Advice on introducing the party to Lolth?

As the title says, I'm looking for a few suggestions on an encounter to introduce the party to Lolth.

First, some context. This is not exactly the version of Lolth that you're thinking of. I've re-written a lot of the lore for my homebrew world, and in this one Lolth was formerly a trickster deity. In ancient times, Lolth and her followers defeated and imprisoned a powerful, evil being that threatened all of elvenkind, but out of desperation they did something terrible in order to accomplish that, and were banished to the underdark for it. Centuries of life in the underdark shaped their society into something harsh and cruel, because that's what it took to survive there.

The story so far: the party is investigating this event in ancient elven history, and have already managed to get on good terms with a secret order of Drow who guard this knowledge. The party has also knows of Lolth, not by name, but as the "trickster" she used to be. The next step is the party being told, "we don't share this knowledge with outsiders, but if you choose to face our trials, the goddess may find you worthy to join us, and then we'll tell you what you want to know."

And this is where I need a little advice: what should "the trials" be? I'm thinking of basically a short, linear dungeon where every individual "challenge" reveals a little bit more information, and the group just needs to survive long enough to get to the, "surprise, it was Lolth all along," reveal at the end. It could be anywhere from 3-10 challenges, because I can break up the info several different ways.

The challenges don't necessarily have to be combat encounters, it just has to be dangerous - or at least feel dangerous. Puzzles and traps are good, or some kind of "escape the room before the poison kills you" thing. I just don't want to just do, "spiders, spiders everywhere" because that would make it all too obvious (except right at the end, of course). However, I'm drawing a complete blank on what else to use.

So, any ideas are welcome!

I'd start by asking what qualities would make the Drow think the party are worthy. Given their society has become sharp and harsh, I would say that sharing their struggles and suffering would be a good start. What suffering did Lolth and her people shoulder to put this evil away?

Depending on how plot-critical it is that they succeed, I would consider something along the lines of a trial where the party has to endure, not to defeat. The unintuitive nature of this may require some means for them to work it out, so they don't just get confused.

The party is told "We have quietly endured suffering in the dark in taking the difficult road which led us here to our new dawn. If you can prove yourselves able to share in that, then you may be worthy."

The trial is a dark room containing a huge set of scales, on one side of which stands a large stone barrel, suspended by a taught rope which loops over a pulley on the ceiling, down to one on the floor, then across the room at about waist height to anchor on the far wall. The side of the scales on which it stands is up, and it looks like if the barrel were lowered, the scales would drop. On the other side, a stylised sunrise motif stands.

If the party cuts the rope, they will fail. They took the easy road.

If the party pulls the rope, the barrel will shift slightly - "It looks like if enough of you pulled at once, the barrel will lift". If all of them pull at once, the barrel will raise, and sand will begin to pour onto the scales from a hole in the bottom. At this point, large spiders (tarantula sized) will emerge from holes in the walls and approach the party. If the party attacks them, then they fail - they have not endured, they have fought.

If the party can stay calm an endure the spiders crawling over them whilst they hold the barrel up to let the sand fall out, the sun (other end of the scale) will rise, and they will have shared in enduring hardships in the dark to allow the sun to rise, and in their wisdom proven themselves worthy.

So, we have a trickster spider deity. The fact that it's named Lolth is somewhat irrelevant since you're using your own lore. It might be useful to look at real-world cultural associations with spiders, which are generally about weaving. Weaving-related puzzles or clues would be appropriate. Some possibilities:

• The PCs are required to capture live stirges. Items present in the area include a bucket of tar, a bronze bowl, and a ball of yarn. A tapestry somewhere (not necessarily the same room) shows the 'correct' solution, which is to make a net of yarn, make it sticky with tar, and then fill the bowl with blood.
• The PCs are required to journey into a labyrinth, retrieve something, and make their way back out. Retrieving the thing will release an appropriately scary monster (a minotaur is traditional but probably not going to scare any but the lowest level party; a Goristro should be pretty terrifying unless party levels are in the teens), and you have to get to the exit before it finds you. A ball of twine to mark your path would be a good idea...

Well, I was going to write a post on this last night but I fell asleep. 

I should clarify that while I'm changing up the lore quite a bit, this is still an evil goddess who represents cruelty and destruction.  In past campaign arcs, I already established a precedent where deities are heavily influenced by the actions of their followers, and the cultures of those who worship them, even to the point of re-defining who that deity is.  So this is an evil goddess, worshiped by a society where cruelty and violence are expected behavior... and despite the fact that she has distant memories of a time when she wasn't like that, it would be a mistake to treat her like the trickster goddess from the ancient writings.  And that's what is being made clear in the lore that's intended to be uncovered through the trials... IF the party actually commits to the side-story.  (But, since they love sympathetic villains, they'll probably do it; that's the whole reason they got involved in the Drow society in the first place, although that's another story.)

So, I wanted to thank you both for the ideas.  I like the idea of making the trials represent the struggles that the first Drow faced in the underdark, and the idea that the goal of the challenge is not to fight or defeat the dangerous thing, but to complete some other task while enduring it.  I also love the idea of using nets as a stand-in for webs, and having them either be used by the monster in a labyrinth, or used by the players to keep it from catching them (or both, both is good).  

I'll probably go with a labyrinth, with various hazards (monsters and traps), and multiple destinations where you have to activate a shrine or artifact.  Each one reveals a piece of history, and challenges you to answer a question about how to react in a given scenario (dealing with a disloyal friend, distributing food during a famine, etc.).  Every time you give a "wrong" answer, you get a curse with a debuff of some kind (damage vulnerability, or saving throw disadvantage, or whatever), making the labyrinth more deadly.

So, thank you both, this actually helped a lot.

Sounds like a plan!

What if every time you get something wrong, you get something which is also a lore-based thing. You get sensitivity to bright light, for an example. You gain a short-term "madness" which gives you the trait "People who complain about suffering are weak". You grow an additional pair of spider legs from your hips. If you want to make it something to feed their sympathy, make it about Lolth giving them her suffering - they can decide whether it's because part of her wants to have sympathy for it, or if she just enjoys inflicting suffering.

What suffering has Lolth endured or had forced upon her in your lore?

Quote from ThorukDuckSlayer >>

What if every time you get something wrong, you get something which is also a lore-based thing. You get sensitivity to bright light, for an example. You gain a short-term "madness" which gives you the trait "People who complain about suffering are weak". You grow an additional pair of spider legs from your hips. If you want to make it something to feed their sympathy, make it about Lolth giving them her suffering - they can decide whether it's because part of her wants to have sympathy for it, or if she just enjoys inflicting suffering.

What suffering has Lolth endured or had forced upon her in your lore?

I was thinking about this same thing, although I'm not sure how well I can translate this version of Lolth's experience, into added difficulty for the labyrinth.  My homebrew lore has Lolth always being associated with spiders from the beginning, even as a trickster ("weaver of tales, spinner of lies"), so the physical transformations don't really apply.  Also, one of my players is not totally comfortable with unwanted physical transformation, so I'm not going there.  However, the Drow banished to the underdark had to adapt to living in darkness, struggling for food/resources, and facing constant danger from predators... so I can still go with vision penalties, some kind of weakening effect, and releasing additional monsters, as parallels to that, especially if each revealed bit of lore mentions that particular hardship.  That actually works pretty well, thank you.

I don't want to make the penalties too extreme, though, because there will be an unavoidable, permanent one right at the end.  Earlier in the campaign, the party came to the aid of a deity, and for their efforts they became the deity's chosen champions, which gave them resources, influence, and a divine special ability (a variation of "turn the unholy").  The catch is that this is from a sun god, which is neutral good... and in order to finally be accepted by the Drow and Lolth, the party will have to renounce their god.  Which means they will have to take that ability off of their character sheets.  

So it's not an easy decision to undo if they change their minds later, and it works well because it mirrors this version of Lolth being forced into her new existence without a way to go back.  On the off chance that anybody from my group stumbles onto this thread, I don't want to go into the details, but there is a reason that returning her people to the surface simply isn't an option, and that's part of the "big reveal" after passing the trials.  (Lolth's presence is also a spoiler, but it's a lesser one, and I'm sure it won't be a total shock, which is why I've risked it.)

So I think I just need to map out the labyrinth... nail down the wording of what gets revealed and when... and assemble some monster stat blocks, of course.  

Thank you again.  That was really helpful.

In addition to the above, since the end result of the trial is revealing who Lolth used to be and how she came to be this way, the goal of the trials from Lolth's perspective should be to make the party sympathetic to the choices Lolth and her people have made. So some sort of sacrifice for the greater good should be in there, some choices to do evil in order to survive should be in there, some situation that provokes desperation should be in there.

Something like a trap that is slowly suffocating / crushing the players where the solution is that one has to "abandon" (i.e. teleport away / leave the rest of the party to find the switch to deactivate it might be good. A situation where they have to kill an innocent animal to end a debilitating magical effect coming from it might be good (bonus points if you make the animal a natural enemy of spiders like a shrew). Some sort of paranoia inducing haunted/trapped hallway might be good. A "betrayal" room where things that look nice and helpful turn out to hurt them might be good. 

You also could do a name change to encourage them to like her.

That is, tell the story of the valiant hero Lilleth desperates efforts to save her people.

At the very end, when she and her people are banished to the Underdark, have someone say the fateful words

"Even your name shall be forgotten.  Forevermore, you will be known as Lolth."

Quote from Agilemind >>

In addition to the above, since the end result of the trial is revealing who Lolth used to be and how she came to be this way, the goal of the trials from Lolth's perspective should be to make the party sympathetic to the choices Lolth and her people have made. So some sort of sacrifice for the greater good should be in there, some choices to do evil in order to survive should be in there, some situation that provokes desperation should be in there.

 Totally agree.  I'm still thinking about some ideas around that, where the party knows that proceeding involves some kind of damage or penalty, and they need to decide who will take that, so that the group still has the best chance of succeeding.  For example, drinking this potion allows you to read the runes to open the door, but also inflicts 4d10 poison damage and the Blindness condition... if you have multiple situations like that (all with different debilitating conditions), is it better to spread out the penalties, or give them all to 1 character so the rest are at full strength?  The challenge for me is making the dilemma clear for the party, because they can be kind of chaotic and do stuff like, "well I was standing closest to the door so I just drank the potion, what's next?"  And that's one of the most fun parts about DMing this campaign, but it means that the presentation will make ALL the difference in a situation like this one.

Quote from Mog_Dracov >>

You also could do a name change to encourage them to like her.

That is, tell the story of the valiant hero Lilleth desperates efforts to save her people.

At the very end, when she and her people are banished to the Underdark, have someone say the fateful words

"Even your name shall be forgotten.  Forevermore, you will be known as Lolth."

Yes!  I have actually started this part already.  The party found some very, very old writings about the "trickster goddess" with a totally different name.  So the first things they learned about her are by that name.  I also want to include a mention of other names she was known by, in other places (other kingdoms or regions), just to hint at what's to come.

Best way is to introduce Lolth gradually through signs first—cult activity, spiders, drow influence—before the full reveal. It builds tension and makes the payoff much stronger when the party finally realizes who’s behind it.