Lolth Lolth

Lolth - Definition and Overview

In the roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, Lolth (once called Araushnee in the Forgotten Realms, and sometimes Lloth in the Menzoberranzan region of the Realms' Underdark), the Spider Queen, is a chaotic evil demon and goddess. She is worshipped chiefly by the subterranean, matriarchal drow (dark elves). Most servants who fail her are either slain or transformed into creatures called driders: centaur-like creatures that have spider-like bodies below their waists instead of a centaur's equine features. She is also served by a race of shapeshifting tanar'ri called the yochlol. In their natural form, yochlol resemble molten blobs of wax.

Lolth dwells in the Demonweb Pits, a demonic realm formed entirely of a single great fractal web, where she is served by legions of powerful mystical slaves. Lolth's residence in this realm is a mobile iron spider-shaped stronghold. In the default Dungeons & Dragons cosmology, the Demonweb Pit is located in the 66th layer of the Outer Plane called the Abyss. In the current iteration of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, the Demonweb Pit is a plane to itself.

The qualities of Lolth were most likely inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien. In his book, The Silmarillion, he describes an ancient spider-like being that he called Ungoliant. Ungoliant was an ally of Melkor, a.k.a. Morgoth, the "fallen angel" of Tolkien's mythology and she ruled over the race of dark elves long before the Third Age.

Copyright 2009 WordIQ.com - Privacy Policy  :: Terms of Use  :: Contact Us  :: About Us
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the this Wikipedia article.