What They Don't Tell You About Lolth's Drow - D&D

lolth is a cruel and capricious deity who is believed to be insane by many because she pits her own worshippers 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 worshippers that have displeased her lolt's church promotes the superiority of the queen of spiders over all other beings it is responsible for the perpetration of the evil rumors and fear the surface elves hold for the drow and their deity even lolt's most devout clerics hate and fear her worshiping her only for the power she grants lolth is one of the most popular and well-known goddesses in dungeons and dragons known as the queen of spiders and the leader of the dark elves known to be some of the cruelest and most despicable of races in the world we have her abilities we have her stats i will literally tell you how much hp she has and how much damage this goddess can do to you i can tell you what kinds of magic items she can produce with her divine magic i can show you the reach of her ears and the length of her voice and even how many 9th level spell slots she has but before we go into it let's talk about our sponsor today this video is brought to you by dungeons of dragonheim 15 years ago drakenheim was destroyed by an eldritch storm of falling stars now the city is a dismal urban wasteland contaminated by otherworldly magic and haunted by hideous monsters fantastic wealth lost knowledge and powerful artifacts lie ready for the taking by adventurers braver foolish enough to venture into the ruins explore over 20 ruined urban locations including haunted streets the crumpet sewers shattered mage towers baroque cathedrals and ancient castles inhabited by dozens of nightmarish new monsters inspired by dark fantasy and cosmic horror each site features evocative descriptions gorgeous illustrations and detailed maps personal quests tantalizing rumors and lightweight urban exploration mechanics allow player characters to experience the ruins in a non-linear and open-ended fashion dungeons of dragonheim is a 5th edition campaign for characters level 1-13 currently on kickstarter so go over to the link below and support them but now on to the video this video is going to be challenging for me because the topic is lolth not specifically the drow yeah you will notice that we will find ourselves talking over and over about the drow because both are inexorably linked in fact this whole video will technically be about the drow see the reason lolth is what she is is because of the drow and the reason the drow are the way they are is because of loath if this is why what was supposed to be the loath video is now going to be split in two this video will focus on the drought religion and lol's influence over them and then our next video will focus exclusively on lol herself her stats and her realm in the abyss you will see why it would be impossible not to talk about the drow as we go forward hopefully in the future we can do a video specifically on just the drought in their society but in any case here we go quote if drought 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 coryl and lorithian above all others but their religion is replete with other deities that are nearly as important but for the drow there is only loth end quote this comes as a surprise to many people including even the actual scholars and adventurers in the world who know that the dark elves have a whole pantheon who they call the dark zeldarine many believe that because they have this pantheon that they must venerate them as gods but that's actually not fully how it works these deities are secondary at best mere shadows in the presence of the spider queen in fact they go even further the drow don't even actually consider them true gods they merely honor them as powerful servants of lolth and in some cases as the literal divine children of lol but at the end of the day it is her who the drow fear and respect the drow are a perfect example of what happens when you let an entire species be dominated by a single powerful deity there are other examples of course grumps who dominates the orcs and mclubiet who controls the goblins but even them have relatively strong pantheons with different views and conflicting opinions the closest another race might even get to what lolth has on the drow might be the kobolds who are governed by court mack and he alone their entire life revolves around this lesser god and they dedicate their entire existence to it in these cases the personality of the god becomes the culture of the species a big difference of course between the kovald and the drow are the decoupled venerate cortalmak the dark elves fear lolth quote 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 love demanding participation in her rights 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 the worship of lolth is so heavily ingrained in the culture that most drought participate willingly out of a mixture of reverence and terror for the goddess as should be expected from so violent a society and so rapacious a deity the holy rights of lolth are brutal and bloody affairs a living sacrifice is the central tenet of all but the most minor of rituals they draw worship not out of love but out of fear and their faith demands that their fear be spread to others loathe watches lol tests and above all lol consumes end quote a sacrifice is the name of the game in drought society specifically when it comes to veneration and religious offerings now you would imagine that any reasonable evil goddess might desire the sacrifice of her enemies but you have to understand lol has never been known for being reasonable in fact let me reiterate the very first sentence that i ushered at the beginning of this video lol is a cruel capricious deity who is believed to be insane by many because she puts her own worshipers against each other her favorite sacrifice is actually her very own people and again you might think probably those who don't venerate her perhaps she desires as a sacrifice those drow who refused to pray to her or perhaps traitors or criminals but no you would be wrong again the most devout and the most powerful of princesses that's what she craves the most if her most powerful her most willing and most helpful servant were to be sacrificed in her name she would but rejoice but hey this is the video where we go deep so let's go through it she prefers sentient creatures over non-sentient ones a humanoid over non-humanoids and drow over elves she prefers more powerful sacrifices to weaker ones and her own princesses over all others that being said the church of loth in this case being the actual women who run the clergy very rarely make sacrifices of themselves for obviously self-reservation reasons they also don't make it a habit to in-fight between each other though this still happens quite regularly instead they used lol's desire for drow sacrifice as a way to control the community if you break the rules of the church the church sacrifices you to love and most rituals will have slaves to be sacrificed but the church will not waste a drow who breaks the rules now these prayers rituals and ceremonies are not there to help the community a lot does not pity or help the drow in fact asking for help as a form of prayer is considered to be disrespectful to love asking for help is a sign of weakness and it is extremely insulting to the goddess you are more than likely to be hit by a disease combooked by lolth and get help from insulting her in this fashion instead every single prayer and offering to lol is instead a prayer to be tested only by overcoming adversity and showing lol to your worth is how you win her favor and one of the most common short phrases or prayers hit by drow scouts when encountering outsiders and enemies is elia lofu which is elven for test me loaf it should also be mentioned that all prayers are recited in elvish love is an elven goddess you cannot forget that quote devotions to the goddess are not to be sullied with words adopted from other races end quote otherwise though speaking in undercommon is generally fine for normal conversation but keep in mind that the drow are proud elves and elvish is their main language now a good example of the hardships that lult inflicts upon drown society are the constant tests that she forces them to go through tests that at their core are meant to pit drought against each other to always keep them in fear quote only the strong can be allowed to thrive the weak must be cold this is a central tenet of drow culture and a primary law of loath to better ensure that only the strongest of her subjects obtain power loth 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 loath results in death a significant minority of the time however the failed subject is instead transformed into a dryder end quote some of these tests are pretty if you excuse my language there's really no other way of putting it one of the most common tests is what is called the test of loyalty where lol lies to a family member or an ally of yours sometimes even a lover and she tells them that you have betrayed lol and that you must be killed via ambush then right as your ally would be about to strike you a lot will send you a vision telling you that you are now being tested and that you must be able to kill an ally at lol's command it is at that point where you are expected to survive the ambush and then kill your friend lover or ally the test is pretty bad but it's really just one of the many there's the test of lies where the subject must manipulate whoever lolth wants into believing specific falsehoods this test might put you under torture or even threats of violence by others but you must endure them and make the lies as believable as you can then there's a test of metal which is a particularly famous one where loath summons swarms of venomous spiders in and around your body you're expected to survive the venomous bites then to get the spiders off of you and to survive without harming any of the arachnids these stats are also random if you have any position of power within drought society lolth can just randomly give you one or more of these tasks for you to overcome succeeding in these stats generally grants the person an increase in prestige power or divine blessings given personally by love so as you can see everything that i have talked about as of yet is there to show you just just how lold operates as a god is to the drow and the sort of things that you make sure people do for the simple reason of maintaining power and keeping the drow afraid and it works all these tests all the power that lord grants her princesses and the fear the priestesses themselves have it's all so that loth can keep her iron grip on the people the church of love is not there to counsel the faithful in times of emotional turmoil or any crises of faith they are there to be the minions of love to announce her rules and then enforce them the literal responsibilities of the clerics of love are one to force the drought to follow the rituals and prayers and two to enforce her rules upon the people that is literally all they do now what's interesting about loth in particular is that she is extremely active when compared to other gods if you're a drow and you curse her name and you are within a believer's ears or within a church's distance she will probably just strike you down right then and there if there is a big ritual sacrifice going on as in like a relatively high priestess is being sacrificed you better bet that an avatar of lolth will be there for all intents and purposes she can be very hands-on with her approach as a goddess and if you are a high-level drow you will literally interact with her quote lolth can appear as a giant black widow spider with crimson eyes or she can change into the form of a human sized exquisitely beautiful female drowl in this form she often clothes herself entirely in clinging spiders but sometimes wearing drow chain mail styled into artful dresses or tunics she can also combine the two forms appearing as a giant spider with a cultly beautiful female drow head this is the form in which she is usually found in the abyss and it is thought to be her true form end quote now even though she is always very active and very often present she seldom gets into the thick of things and she prefers to just watch from the shadows and enjoy the suffering and struggles of those that she's interacting with when she wants to make someone know that she's watching she typically causes a smirking pair of lips to appear on any present spider the spider would then also glow with a flickering purple fairy fire if no spider is present then love instead creates a smiling spider-shaped shadow of giant size now this very fire that she can create is particularly unique of course everyone knows that all drow have innately the ability to cast very fire see this comes a bit from the drows link to loaf this particular power of loath to create purplish flames that do more than just burn is a very unique thing to her and she sometimes bestows this upon her clerics who are in dire need of support if of course loth would be inclined to help which he rarely is more often than not lolz uses this special purplish fire to embarrass and punish her princesses when they fail her or when they screw up a ritual in such events this interesting looking glowy fire spreads out from the ritual scene and then expands towards the offending clerics burning and destroying their magic items if the fire doesn't actually harm the clerics doesn't hurt but it does specifically burn their clothes and the goal in this case would be to burn away their clothes so as to shame them in front of other clerics and this is partly the reason why all major rituals are always done on the nude lolth demands her clerics to humble themselves in her presence in this way actually the extraordinarily skimpy clothing that you have probably seen in some of the art that i've been showing you here is very much canon it's also not just the drow princesses but many drow particularly the wealthy and they actually wear the most revealing clothing that they can get to the point where they may even just wear webbing as cover which is very much transparent i should also mention that males are not allowed to be clerics of love loth considers men to be disgusting and filthy and far beneath women because of this women run draw culture and society and the only position of power that a man could strive for is to be the lover of a powerful drow female now that being said things do get pretty crazy in drought society with sex a drag culture is notoriously known for its wild orgies they really do go crazy and these people literally summon demons just to have orgies with those demons that's where these guys come from okay but we're not here to talk about any of that i mean there's a lot of tons of crazy that happens here hopefully when we make our full video on the drought we could talk about all these different things including why female drought dress the way they do which is actually really interesting but we're trying to focus on lol here so let's stay focused a very powerful spell granted to lord's clerics that really showcases this particular dominance that women have over men that is effectively encouraged by lot because she's the one granted the spell is called a meld of loath a six level spell where a player can effectively dominate specifically a drow male the female cleric links herself to him and effectively transforms him into nothing more than a familiar where she joins minds with the man can see through his eyes read his thoughts and communicate telepathically through this spell the lady basically controls the body of the drowned male and can do whatever she wants with it through any distance further she can cast spells with his body as if it were her own since a drown male's life is just simply worth less than the clerics as you can take this body into combat without fear that it might end up just getting him killed in the case like i said loth mostly just likes to watch the events that unfold around her and she's more akin to spinning her webbings in the dark and seeing how her machinations affect the world but when she does want to directly act she typically does so through her personal handmaidens the yakults these creatures are demons created and controlled by lol from her demonic realm in the abyss and they're typically summoned to function as an emissary of the queen and the word of one is generally interpreted to be the word of love now drow summon these by using a big bracer of burning oils which is fashioned from valuable black materials such as onix or obsidian the flames of the ritual fire transform into an inter-planar gate that temporarily links the prime material realm with the 66 layer of the abyss and through this link the yak laws come forth the creature can only stay within the prime for as long as the fire burn when the fires go out the yacht law gets sent back now of course the jaguals are shape changers who can adopt a female draw form which is typically what they do when communicating and traveling through the prime these creatures are very important in drought society because according to the church these creatures are what priestesses turn into when they die as a follower of love this would be the equivalent of an angel for them now lol being so active as a goddess and all drow being forced to participate and venerate her it makes her dogma particularly important a dogma for a god is like a set of rules that one must follow in order to obtain its approval now we already know what is demanded of the clergy of loath but this is what loth demands of the entire drought society this is her vision for what the perfect drought should be quote fear is as strong as steel while love and respect are soft useless feelings that none can lean on all drow who do not worship lolf must be converted or destroyed all weak and rebellious drow must be weeded out all whom pond the faith must perish males are slaves of other races who act independently of lolt's dictates and those other priests must be sacrificed to loathe those of the faithful whose loyalty is weak must be eliminated children are to be raised as loyal worshipers of love and each family should produce at least one priest to serve the spider queen better than his or her parents arachnids of all sorts are to be revered and anyone who mistreats or kills a spider must die end quote these are the guiding principles of drow society however there is much left for interpretation and most of what love punishes or praises is more often than not simply left unsaid it is said that priests who follow the commandments blindly are on a slippery path leading to a swift death the bones of loath and by extension promotions within drow society are obtained through the shadows successful betrayal is actually how one truly shines in lol's eyes it is one thing to pass lol's test but something entirely different if you set for yourself difficult test and then complete them nonetheless climbing the political ladder through the seat murder or trickery is the greatest thing that you can do of course as long as you're not caught in fact one of lol's most powerful and trusted servants in the abyss literally left her to serve another demon lord and then betrayed that demon lord to the benefit of love she was promoted and given even more power for that act quote the queen of the demon web pits admires ambition above loyalty end quote then again if you are getting too cute by playing around like that loath is just as likely as well to simply smite you quote success in the service of lord lies with those who are attentive to the ever changing often contradictory will of love lol's capricious nature makes hard and fast rules for you and uncertainly great of course questioning lol's motives or wisdom is a sin aiding non-drow against drow is a great sin as is ignoring the spider's queen's commands in favor of love lolth often tester praise by ordering the sacrifice of a favorite consort drow who lose the favor of loath are always given a single chance to redeem themselves this is usually a dangerous or difficult mission though loth may test certain individuals by setting no task at all and observing what they do those who willfully fail are destroyed those who fail through mischance or poor planning or execution are usually transformed into drivers lolt often plays favorites among her drow worshipers but those who ride high one season are warned that lolth can turn her dark face upon them without warning and undoubtedly will sometime soon end quote i wanted to look this up for you guys so that you could get an actual idea of the laws that draw cities might have so that you could see just how lol influences them i found the laws of mens of ransom one of the bigger drow cities in the forgotten realms they have of course many many laws but the main principal laws that they have that their society functions around are called the way of law which is their seven main decrees they are as follows there is no god or goddess other than loth any who follows the dictates of another entity will be slain preferably in sacrifice to loath ritual worship of any entity other than lolth is forbidden within the city's vault nondrow who violate this tenet are fined and expelled from the city second offenders or any drow who do so are slain slaves have no rights and there are no limits to the punishments or duties that can be said for them treatment of slaves is the affair of their owners it is a capital offense for a slave to refuse any order from a drow of the house that owns a slave a commoner or a student of the academy who refuses to obey a priestesses can be punished as the offended priestesses he's fit up to and including death if the offender is the property of another house and the noble of that house is present and objects the two must agree to a punishment usually flogging any drow who falsely wears the colors of another house or who deliberately alters his or her appearance to masquerade as one of a different station will be slain any non-drow who adopts the appearance of a particular drought or a drought of a noble rank or a drought of a house other than his or her own will be slain if it can be proved that two or more houses attacked another house all the houses that participated in the attack will be destroyed jointly by the remainder see drow society and culture are evil to the core now of course many of us don't get to experience much of it when we adventure above the underdark in fact it is very likely that we may get to experience quite the opposite since the drought that make it outside generally behave differently though that is typically because those drow are player characters and players of course don't want to or cannot play an evil character but allow me to not mince my words the vast majority of drow are pure evil now this is the part of the video where things get interesting okay can drow be good what does it take for a drought to be good has lol fundamentally messed up the species in such a decree that they are now forever bound to be evil or can they be redeemed now my opinion of course is relevant and i'm sure that every dm is going to do what they think is the most fun for their table but what i can tell you is what is canon so i am going to read you what i found in the drow of the underdark page 15. quote one question of drought psychology that never occurs to the drought 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 loath 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 in an unkind world in anger and resentment if that cycle could be broken they argue if a population of drought could be raced away from the influence of love and their culture as it currently exists they could grow to be very different individuals this is perhaps understandably the minority opinion among those who study the drow and in any event it seems unlikely to be tested anytime soon end quote so we are in many ways left in the dust there is no answer if we know that those that study the drought believe that their evilness is now innate perhaps similar to the orcs of which the blood of grunge flows in their veins and prevents them from goodness and to give you an idea of just how drow behave i will describe how a typical drow city would be seen thanks to how lol has shaped their species i will of course give you a direct quote quote in drought culture treachery and murder are commonplace as are acts of debauchery a drow in this setting routinely have orgies with demons and engage in despicable acts of bloodletting although the tenets of drought society are presented tactfully players should be under no illusions mensa branson is populated by vile and capricious sadists who seek to improve their personal standing through the suffering and misery of others despite his members being born of chaos drow society is governed by a deeply entrenched hierarchy each drow divides everyone else including other drow into three categories those with more power who must be a piece than placated those who are useful to one's own advancement who must be exploited in all ways possible and the weak who are worthless except as lever or disposable troops as drows see it each day is a new chance to improve your station or to eliminate those in your way end quote now that's an example of the drow as they are now thanks to lolf but then the real question becomes what happens when you take a baby drow and then take it upstairs to a society of good and well-behaved human or elves now once again i can only tell you what's canon now this is very interesting we are told that a drow's perception of its worth is only determined by its status over society it's not only cultural but also psychological a drow that holds no power is a failure in her own eyes and this is the principal driver of her behavior now i'm gonna quote you this one it's a really interesting passage quote it is thus not merely external pressures that causes the drought to plot and scheme it is an ingrained need that borders on instinct end quote now let's study this further drow are described as primal and instinctive people drow are not like humans who simply evolved over time depending on their location and needs instead they were literal spirits who came out of a god who is the embodiment of chaos and change drow feel pride and anger much more easily than other species further because of this they are quick to resort to violence their pride appears to be somewhat malleable probably depending on external pressures but their anger appears to be more innate this doesn't mean that they have to resort to violence when the option is presented it just means that they do feel anger generally more than other species but the last point of interest in this topic which is fascinating is how the drow's brain interprets others see the drouse brain literally lacks the ability to treat another person as an equal whenever a drow interacts with another they see it as a hierarchical interaction where one is dominant and another is submissive and unless the drow has reason to believe otherwise she will always believe herself to be the dominant and her pride and anger will show when the proper respect is not shown quote 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 end quote it is also further described that drow are thoughtlessly and effortlessly cruel because they assign no value to their subordinates beyond how useful those individuals are and now that we have these facts as they are described to us we can unpack them a bit the drow as they are now have a lot of innate issues that tilts them towards evil in society seemingly at this point without even the machinations of love however it is worth mentioning that even a person who sees themselves as superior to others and is prone to anger and even cruelty amongst those beneath them can still live a happy successful and dare say good life in society it is canon after all that many drow reject the evilness of love and purposefully choose to die rather than succeed in lol's tests especially those that demand of them to kill their husbands or friends this happens it is canon that those who don't adapt to lord's way simply die in draw society so it stands to reason that there would be many more draw who would stand against her and her evilness if they simply were not killed and then then there is of course elistrae the one good god of the drow if you thought that i would have a video on drow without mentioning her you were wrong and she's of course my favorite goddess in all of dungeons and dragons you guys know that very well at this point elise trey fought against a loth when she betrayed coraline but when all dark elves were banished she chose to self-banish as well even though corlyn wanted her to stay in heaven she figured that the drow would need her light because otherwise they wouldn't have any other god to help them and so she guides the drow who wish for a better life those drow who turn the teachings of love and wish for a new beginning above ground can hear the music and see the light of lystrae as she protects them and guides them towards the moonlight above she is the only guiding light amidst the darkness that love creates for the dark elves and where love demands sacrifices betrayals and obedience elishtray simply asks of the dark elves to dance freely in the moonlight to shed your chainmails and weapons and frolic freely and openly amongst the stars hey guys thank you for watching the video we finally have merch and nothing actually mr rex related or anything like that i don't actually think you guys would want that but instead i have hired some incredibly talented artists to get you all some amazing sick dnd shirts i wanted to have this shirt ready for the video and i'm so happy that i managed to do it but if you're a fan of lolth and totally approve of the queen of spiders then this one is pretty great you can see that it has different art for the front and the back we also have my favorite goddess of course elystra with this shirt you guys can help me simp for her with me i managed to track down the artist for this piece of artist it was by far my favorite interpretation of lystra that i saw while doing research on my video on her it's fantastic we also have a very sick design for the erinies they are what happens when you have a fallen angel become a devil we did an entire video on them and you guys loved it so much that i wanted to create one of them as well i got them done with the signature helmet that they use as the arbiters of the law in hell but yeah if you guys like my videos if you want to support me and the channel then please consider going over to the link below and checking the store and see the shirts for yourselves and the shirts will only be available for two weeks the lolf and illustrated shirts are here for just these videos so after two weeks they will be gone forever i would like to personally thank my patreon supporters barry mask and 5v magic shop morgan johnson rusty rain duck feeder the great codini terry culp omega scales osol alex cookson benjamin bosters faulkie 951 or doric prince daylight morning crown sabine korchap solar rinses thomas hunt bushido burrito nathan mccomb soulless writer lost crusader mr salty stalia brian kemp chattainga stephen jd green oh laugh clep treb909 tony rc famine 52 george fortland sovereign mind trevor hess drag lugia 5 the living guild pack michael walker street blow describe herbert johnson the wizard's vault dragon 19 guy 97 james the perverted shoddycast here i'm at questing under their influence podcast horrorbound jfree alexander jesse feliciano and anacond the wolf of shadows for supporting me on patreon at the 25 level if you would like to support me as well then please head on over to patreon.comrex to support alright guys thank you so much for watching thank you so much for being here and liking the video and doing all that good stuff make sure to check the shirts please please check them and i'll see you all next time

Channel: MrRhexx

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Id: WOzd6o5X17A

Length: 33min 43sec (2023 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 28 2021