I am a fan of Drow, Beholders, Mind Flayers, blah blah blah.
Anyway so I was working on Drow things for the campaign I am preparing. And I was reading into one of the Temples of Lolth in the book and a room contained 2 statues of Lolth. One "depicts Lolth in her monstrous form, with the upper body of a female drow and the lower body of a bloated spider". And the other "Lolth in her drow form".
And then I thought: The Drow worship spiders One of Lolth's forms is half spider SO WHY ON EARTH DID LOLTH DECIDE TO MAKE IT A PUNISHMENT TO BECOME HALF-SPIDER?! (Drider)
The Yuan-ti want to be the creature they worship so why is it different for Drow?
Another thing I was wondering was the presence of a Temple of Eilistraee, who in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes is an enemy of Lolth and hidden from the other Drow by the priestesses. So why does this House have a Temple for her? (Specifically this is House Auvyrndar in Dungeon of the Mad Mage on Level 10: Murial's Gauntlet.)
Don't forget, Driders lose all their self, they are mindless slaves to Lolth and her priestesses.
Also Drow may worship spiders, but they're still repulsed by them in some way. They worship them because they belong to Lolth, not because they like them. (I think harming a spider would get a Drow punished by Lolth)
Don't forget, Driders lose all their self, they are mindless slaves to Lolth and her priestesses.
Also Drow may worship spiders, but they're still repulsed by them in some way. They worship them because they belong to Lolth, not because they like them. (I think harming a spider would get a Drow punished by Lolth)
The Monster Manual says that Driders usually leave Drow society, and only sometimes are slaves (or rather beneath even slaves). Additionally may I get sources? I want to be able to read the details and such. Because given how common spiders are in their society, I don't really understand how they would be repulsed by spiders. A person with a pet spider likely doesn't fear it or is disgusted by it, and in Drow society there are spiders around their entire life.
I do appreciate the answer though, I just am a bit... critical in my analysis.
Don't forget, Driders lose all their self, they are mindless slaves to Lolth and her priestesses.
Also Drow may worship spiders, but they're still repulsed by them in some way. They worship them because they belong to Lolth, not because they like them. (I think harming a spider would get a Drow punished by Lolth)
The Monster Manual says that Driders usually leave Drow society, and only sometimes are slaves (or rather beneath even slaves). Additionally may I get sources? I want to be able to read the details and such. Because given how common spiders are in their society, I don't really understand how they would be repulsed by spiders. A person with a pet spider likely doesn't fear it or is disgusted by it, and in Drow society there are spiders around their entire life.
I do appreciate the answer though, I just am a bit... critical in my analysis.
The novel Homeland has a part where Drizzt is threatened with the punishment of becoming a Drider. (the link will take you to the summary part of that part of the story)
The Drow worship spiders One of Lolth's forms is half spider SO WHY ON EARTH DID LOLTH DECIDE TO MAKE IT A PUNISHMENT TO BECOME HALF-SPIDER?! (Drider)
This is going to take a bit, so bear with me (its a long winded lore answer):
It partly has to do with the creation of Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits which was a very different ending of the G1-3 Against the Giants and D1-3 Descent into the Depths of the Earth campaign series, not the least of which was the Drow of the Eilservs/Tormtor faction worshipped The Elder Elemental God and Lolth had NOTHING to do with the organizing of the giants (and aiding the Slavers of the Pomarj). The culmination of the adventures (and linking all the way back to The Temple of Elemental Evil) SHOULD have resulted in the adventurers battling The Elder Elemental God and sealing him away (or, loosing him if they screw up or are stupid/evil). Note the 4 "keys" to the Demonweb correspond to the 4 Elemental Signs of the Temple of Elemental Evil (and there was an unpublished/unreleased 5th dungeon level where the EEG could manifest if the PCs are, again, stupid/evil). So, anyway, the culmination of G-D series should have been multiple modules where the actions of the PCs determine what happens. They might be compelled to enter the Abyss after demolishing The Fane of Lolth (literally doing the Eilservs/Tormtor faction's dirty work for them) near Erelhei-Cinlu in The Vault of the Drow. They alternately, with some prompting by the DM (or if the group really is on the ball and took note of the EEG's weird temple's in G1 and G3) might go after the Temple of the EEG in the Vault instead (which was basically the same as the ones in G1 and G3) where they could demolish the Eilservs/Tormtor faction.
Gary Gygax (for multiple reasons, not the least of which was being sent to Hollywood to create the TSR Entertainment Division, which lead to all sorts of troubles in retrospect) left the plot threads hanging for G-D. Supposedly, his version of Q1 was too close/similar to his work on The Temple of Elemental Evil, so he handed the job off to Dave Sutherland III. That's more than a bit of a corporate answer, but I'll leave that for later.
As for Sutherland's work, even Gygax admitted the Web portion of the adventure was good. I have suspicions that Gary left notes (which Sutherland consulted) on what would be the Drider and Yochol. However, to me the Yochol (like the EEG's clerics with their Tentacle Rods) scream Elder Elemental God creatures and NOT Lolth. And yea, you're right, the Drider makes no sense as a punishment. If I had a wand to wipe away the glaringly obvious disconnect, I'd rework Driders to be Lolth's most fanatical servants, a type of sub-demon granted to her most powerful followers (and thus able to use a full range of granted powers like Gate 1/day, etc). Its entirely possible that there was interference from the management with the Driders being deemed too "ick" being sub-demons (this was, after all, the start of The Satanic Panic and TSR's management team were becoming stupidly risk averse, the whole kerfuffle surrounding B3: Palace of the Silver Princess comes to mind).
TL;DR - Gygax maybe planned Driders to be something else, but the resulting chaos of the early days of TSR's management left us with a kludged together finale to the Drow/Lolth storylines started in T1: Village of Hommlet/Temple of Elemental Evil (remember, Lareth the Beautiful was a male human Priest of Lolth!), A1-4 Scourge of the Slave Lords, G1-3 Against the Giants and D1-3 Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Rework Driders to be fanatical Lolth worshiping sub-demons instead. For an added bonus, maybe there ARE failed versions that look more spider-ish and more feral (the Kikkimora from The Witcher Tv series would be a good model).
And yea, the SpiderShip at the end of Q1 was goofy/stupid and not in-line with the more serious aspects of the series. If anything, it was more of a "Funhouse" element of the earliest days of D&D and thus out of touch for anything but a side-level of some place like Castle Greyhawk.
Becoming a Drider (silly name - it's just a mashup of Drow and Spider) is supposedly painful and traumatic according to a TSR source in 1991.
In 4e, being made a Drider - being more powerful than normal Drow - was a reward.
In 5e, that was reversed back to the original lore - citing that Lloth is nuttier than squirrel droppings.
...but the nice thing about 5e is that Hasbro's WotC has done everything to try to make it clear that people can alter anything to suit their campaigns. That includes lore.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
The Drow worship spiders One of Lolth's forms is half spider SO WHY ON EARTH DID LOLTH DECIDE TO MAKE IT A PUNISHMENT TO BECOME HALF-SPIDER?! (Drider)
This is going to take a bit, so bear with me (its a long winded lore answer):
It partly has to do with the creation of Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits which was a very different ending of the G1-3 Against the Giants and D1-3 Descent into the Depths of the Earth campaign series, not the least of which was the Drow of the Eilservs/Tormtor faction worshipped The Elder Elemental God and Lolth had NOTHING to do with the organizing of the giants (and aiding the Slavers of the Pomarj). The culmination of the adventures (and linking all the way back to The Temple of Elemental Evil) SHOULD have resulted in the adventurers battling The Elder Elemental God and sealing him away (or, loosing him if they screw up or are stupid/evil). Note the 4 "keys" to the Demonweb correspond to the 4 Elemental Signs of the Temple of Elemental Evil (and there was an unpublished/unreleased 5th dungeon level where the EEG could manifest if the PCs are, again, stupid/evil). So, anyway, the culmination of G-D series should have been multiple modules where the actions of the PCs determine what happens. They might be compelled to enter the Abyss after demolishing The Fane of Lolth (literally doing the Eilservs/Tormtor faction's dirty work for them) near Erelhei-Cinlu in The Vault of the Drow. They alternately, with some prompting by the DM (or if the group really is on the ball and took note of the EEG's weird temple's in G1 and G3) might go after the Temple of the EEG in the Vault instead (which was basically the same as the ones in G1 and G3) where they could demolish the Eilservs/Tormtor faction.
Gary Gygax (for multiple reasons, not the least of which was being sent to Hollywood to create the TSR Entertainment Division, which lead to all sorts of troubles in retrospect) left the plot threads hanging for G-D. Supposedly, his version of Q1 was too close/similar to his work on The Temple of Elemental Evil, so he handed the job off to Dave Sutherland III. That's more than a bit of a corporate answer, but I'll leave that for later.
As for Sutherland's work, even Gygax admitted the Web portion of the adventure was good. I have suspicions that Gary left notes (which Sutherland consulted) on what would be the Drider and Yochol. However, to me the Yochol (like the EEG's clerics with their Tentacle Rods) scream Elder Elemental God creatures and NOT Lolth. And yea, you're right, the Drider makes no sense as a punishment. If I had a wand to wipe away the glaringly obvious disconnect, I'd rework Driders to be Lolth's most fanatical servants, a type of sub-demon granted to her most powerful followers (and thus able to use a full range of granted powers like Gate 1/day, etc). Its entirely possible that there was interference from the management with the Driders being deemed too "ick" being sub-demons (this was, after all, the start of The Satanic Panic and TSR's management team were becoming stupidly risk averse, the whole kerfuffle surrounding B3: Palace of the Silver Princess comes to mind).
TL;DR - Gygax maybe planned Driders to be something else, but the resulting chaos of the early days of TSR's management left us with a kludged together finale to the Drow/Lolth storylines started in T1: Village of Hommlet/Temple of Elemental Evil (remember, Lareth the Beautiful was a male human Priest of Lolth!), A1-4 Scourge of the Slave Lords, G1-3 Against the Giants and D1-3 Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Rework Driders to be fanatical Lolth worshiping sub-demons instead. For an added bonus, maybe there ARE failed versions that look more spider-ish and more feral (the Kikkimora from The Witcher Tv series would be a good model).
And yea, the SpiderShip at the end of Q1 was goofy/stupid and not in-line with the more serious aspects of the series. If anything, it was more of a "Funhouse" element of the earliest days of D&D and thus out of touch for anything but a side-level of some place like Castle Greyhawk.
Becoming a Drider (silly name - it's just a mashup of Drow and Spider) is supposedly painful and traumatic according to a TSR source in 1991.
In 4e, being made a Drider - being more powerful than normal Drow - was a reward.
In 5e, that was reversed back to the original lore - citing that Lloth is nuttier than squirrel droppings.
...but the nice thing about 5e is that Hasbro's WotC has done everything to try to make it clear that people can alter anything to suit their campaigns. That includes lore.
Thank you for your answers everyone :D. The core issue for the Driders is even if it "is supposedly painful and traumatic", Lolth can just traumatise them without making them a Drider. I do very much like the 4e version though, where being a Drider was a reward.
I think what I'll do is: Have becoming a Drider a reward. Make those who fail the Test of Lolth or otherwise displease Lolth instead of turn into Drider face some other terrible punishment. Such a change could be being subject to Sight Rot (see Disease in Monster Manual) with extra pain and quicker blindness, that can't be cured (unless Lolth wants it). There is also a Drider in the book who is punished by being banished to these "Wailing Tunnels" where magic from Lolth creates "howling winds in these passages that mimic the anguished wails of drow who failed her divine test". So I could also have them banished to such tunnels. Or have the wails telepathic and for the punished Drow only.
Keep in mind that MToF changed a lot of elf and drow lore (RAS also tends to do his own thing), but Eilistraee and Lolth are enemies. Lolth is the only deity in Toril that forces monotheism. Typically, races/species, like elves, dwarves, halflings, etc, worship all members of their respective pantheon, but Lolth doesn't want the drow worshiping Eilistraee or Vhaeraun. Eilistraeen and Vhaeraunite followers can be found in places like Menzoberranzan, but they have to be very careful (they might be a bit more open in less Lolthite-dominated cities). Lolth gets all the attention (especially in the Drizzt books), but Eilistraee and Vhaeraun have been striving to make a better path for the drow, and they really don't get the attention they deserve.
Lolth didn't start out as a spider goddess, but she became one later.
In 4e, they changed it so becoming a drider was a blessing, but reverted it back to being a punishment in 5e.
A bit long, but AJ Pickett recently did a couple videos on the history of Araunshnee/Lolth. When you have the time, I would give them a watch/listen.
Also recommend the sourcebook Demihuman Deities. It's 2e, but it will give you great info. Also check out the books Evermeet: Island of Elves, and the Starlight and Shadows trilogy, both by Elaine Cunningham. She is great for non-Lolthite drow lore. I realize this isn't fully answering your question about the driders, but it may be beneficial for your lore knowledge of the drow, nonetheless.
The reason its a punishment is because in Drow culture; they are a proud race. Anything that makes them not pure is shunned in Lolth society. Lich and vampire seems to be the open exception (dragololth as well as the ultimate sign of her favor), as long as they maintain Lolth’s favor; its the only explanation why the Lich dyrr and the matron mother who was a vampire were able to flourish.
to the Drow you are either drow or not drow (races that are slave or yet to be slaves) and while a chaotic society they’re is still a ton of order to keep it functioning
SO WHY ON EARTH DID LOLTH DECIDE TO MAKE IT A PUNISHMENT TO BECOME HALF-SPIDER?! (Drider)
Whaddaya mean? It's clearly a blessing. I mean, you ask Lloth, obviously it's a blessing.
The individual drow being subjected to it ... may lean towards a different view.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
SO WHY ON EARTH DID LOLTH DECIDE TO MAKE IT A PUNISHMENT TO BECOME HALF-SPIDER?! (Drider)
Whaddaya mean? It's clearly a blessing. I mean, you ask Lloth, obviously it's a blessing.
The individual drow being subjected to it ... may lean towards a different view.
Exactly. Throughout history stories of deities and similar figures have made it clear many of them are quite conversant in irony, particularly when it comes to giving “gifts”.
Drow are fanatically obsessed with accumulating more power. Up through 2nd Edition, driders could not advance their skills in any way- they were stagnant. That was the punishment of being turned into a drider- you could never get better than you were. That aspect got lost in 3rd Edition when monsters got the ability to take class levels.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Keep in mind that MToF changed a lot of elf and drow lore (RAS also tends to do his own thing), but Eilistraee and Lolth are enemies. Lolth is the only deity in Toril that forces monotheism. Typically, races/species, like elves, dwarves, halflings, etc, worship all members of their respective pantheon, but Lolth doesn't want the drow worshiping Eilistraee or Vhaeraun. Eilistraeen and Vhaeraunite followers can be found in places like Menzoberranzan, but they have to be very careful (they might be a bit more open in less Lolthite-dominated cities). Lolth gets all the attention (especially in the Drizzt books), but Eilistraee and Vhaeraun have been striving to make a better path for the drow, and they really don't get the attention they deserve.
Lolth didn't start out as a spider goddess, but she became one later.
In 4e, they changed it so becoming a drider was a blessing, but reverted it back to being a punishment in 5e.
A bit long, but AJ Pickett recently did a couple videos on the history of Araunshnee/Lolth. When you have the time, I would give them a watch/listen.
Also recommend the sourcebook Demihuman Deities. It's 2e, but it will give you great info. Also check out the books Evermeet: Island of Elves, and the Starlight and Shadows trilogy, both by Elaine Cunningham. She is great for non-Lolthite drow lore. I realize this isn't fully answering your question about the driders, but it may be beneficial for your lore knowledge of the drow, nonetheless.
She doesn’t necessarily force monotheism. There is a patron god of male consorts that she allows males to worship.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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I am a fan of Drow, Beholders, Mind Flayers, blah blah blah.
Anyway so I was working on Drow things for the campaign I am preparing. And I was reading into one of the Temples of Lolth in the book and a room contained 2 statues of Lolth.
One "depicts Lolth in her monstrous form, with the upper body of a female drow and the lower body of a bloated spider". And the other "Lolth in her drow form".
And then I thought:
The Drow worship spiders
One of Lolth's forms is half spider
SO WHY ON EARTH DID LOLTH DECIDE TO MAKE IT A PUNISHMENT TO BECOME HALF-SPIDER?! (Drider)
The Yuan-ti want to be the creature they worship so why is it different for Drow?
Another thing I was wondering was the presence of a Temple of Eilistraee, who in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes is an enemy of Lolth and hidden from the other Drow by the priestesses. So why does this House have a Temple for her? (Specifically this is House Auvyrndar in Dungeon of the Mad Mage on Level 10: Murial's Gauntlet.)
Don't forget, Driders lose all their self, they are mindless slaves to Lolth and her priestesses.
Also Drow may worship spiders, but they're still repulsed by them in some way. They worship them because they belong to Lolth, not because they like them. (I think harming a spider would get a Drow punished by Lolth)
The Monster Manual says that Driders usually leave Drow society, and only sometimes are slaves (or rather beneath even slaves). Additionally may I get sources? I want to be able to read the details and such. Because given how common spiders are in their society, I don't really understand how they would be repulsed by spiders. A person with a pet spider likely doesn't fear it or is disgusted by it, and in Drow society there are spiders around their entire life.
I do appreciate the answer though, I just am a bit... critical in my analysis.
Sorry, I should've mentioned that I got most of this from reading the Legend of Drizzt, especially the Dark Elf Trilogy and Legacy of the Drow Trilogy.
The novel Homeland has a part where Drizzt is threatened with the punishment of becoming a Drider. (the link will take you to the summary part of that part of the story)
In the Novel The Legacy
Drizzt's brother Dinin get's turned into a Drider by his sister, because he didn't want to fight his brother out of fear of him.
This is going to take a bit, so bear with me (its a long winded lore answer):
It partly has to do with the creation of Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits which was a very different ending of the G1-3 Against the Giants and D1-3 Descent into the Depths of the Earth campaign series, not the least of which was the Drow of the Eilservs/Tormtor faction worshipped The Elder Elemental God and Lolth had NOTHING to do with the organizing of the giants (and aiding the Slavers of the Pomarj). The culmination of the adventures (and linking all the way back to The Temple of Elemental Evil) SHOULD have resulted in the adventurers battling The Elder Elemental God and sealing him away (or, loosing him if they screw up or are stupid/evil). Note the 4 "keys" to the Demonweb correspond to the 4 Elemental Signs of the Temple of Elemental Evil (and there was an unpublished/unreleased 5th dungeon level where the EEG could manifest if the PCs are, again, stupid/evil). So, anyway, the culmination of G-D series should have been multiple modules where the actions of the PCs determine what happens. They might be compelled to enter the Abyss after demolishing The Fane of Lolth (literally doing the Eilservs/Tormtor faction's dirty work for them) near Erelhei-Cinlu in The Vault of the Drow. They alternately, with some prompting by the DM (or if the group really is on the ball and took note of the EEG's weird temple's in G1 and G3) might go after the Temple of the EEG in the Vault instead (which was basically the same as the ones in G1 and G3) where they could demolish the Eilservs/Tormtor faction.
Gary Gygax (for multiple reasons, not the least of which was being sent to Hollywood to create the TSR Entertainment Division, which lead to all sorts of troubles in retrospect) left the plot threads hanging for G-D. Supposedly, his version of Q1 was too close/similar to his work on The Temple of Elemental Evil, so he handed the job off to Dave Sutherland III. That's more than a bit of a corporate answer, but I'll leave that for later.
As for Sutherland's work, even Gygax admitted the Web portion of the adventure was good. I have suspicions that Gary left notes (which Sutherland consulted) on what would be the Drider and Yochol. However, to me the Yochol (like the EEG's clerics with their Tentacle Rods) scream Elder Elemental God creatures and NOT Lolth. And yea, you're right, the Drider makes no sense as a punishment. If I had a wand to wipe away the glaringly obvious disconnect, I'd rework Driders to be Lolth's most fanatical servants, a type of sub-demon granted to her most powerful followers (and thus able to use a full range of granted powers like Gate 1/day, etc). Its entirely possible that there was interference from the management with the Driders being deemed too "ick" being sub-demons (this was, after all, the start of The Satanic Panic and TSR's management team were becoming stupidly risk averse, the whole kerfuffle surrounding B3: Palace of the Silver Princess comes to mind).
TL;DR - Gygax maybe planned Driders to be something else, but the resulting chaos of the early days of TSR's management left us with a kludged together finale to the Drow/Lolth storylines started in T1: Village of Hommlet/Temple of Elemental Evil (remember, Lareth the Beautiful was a male human Priest of Lolth!), A1-4 Scourge of the Slave Lords, G1-3 Against the Giants and D1-3 Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Rework Driders to be fanatical Lolth worshiping sub-demons instead. For an added bonus, maybe there ARE failed versions that look more spider-ish and more feral (the Kikkimora from The Witcher Tv series would be a good model).
And yea, the SpiderShip at the end of Q1 was goofy/stupid and not in-line with the more serious aspects of the series. If anything, it was more of a "Funhouse" element of the earliest days of D&D and thus out of touch for anything but a side-level of some place like Castle Greyhawk.
Becoming a Drider (silly name - it's just a mashup of Drow and Spider) is supposedly painful and traumatic according to a TSR source in 1991.
In 4e, being made a Drider - being more powerful than normal Drow - was a reward.
In 5e, that was reversed back to the original lore - citing that Lloth is nuttier than squirrel droppings.
...but the nice thing about 5e is that Hasbro's WotC has done everything to try to make it clear that people can alter anything to suit their campaigns. That includes lore.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Thank you for your answers everyone :D.
The core issue for the Driders is even if it "is supposedly painful and traumatic", Lolth can just traumatise them without making them a Drider.
I do very much like the 4e version though, where being a Drider was a reward.
I think what I'll do is:
Have becoming a Drider a reward.
Make those who fail the Test of Lolth or otherwise displease Lolth instead of turn into Drider face some other terrible punishment.
Such a change could be being subject to Sight Rot (see Disease in Monster Manual) with extra pain and quicker blindness, that can't be cured (unless Lolth wants it).
There is also a Drider in the book who is punished by being banished to these "Wailing Tunnels" where magic from Lolth creates "howling winds in these passages that mimic the anguished wails of drow who failed her divine test". So I could also have them banished to such tunnels. Or have the wails telepathic and for the punished Drow only.
Keep in mind that MToF changed a lot of elf and drow lore (RAS also tends to do his own thing), but Eilistraee and Lolth are enemies. Lolth is the only deity in Toril that forces monotheism. Typically, races/species, like elves, dwarves, halflings, etc, worship all members of their respective pantheon, but Lolth doesn't want the drow worshiping Eilistraee or Vhaeraun. Eilistraeen and Vhaeraunite followers can be found in places like Menzoberranzan, but they have to be very careful (they might be a bit more open in less Lolthite-dominated cities). Lolth gets all the attention (especially in the Drizzt books), but Eilistraee and Vhaeraun have been striving to make a better path for the drow, and they really don't get the attention they deserve.
Lolth didn't start out as a spider goddess, but she became one later.
In 4e, they changed it so becoming a drider was a blessing, but reverted it back to being a punishment in 5e.
A bit long, but AJ Pickett recently did a couple videos on the history of Araunshnee/Lolth. When you have the time, I would give them a watch/listen.
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TKRHUe5B5k&list=LL&index=39
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LchSNTiBUSI
Also recommend the sourcebook Demihuman Deities. It's 2e, but it will give you great info. Also check out the books Evermeet: Island of Elves, and the Starlight and Shadows trilogy, both by Elaine Cunningham. She is great for non-Lolthite drow lore. I realize this isn't fully answering your question about the driders, but it may be beneficial for your lore knowledge of the drow, nonetheless.
The reason its a punishment is because in Drow culture; they are a proud race. Anything that makes them not pure is shunned in Lolth society. Lich and vampire seems to be the open exception (dragololth as well as the ultimate sign of her favor), as long as they maintain Lolth’s favor; its the only explanation why the Lich dyrr and the matron mother who was a vampire were able to flourish.
to the Drow you are either drow or not drow (races that are slave or yet to be slaves) and while a chaotic society they’re is still a ton of order to keep it functioning
Whaddaya mean? It's clearly a blessing. I mean, you ask Lloth, obviously it's a blessing.
The individual drow being subjected to it ... may lean towards a different view.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Exactly. Throughout history stories of deities and similar figures have made it clear many of them are quite conversant in irony, particularly when it comes to giving “gifts”.
Drow are fanatically obsessed with accumulating more power. Up through 2nd Edition, driders could not advance their skills in any way- they were stagnant. That was the punishment of being turned into a drider- you could never get better than you were. That aspect got lost in 3rd Edition when monsters got the ability to take class levels.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
She doesn’t necessarily force monotheism. There is a patron god of male consorts that she allows males to worship.