisfied.

fave season: Autumn

fave flower: none.

fave scent: In the beginning, none. His practicality made him have none. Plus, he was too accustomed to the smell of dried blood and rot. But after Othorion gifted him a bag with cooilgan [a fantasy honey comb-like thing] that became his fave scent. He would sniff that small bag he always has on him when he wants to relax.

coffee, tea or hot chocolate: tea, and probably some coffee too, specially when he is too focused on working on something.

average sleep hours: between four and six. He is a light sleeper, as a consequence of a child always fearing to be attacked in his sleep by spiders, Lolth emissaries in his imagination, or simply other humanoids that would see in him a danger in the future.

When he was a child, he used to sleep, but as his fears grew, he stopped doing it, and he mostly trances all the time. He can't hold a sitting position during trance, and every time he tried to, he ends up all spread on the ground, ridiculously. He prefers trance because he can be slightly aware of his environment, so he thinks he can perceive any danger before it attacks him. By Othorion's side he will indulge himself in sleeping here an there.

dogs or cats: neither. He doesn't care much about cats, and dogs bring him bad memories, specially if they start barking at him. He prefer the company of his lovely bird familiar, a black, mischievous, smoky mix of a raven and a crow, called Ar.

dream trip: Enjoying the caravan life once more with Othorion. After all, despite the complexity and tension of living with the rest of the caravan merchants, one of the best times in his life was when he was growing up in a merchant caravan with his mother. He would love to reforge nice memories again, but this time with Othorion.

amount of blankets: as many as the weather demands

random fact(s):

He can speak Halfling, as a consequence of living among them in the merchant caravan. He also learnt elvish, but it's badly pronounced, with a heavy accent, because he learnt it only via books. He also speaks Draconic, important for metamagic that he dabbles in. He knows little about Undercommon, only for merchant purposes.

He has asthma since he was a baby. His condition is in check by regularly drinking potions.

He has a scar of a dagger wound on his stomach.

He is always flattening his ears with his fingers or palms, and arranging his hair to cover them. There is a constant concern about his concealed ears.

He plays the erhu with great skill (in his left little finger he wears a magical ring that can summon an erhu). He has mixed this skill with some illusion spells that allow him to craft sceneries of big size in the company of the music.

More details of his background here

#chardry #chardry kalenhad #meme

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