I'm starting up a campaign for some people from my work (while I have days off from my streaming D&D gig) at the beginning from 1st Level, or 2nd level. Still trying to sort that out.
The campaign starts at a harvest festival known as The Communion where everyone from around the continent gather just outside the capital to celebrate the ongoing peace for the last one-hundred years. This capital hasn't seen open warfare, conflict, terror, or strife since the current Queen came into power and it's a time of peace and prosperity for all. That all said and done, I have this idea of a select few individuals at this party open up some portals to The Abyss, more specifically The Demonweb Pits where Lolth resides in an attempt to bring their deity into the Prime Material to wreak havoc, and everything else.
Now; this version of Lolth wouldn't be the Forgotten Realms version, but one that takes pieces of the Forgotten Realms idea and expands upon it for my own setting and world. So, Session One would be this harvest festival where the player's characters would meet, take in the comforts and party together before these rifts/portrals get opened and Lolth's loyal forces/followers claw there way out of these portals and begin slaughtering the people gathered, and the party would ideally flee and find refuge somewhere.
Lolth would also be one of these beings to exit the portals, or I wonder if I should keep her involvement a secret to the end when the player's must find their way into the Demonweb Pits to end her, and her forces from continuing to pour into the world. I have some questions, and I'll try and answers some questions as well for aid, etc.
Would it be better to slowly trickle in information/hints/etc that Lolth is behind this all; or just say to hell with it and have her also arrive at the festival, and take her seat of power where the current Queen resides? I think the latter could be super fun, but also the former with the player's eventually discovering they need to descend into The Abyss itself and find Lolth in the Demonweb Pits and destroy her there.
What kind of forces would Lolth use? I know the obvious Drow, Driders, etc, but what kind of creatures could she potentially use from the depths of the Abyss where she resides? I'm going to homebrewing a lot of creatures as well to aid in this endeavor, but the less work the better for me as well. I've been gandering at creatures like chitine, draegloth and what-not. Would she use other fiends/demon creatures, or would she have her core set of followers/creatures at her back?
If you were playing in this campaign, what events would you like to see/take part in?
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If I would write the story I would have the portals trickle in monsters that hint towards Lolth, not making it to big at the start. That is my personal preference though. I would introduce some NPC's that help the players fight back the creatures and close the portal these Lolth worshippers (lolth cultists?) opened. By doing this I can build up the tention, introducing more of these events, they're trying to bring her into this realm (how?). And build up to this event of her taking the throne somewhere mid through the adventure. Before that you can introduce all kinds of crazy Lolth worshipping events, slaves, clues, statues being errected to honer her, shrines...the options are limitless I would say. A cool setting for an adventure!
You could use the Out of the Abyss book for inspiration the starting situation includes a Drow Priestess who uses (obviously) Giant Spiders at her command, but also Quaggoths, which I think are really nice to introduce in this setting, and are often mentioned as slaves of Drow wizards.
If I would be playing the event or DM'ing I would like playing: - Being sucked into a portal ending up in the underdark (love the setting) - A capturing of some sort to engage the players into the political intrigues at the Drow court and the way they look at those puny adventurers (insert evil laugh) - Discovery of long-lost ancient relic related to the Drow lore bestowing magical powers at the cost of some madness - A massive combat versus a pack of spiders or they need to go into a lair covered in spider webbings (HP, LotR or Out of the Abyss if you need inspiration) - At least some player could be receptive for Lolth's ability to influence their minds, create some madness, voices in their minds or sleep - Offcourse this rise of Lolth probably doesn't go unnotice, let another race (natural enemy) rise to the occaision to rally against her (like deep gnomes, dwarves or surface elves) to aid the players
Drow, in general, do not attack from just one direction. I would have them infiltrate other towns, cities, etc. in an effort to dismantle any trade to their target town, to plant the seeds of doubt about the city, and so forth. They will attack the image of the city, the Queen's legacy and work to have others weaken the city. I don't think Drow would announce themselves in this fashion - not unless they were prepared to sack the city and enslave the population as they prefer overwhelming surprise attacks.
That said, these are followers of Lloth, or cultists, so may not follow typical Drow tactics. A deity physically stepping onto the Prime Material plane would be noticed by other powerful entities... an avatar not as much. While Lloth is the BBEG, killing a god is no small thing. Is it necessary to kill Lloth in order to stop her current plan? If Lloth is going to be directly involved, you can be sure she will employ any demon at her disposal. She would have the more powerful demons lead a simple raid, but would more likely have Drow priestesses lead her overall "army" in any major attack. Anything in the Demon Web Pits is fair game to come through the portals.
Do your work friends know who Lolth is? Would a big buildup to a reveal mean anything to them? If not, you may as well introduce her early.
I think that demons closely associated with Lolth would be the ones in positions of responsibility. The officer corps. The foot soldiers would be demon mercenaries of any description, whatever best suits your needs. Similarly, the drow would have disposable shock troops, like Quaggoths or whatever Morlocks are called.
My personal theory of Lolth is that the reason she tortures the drow is because elves are inherently magical and live a long time. That makes them the perfect laboratory mice to wall up in a cave and try to replicate the society of the Abyss on the Prime Material Plane, the better to weaken the barrier between the two. Therefore, humans would mainly be useful as disposable labor or livestock. Think about what she actually wants in this kingdom of yours.
Q1, The Queen of the Demonweb Pitshad all kinds of crazy stuff in it. From the Abyss, you could access all of these areas on other worlds where Lolth was fighting campaigns. Maybe they could go into those worlds and build an army of their own of heroes to take the fight to Lolth's spider-shaped spaceship (also from Q1).
You could introduce a mini- boss at the beginning who is working for lolth, and set it up as the villain.Either one of the people opening a portal, or one of the things that comes through. Heck you could do both, with portal opener the boss battle for act 1, and creature that came through the boss for act 2. Then after the players beat it, they realize things go even deeper. I’m a fan of putting something at the beginning for the characters to want to beat, it gives them a focus and sets up a narrative tension. Also, if you let the mini-boss beat them in an early session, it’s really satisfying as a player to come back and beat it after they’ve gained a few levels.
As for monsters, lolth is pretty cunning. I would see her using whatever tool was necessary and the best fit for a job. Sometimes driders, sometimes a band of mercenaries hired through a third party who might not even know who they are really working for.
FYI... hopefully the below gives you some ideas & I can provide more detailed info if you need:
Pulled out the old source books. One creature that might be interesting is the Pedipalp. It is not in 5E and even the Forgotten Realms Wiki information is meager. They "resemble a cross between a spider and a scorpion, and can be found in many colors.... All pedipalpi are immune to all sorts of poisons and corrosives.... often used by Drow as household guardians, pets, and as the equivalent of hunting dogs. The medium (4'-6') Amblypygus and the large Uropygys (8'-12') are interesting with pincers, mandibles, and long whip-like feelers and tails. HP is lower, but they usually appear in small groups. Would add some flavor.
The same book does have stats for Lolth's avatar (Priest 16, Wizard 14): "Lolth's avatar appears in the Realms as a black widow spider, but prefers to change into the form of a human-sized exquisitely beautiful female drow. She can also combine the two forms, appearing as a giant spider with a coldly beautiful female drow head. This is believed to be her 'true' form." Nice... "Lolth can call on any school of magic for her spells and is not harmed or discomfited by light... When in drow form she often clothes herself entirely in clinging spiders."
RP Notes from the book: "Lolth is malicious in her dealings, and coldly vicious in a fight. She enjoys causing death, destruction, and painful torture. Even more, Lolth enjoys corrupting elves and humans to her service. In drow form, her direct physical embrace can act as a charm person..."
"Rarely aids her worshippers directly, preferring to watch and enjoy their sufferings and struggles." "Rituals to Lolth are customarily practiced in female-only company.... Rituals requiring extraordinary power or a public display may be celebrated in the open, and in mixed company."
"Lolth is a cruel, capricious goddess, thought by many to be insane. She delights in setting her worshippers at each other's throats, so that the strongest, most devious and cruel will survive to serve her. Lolth roams the Realms often, appearing in answer to the rituals of drow priestesses, and working whatever harm she can to the enemies of drow. She secretly wants to be worshipped by humans and elves of the surface Realms, and sometimes journeys among their communities, whispering of the power Lolth can bring."
"Lolth enters the Prime Material Plane only when it pleases her to do so. Otherwise, Lolth's servant yochlol are reached by means of ritual."
"Lolth's Laughter - soft, cruel feminine chuckling - is often heard by drow who have lost her favor or who have gone mad. It is also heard by foes of the drow..."
What's interesting is the 4E Menzoberranzan City of Intrigue does specify her rise from minor deity to major deity during the War of the Spider Queen and does mention the Demon Web Pits since her ascension has been located on a plane, or astral location of her own creation, rather than the Abyss. Unfortunately, the 4E source also lacks most of the "flavor" information of the 2E source.
I'm starting up a campaign for some people from my work (while I have days off from my streaming D&D gig) at the beginning from 1st Level, or 2nd level. Still trying to sort that out.
The campaign starts at a harvest festival known as The Communion where everyone from around the continent gather just outside the capital to celebrate the ongoing peace for the last one-hundred years. This capital hasn't seen open warfare, conflict, terror, or strife since the current Queen came into power and it's a time of peace and prosperity for all. That all said and done, I have this idea of a select few individuals at this party open up some portals to The Abyss, more specifically The Demonweb Pits where Lolth resides in an attempt to bring their deity into the Prime Material to wreak havoc, and everything else.
Now; this version of Lolth wouldn't be the Forgotten Realms version, but one that takes pieces of the Forgotten Realms idea and expands upon it for my own setting and world. So, Session One would be this harvest festival where the player's characters would meet, take in the comforts and party together before these rifts/portrals get opened and Lolth's loyal forces/followers claw there way out of these portals and begin slaughtering the people gathered, and the party would ideally flee and find refuge somewhere.
Lolth would also be one of these beings to exit the portals, or I wonder if I should keep her involvement a secret to the end when the player's must find their way into the Demonweb Pits to end her, and her forces from continuing to pour into the world. I have some questions, and I'll try and answers some questions as well for aid, etc.
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Hi Manio,
If I would write the story I would have the portals trickle in monsters that hint towards Lolth, not making it to big at the start. That is my personal preference though. I would introduce some NPC's that help the players fight back the creatures and close the portal these Lolth worshippers (lolth cultists?) opened. By doing this I can build up the tention, introducing more of these events, they're trying to bring her into this realm (how?). And build up to this event of her taking the throne somewhere mid through the adventure. Before that you can introduce all kinds of crazy Lolth worshipping events, slaves, clues, statues being errected to honer her, shrines...the options are limitless I would say. A cool setting for an adventure!
You could use the Out of the Abyss book for inspiration the starting situation includes a Drow Priestess who uses (obviously) Giant Spiders at her command, but also Quaggoths, which I think are really nice to introduce in this setting, and are often mentioned as slaves of Drow wizards.
If I would be playing the event or DM'ing I would like playing:
- Being sucked into a portal ending up in the underdark (love the setting)
- A capturing of some sort to engage the players into the political intrigues at the Drow court and the way they look at those puny adventurers (insert evil laugh)
- Discovery of long-lost ancient relic related to the Drow lore bestowing magical powers at the cost of some madness
- A massive combat versus a pack of spiders or they need to go into a lair covered in spider webbings (HP, LotR or Out of the Abyss if you need inspiration)
- At least some player could be receptive for Lolth's ability to influence their minds, create some madness, voices in their minds or sleep
- Offcourse this rise of Lolth probably doesn't go unnotice, let another race (natural enemy) rise to the occaision to rally against her (like deep gnomes, dwarves or surface elves) to aid the players
Hope this helps you to develop furhter.
Kr,
Rob.
Drow, in general, do not attack from just one direction. I would have them infiltrate other towns, cities, etc. in an effort to dismantle any trade to their target town, to plant the seeds of doubt about the city, and so forth. They will attack the image of the city, the Queen's legacy and work to have others weaken the city. I don't think Drow would announce themselves in this fashion - not unless they were prepared to sack the city and enslave the population as they prefer overwhelming surprise attacks.
That said, these are followers of Lloth, or cultists, so may not follow typical Drow tactics. A deity physically stepping onto the Prime Material plane would be noticed by other powerful entities... an avatar not as much. While Lloth is the BBEG, killing a god is no small thing. Is it necessary to kill Lloth in order to stop her current plan? If Lloth is going to be directly involved, you can be sure she will employ any demon at her disposal. She would have the more powerful demons lead a simple raid, but would more likely have Drow priestesses lead her overall "army" in any major attack. Anything in the Demon Web Pits is fair game to come through the portals.
Do your work friends know who Lolth is? Would a big buildup to a reveal mean anything to them? If not, you may as well introduce her early.
I think that demons closely associated with Lolth would be the ones in positions of responsibility. The officer corps. The foot soldiers would be demon mercenaries of any description, whatever best suits your needs. Similarly, the drow would have disposable shock troops, like Quaggoths or whatever Morlocks are called.
My personal theory of Lolth is that the reason she tortures the drow is because elves are inherently magical and live a long time. That makes them the perfect laboratory mice to wall up in a cave and try to replicate the society of the Abyss on the Prime Material Plane, the better to weaken the barrier between the two. Therefore, humans would mainly be useful as disposable labor or livestock. Think about what she actually wants in this kingdom of yours.
Q1, The Queen of the Demonweb Pitshad all kinds of crazy stuff in it. From the Abyss, you could access all of these areas on other worlds where Lolth was fighting campaigns. Maybe they could go into those worlds and build an army of their own of heroes to take the fight to Lolth's spider-shaped spaceship (also from Q1).
You could introduce a mini- boss at the beginning who is working for lolth, and set it up as the villain.Either one of the people opening a portal, or one of the things that comes through. Heck you could do both, with portal opener the boss battle for act 1, and creature that came through the boss for act 2. Then after the players beat it, they realize things go even deeper. I’m a fan of putting something at the beginning for the characters to want to beat, it gives them a focus and sets up a narrative tension. Also, if you let the mini-boss beat them in an early session, it’s really satisfying as a player to come back and beat it after they’ve gained a few levels.
As for monsters, lolth is pretty cunning. I would see her using whatever tool was necessary and the best fit for a job. Sometimes driders, sometimes a band of mercenaries hired through a third party who might not even know who they are really working for.
FYI... hopefully the below gives you some ideas & I can provide more detailed info if you need:
Pulled out the old source books. One creature that might be interesting is the Pedipalp. It is not in 5E and even the Forgotten Realms Wiki information is meager. They "resemble a cross between a spider and a scorpion, and can be found in many colors.... All pedipalpi are immune to all sorts of poisons and corrosives.... often used by Drow as household guardians, pets, and as the equivalent of hunting dogs. The medium (4'-6') Amblypygus and the large Uropygys (8'-12') are interesting with pincers, mandibles, and long whip-like feelers and tails. HP is lower, but they usually appear in small groups. Would add some flavor.
The same book does have stats for Lolth's avatar (Priest 16, Wizard 14): "Lolth's avatar appears in the Realms as a black widow spider, but prefers to change into the form of a human-sized exquisitely beautiful female drow. She can also combine the two forms, appearing as a giant spider with a coldly beautiful female drow head. This is believed to be her 'true' form." Nice... "Lolth can call on any school of magic for her spells and is not harmed or discomfited by light... When in drow form she often clothes herself entirely in clinging spiders."
RP Notes from the book: "Lolth is malicious in her dealings, and coldly vicious in a fight. She enjoys causing death, destruction, and painful torture. Even more, Lolth enjoys corrupting elves and humans to her service. In drow form, her direct physical embrace can act as a charm person..."
"Rarely aids her worshippers directly, preferring to watch and enjoy their sufferings and struggles." "Rituals to Lolth are customarily practiced in female-only company.... Rituals requiring extraordinary power or a public display may be celebrated in the open, and in mixed company."
"Lolth is a cruel, capricious goddess, thought by many to be insane. She delights in setting her worshippers at each other's throats, so that the strongest, most devious and cruel will survive to serve her. Lolth roams the Realms often, appearing in answer to the rituals of drow priestesses, and working whatever harm she can to the enemies of drow. She secretly wants to be worshipped by humans and elves of the surface Realms, and sometimes journeys among their communities, whispering of the power Lolth can bring."
"Lolth enters the Prime Material Plane only when it pleases her to do so. Otherwise, Lolth's servant yochlol are reached by means of ritual."
"Lolth's Laughter - soft, cruel feminine chuckling - is often heard by drow who have lost her favor or who have gone mad. It is also heard by foes of the drow..."
What's interesting is the 4E Menzoberranzan City of Intrigue does specify her rise from minor deity to major deity during the War of the Spider Queen and does mention the Demon Web Pits since her ascension has been located on a plane, or astral location of her own creation, rather than the Abyss. Unfortunately, the 4E source also lacks most of the "flavor" information of the 2E source.