What If Lolth Died?

[Irennan]

That situation is different though because all of the other members of the Drow pantheon understood what was happening because it had occurred previously and therefore the steps they took in response were distinctly limited.

Lolth, in the Realms, could potentially be killed by Corellon Larethian following the events of the Reckoning (the Lady Penitent novels) in which Corellon was drawn into direct competition with Lolth following the death of Eilistraee because a number of drow were converted back into dark elves (no these are somehow not the same thing). However, the subsequent events of both the Spellplague and the Second Sundering undid all of that and brought the other members of the drow pantheon (aka the Dark Seldarine) back from the dead and restored a much earlier status quo.


Broadly, it's important to determine if this question applies to only in the Realms, or to the Planescape-based iteration of Lolth who serves as the principle goddess of all dark elves everywhere. There's a lot of weird overlap here because of cross pollination in the development of aspects of the drow for the Realms by Ed Greenwood and RA Salvatore that was latter ported over imperfectly into Planescape with certain elements (Elven High Magic, the role of entities like Ghuandaur) changed or erased.

Within the Realms, if Lolth dies as a result of the sava game she willfully participated in with other drow and elven deities, then her death would be binding per those rules and her portfolio would pass to the deity who killed her. Existing drow society would be massively destabilized in all cases but the subsequent direction would depend almost completely on who it was that won. The most minimal change would be from Lolth to Kiriansalee - in which case the drow stop worshipping spiders and start worshipping undead but still probably remain largely a matriarchy and many of their social structures would remain unchanged. Victory by Vhaerun would utterly upend all the gender based structures and probably result in a patriarchy instead after a massive amount of violence, but the drow would remain evil. The Jaezred Chaulssin assassin cult the followed Vhaerun and ruled a couple of drow settlements provides an example of how this would probably sort out. If Eilistraee killed Lolth, who knows. Some of the drow would follow her but the majority would probably reject her entirely and search out some other deity to follow (probably Shar, who occupies the right divine memespace). If Corellon kills Lolth hmmm...they probably take on the dark elves willing to worship him and just purges the rest of the drow entirely.

Nah, that game was just a metaphor, not a real thing--as shown by many scenes which would be entirely illogical otherwise (or from the fact that the entirety of those novels wouldn't have mattered even within their own context if that game was real, since the game would be the only real determining factor, and stuff done by mortal would be only fluff). It would also be incredibly OOC for Eilistraee to even think taking part in a thing that uses people as literal pawns. Then again, being absolute nonsense is the trademark of that series. It goes to the point that it couldn't have even been written if not for the authors warping characters and lore, because they based the whole plot on false information (like the position of Eilistraee's realm) and certain characters doing things that they would have never done without the warping they did (their smearing of Eilistraee is notorious--and intentional--for example, down to sniping specific lines of lore about her just so subvert them in VERY offputting ways). It's one of the reasons why their retcon makes much more sense than the novels themselves.

As for Corellon, I doubt he'd even care going after Lolth. Even in the novels He merely collected a handful free souls, and was willing to even let the majority of Eilistraee's followers to rot, because they weren't affected by a race change (yes, only a few hudnreds of the thousands of Eilistraee's followers were transformed by that mage, which is why the transformation into dark elves did absoilutely nothing in the big picture). He also proceeded to do absolutely nothing for a century or so after that event. Then again, setting aside WotC's retcon, if we want to analyze the situation, since Ed Greenwood explained that Eilistraee survived with the help of Mystra (and so did Vhaeraun, whom she spared but whose portfolio she temporarily took), it could easily be that Corellon only subentered to "watch over" his daughter's followers while she was powerless as a deity and was recovering. This would paint a much better picture of him thatn the novels do, tbh, and given that Ed spilled the beans about the "behind the scenes" of the events, I'd say this is the most likely possibility.

That said, the idea that the drow would automatically worship the deity who kills Lolth is flawed IMHO. People don't work like that; the Lolthite drow would likely just descend into a messy massacre to determine who would fill the power vacuum left by the now-powerless priesteses (and they would do all they can to hide their lack of power, which could include turning to demon worship to get powers and stuff). Little would change for the other drow factions, aside from an opportunity for the likes of Vhaeraun, since he'd have a good chance at establishing dominance, or at least a much easier time destabilizing and demolishing the Lolthite society in the future. For the Eilistraeans, there would be A LOT of work to try and rescue many of the victims of the massive bloodshed that would ensue. Other races, like the dwarves, if they ever came to know about Lolth's death, might use the civil war of her followers as an opportunity to get rid of drow cities near to them.

If some other, non-elven deity managed to kill Lolth outside of the sava context (which would be challenging outside of some kind of cataclysmic event that rendered the gods vulnerable like during the Time of Troubles), they would absorb Lolth's portfolio and would probably continue to pretend to be Lolth because they'd gain the greatest support from the Drow in that way and only very gradually alter drow society to suit their desires.

I wouldn't say it's unlikely. Lolth made a really stupid move by isolating her own Realm from the Abyss. If Lolth didn't have plot armor, since she's alone, since she's made enemies out of everyone, chances are we would see stuff like the Mordinsamman and the Seldarine doing a blitz in the Demonwibs, erasing her from the Realms. I mean, Vhaeraun could even be convinced to join, and Eilistraee wouldn't certainly oppose them. What would remain as her ally? Selvetarm? Moradin's laugh would be enough to send him flying into the horizon. Not to mention that even Selvetarm hates her, thiugh he still defends her for whatever reason.

Lolth is one of those villains that only survives because of author bias, really. If not for her adversaries getting her, it should've been a lot of the drow losing faith or bringing change over friggin' 12000 years of utter misery (both emotional and material), stagnation, and regress from their golden age from before Lolth's cult was even a thing. Don't give me the " but a literal deity keeps them down..." justification; it's weak. Threats of death and massacres never stopped IRL humans (who had MUCH better conditions than the vast majority of drow, who can literally be killed or bankrupted and then enslaved for fun in Lolthite society) from rebelling or even displaying dissent. And in the Realms even internal disillusion, without the need to display it outside, without the need to do *anything* material, would be enough to kill or at least demolish Lolth's power, due to how deities work in FR (and that was true even before the ToT, as shown by many deities fading due to loss of worshippers). Now, add opther deities who go out of their way to help the drow break free, and you have a picture where the current canon is ridiculous.

As for the portfolio, it wouldn't necessarily go to the killer. There are cases of deities being killed and their porfolio remaining unfulfilled. Mystra, for example--though we know she had contingencies and survived, she effectively stopped functioning as a deity even thogh she was still alive. Same for the Dark Seldarine.