Drow Monk turned Drider

[AvatarVecna]

So I was reading through the Tests Of Lolth (http://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/races/elf/drow2.shtml) as part of making a backstory for a Drider Monk character, and I find myself with...questions. A bunch of things that don't seem to add up, that would be noticeable to the drow in question, a bunch of things they'd wish to understand.

1) For those unwilling to read the link above for whatever reason, the Test of the Drider more or less goes as follows: when drow get powerful enough (here reading as "6th level"), they've proven themselves to have high self-confidence bordering on arrogance, and the test is "okay but just so we're clear you understand being powerful doesn't mean I won't smite you for being a little ****?" The point of it is essentially an ego check on the drow in question, making sure they know that no matter how powerful they get, Lolth still holds higher rank. So the way she tests this is building up your fear of spiders with nightmares of being eaten alive from the inside out, to the point that even seeing spider imagery (like that which is ubiquitous in drow society) shakes you up a bit.

So here's where it gets weird for me: if your reaction to your spider goddess sending you dreams of being eaten alive by her spider minions specifically to give you a severe case of arachnophobia and remind you that your arrogance has to have limits...is to say "eh **** that I'm not afraid of bugs and you can't drive me out of town with silly nightmares", then congratulations, you passed the test! Wait...okay, to be clear, fleeing town over a little arachnophobia shows maybe you actually believe Lolth would totally murder you and you don't wanna be around where that's more easily done, but why does the theological equivalent of refusing to flinch work here, when it seems the whole point of the test is Lolth making you flinch because she wants to keep you at least a little humble?

2) Alright, so this is the part that's more relevant to roleplaying the character: namely, how the character interprets being transformed into a drider. For starters, it seems to me that the Tests Of Lolth aren't exclusive to spellcasters, but are just something that happens for powerful drow regardless of ability. This means a non-spellcaster who becomes a drow can now cast...and that can very well mean gaining cleric spellcasting using Lolth's domains. As the obvious choice for a monk, the cleric casting is what I'm going for, but now I'm trying to think about what that means in-character (along with other issues).

Being a drow marks you as a failure, a disappointment, a disgrace in the eyes of Lolth, and drow society reacts accordingly. But then...if I am a failure, why has she made me stronger in every conceivable way? If I am a disappointment, why has she granted me a measure of her divine power in the form of cleric casting? If I am a disgrace, why has she remade me in her image? And even "ex"-cleric driders aren't prevented from continuing to advance their cleric casting by being made into driders!

To be clear, I'm hoping to get to explore some of these things in-game, and will be discussing them with the DM once they ever respond to my posts but for now I'm wondering if there's some part of deeper Faerun lore I'm missing that satisfies my curiosity on this matter. Is it just "Lolth is Stupid Chaotic Evil and her tests are arbitrarily cruel and mean nothing", or is there some deeper meaning to her empowering the failures, granting them spellcasting, remaking them in her image, and forcing them to become self-dependent outside of drow society, especially when the victory condition of the test they failed seems to make no sense?

[Andor13]

Those are good questions, but ultimately they lie squarely in your GMs hands.

I could make a hell of a campaign around the answers to those questions though.

[Deadline]

Failing the Test of Lolth means that you are weak (and a failure). Lolth turns you into a horrifying abomination that is stronger than you were so that you will at least be useful. But you will never be more than a failure and a footsoldier, because an exceptional Drider is still a Drider, not a Drow.

That's my take on it at least.

[umbergod]

Failing the Test of Lolth means that you are weak (and a failure). Lolth turns you into a horrifying abomination that is stronger than you were so that you will at least be useful. But you will never be more than a failure and a footsoldier, because an exceptional Drider is still a Drider, not a Drow.

That's my take on it at least.

Thats fairly accurate. Despite Lolth often appearing as a drow/spider hybrid, drow are incredibly vain and haughty. Their culture breeds perfectionists and vanity, so despite a drider actually being stronger, theyre such a religion driven culture failing the test of their goddess is a massive taboo

[Zaq]

Let's be real: when dealing with drow society as written by WotC, the stupidest answer is basically always the right answer. I mean, have you ever read Drow of the Underdark? Look at page 26. They pull an actual deus ex machina. They straight up admit in black and white (primary text, not even a sidebar!) that drow society is impossible and that it would have, quote, "murdered itself into oblivion eons ago," but it exists because Lolth says so. I'm not reading between the lines. That's the actual text.

They then saw fit to still publish an entire book on this doesn't-even-work-in-fantasy-by-their-own-admission society even after admitting that it's insane, for what that's worth. If you can't tell, I don't think very highly of basically anything WotC writes about how drow exist and (allegedly) function. The more liberties you take with it, the saner it's likely to end up if you aren't actively trolling your GM or your players.

[AvatarVecna]

Let's be real: when dealing with drow society as written by WotC, the stupidest answer is basically always the right answer. I mean, have you ever read Drow of the Underdark? Look at page 26. They pull an actual deus ex machina. They straight up admit in black and white (primary text, not even a sidebar!) that drow society is impossible and that it would have, quote, "murdered itself into oblivion eons ago," but it exists because Lolth says so. I'm not reading between the lines. That's the actual text.

They then saw fit to still publish an entire book on this doesn't-even-work-in-fantasy-by-their-own-admission society even after admitting that it's insane, for what that's worth. If you can't tell, I don't think very highly of basically anything WotC writes about how drow exist and (allegedly) function. The more liberties you take with it, the saner it's likely to end up if you aren't actively trolling your GM or our players.

I'm disappointed there isn't some obscure Lolth lore that makes the whole drider thing more of a devious manipulation than just a goddess being extremely petty for basically no reason in a way that doesn't really do anything to further her own goals...but I can't really say I'm surprised either.

[liquidformat]

So I am a bit hazy and it really depends on which edition you are looking at but for Lolth she is supposed to be some mix of Lilith Judas, and Medusa, a once beautiful elven goddess and Corellon Larethian's consort but she fell to darkness and betrayed the elves. Spider part of her form is both a power source for her and a curse that she loves and hates.

From there we get into even more goofy rulings from drow themselves, one version of drow I remember reading about somewhere claims that drow always gestate twins but one always kills the other inside the womb, this ensures that the evil aggression needed to live in their society is bred into them before they are even born. Granted the version that made it into DotU is much much more tame. Anyways the writing for drow drifts from writers with a clear bdsm madam fetish to wtf no seriously wtf. So it is rather understandable that they are one of those fun groups that leave anyone who takes more than a cursory look scratching their head.

Anyways from my liberal reading of 3.5 I see Lolth curse representative of her own. She is blessing her failed people with her most powerful and most hated aspect and the only real mechanical justification is that the society is setup for driders to hate themselves so much that they go along with it even though they are clearly the superior being. In this way they can be correlated somewhat with medusa, they were obsessed with themselves and their beauty so now even though they are more powerful they just see a hideous monster.

Also it is worth noting that in 4 or 5 can't remember which being a drider is now changed to a blessing of lolth and not a curse...

[Luckmann]

...

2) Alright, so this is the part that's more relevant to roleplaying the character: namely, how the character interprets being transformed into a drider.

...
Maybe I'm wrong or maybe I'm mixing in Forgotten Realms atuff here, but I was under the impression that being turned into a drider is an intesely traumatizing experience and essentially shatters the psyche of the victim. The interpretation would likely be as shattered and conflicted.

I could be wrong.
I'm disappointed there isn't some obscure Lolth lore that makes the whole drider thing more of a devious manipulation than just a goddess being extremely petty for basically no reason in a way that doesn't really do anything to further her own goals...but I can't really say I'm surprised either.
To be fair, "petty" isn't just an OK trait for a deity to have as a person, but is actually pretty common in real-world religions, although it would be hubris to phrase it such. And in the context of D&D 3.5, I don't think anyone does "petty" better than Lolth. It's practically in her portfolio, and she's extremely jealous of almost any other deity, and ironically has an inferiority complex greater than any other deity.

[atemu1234]

Let's be real: when dealing with drow society as written by WotC, the stupidest answer is basically always the right answer. I mean, have you ever read Drow of the Underdark? Look at page 26. They pull an actual deus ex machina. They straight up admit in black and white (primary text, not even a sidebar!) that drow society is impossible and that it would have, quote, "murdered itself into oblivion eons ago," but it exists because Lolth says so. I'm not reading between the lines. That's the actual text.

They then saw fit to still publish an entire book on this doesn't-even-work-in-fantasy-by-their-own-admission society even after admitting that it's insane, for what that's worth. If you can't tell, I don't think very highly of basically anything WotC writes about how drow exist and (allegedly) function. The more liberties you take with it, the saner it's likely to end up if you aren't actively trolling your GM or your players.


I mean, most things in D&D don't work if you think about them too hard. The meta 'would've murdered itself into nothing' is kind of present in most stuff for D&D.

And DotU is kind of trying to come up with a cohesive society based on the writings of about a half-dozen authors, and as with everything else, rule of cool is more important than functionality.