What If Lolth Died?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

But without her will enforcing the back stabbing gain power no matter what it costs everyone else attitude, there would be more of the have nots trying to find a different path for themselves rather than just falling in line all over again. Its entirely likely the society would splinter as everyone goes in whatever direction they think would benefit them the most. As a single example, the menfolk would likely move VERY FAST once the matrons lost their power in an attempt to seize control themselves. Being the wizards and warriors of the race, they are not effected by the death of a goddess and so would lose none of their personal power.

Not necessarily. Despite all of the many (many many) problems with the War of the Spider Queen series, one thing it actually does well is showing how the priestesshood of Lolth could fake Lolth's favor pretty well for quite some time to prevent any sort of insurrection. Already-prepared spells and stockpiled magic items would let them actively use magic in the public eye as if nothing was wrong, bound demons and animated undead would stay under control and serve as bodyguards in the absence of personal buffs and wards, and the sheer cultural inertia of "Thou shalt not question the priestesses, Lolth works in mysterious ways"--plus the high probability that an apparent weakness on the part of the priestesses is merely a ploy by the priestesses and/or Lolth herself to draw out would-be traitors so they could be crushed--would keep anyone who noticed anything wrong from acting against them until and unless they were absolutely sure about what was going on.

And an uprising of class and gender solidarity is by no means guaranteed. Don't forget that most of the male drow who have any real power in most drow cities are attached to the matron mothers, and the males are just as backstabby and "screw you, I've got mine" as the females in most cases. The males that are best positioned to discover what's going on are the House archmages and blademasters, who have quite cushy positions and wouldn't necessarily fare well if their Houses come crashing down (see: all the males of House Oblodra), so if it looks like there's any chance the priestesses could regain power and keep society stable through finding another patron deity there's a better than even chance that they'd actually help prop up their House's priestesses to sell the illusion, in exchange for more personal freedom and/or some concessions and favors to be paid back when they have divine magic again.

The matriarchy probably falls in all cases save where Kiriansalee becomes the new patron, but only slowly, as it would take many centuries for male drow to rise from the ranks of acolytes into positions of power in the clergy. There would also likely be an overall trend away from theocracy and toward magocracy, since the extremely chaotic period in which new faiths vied for dominance would severely weaken religious authority as a whole, leaving arcane magic in a superior position.

This isn't a guarantee either. If the priestesses can agree on a new patron deity or archfiend relatively quickly and keep things relatively quiet until they can all devote themselves to said new deity instead of every House running around trying to find their own new patron--which, yes, would be great for each House in the short term if they can move up in the House rankings by being the first one to serve that god and earning a favored position, but would be really bad in the long term if the chaos leads to all the Houses losing power--then they might be able to keep things running the same as they always have and continue to exclude the males from the clergy because there would be no period of overt weakness in which the males could start becoming priests as well without the priestesses crushing them.

Heck, they might even be able to keep anyone outside of the priestesshood from ever realizing that Lolth is gone! The drow already use a lot of bound demons as servants, so if they managed to make a deal with a vaguely-Lolth-looking demon princess like the Queen of Chaos, Pale Night, Malcanthet, or Zuggtmoy, they could gradually transition all the spider imagery to "Lolth" imagery because something something vain goddess something something more direct representation, and hey, if Lolth is looking a little pale in most paintings and her spider legs in most sculptures look a little bit tentacle-y or wing-y if you squint, well, you can hardly blame the artists for some creative interpretations. Alternately, all the yochlols would probably fall under Ghaunadaur's control after Lolth died, given their oozy-and-drowish nature, and since the presence of yochlol servants is often used to show a particular priestes's or House's favor with Lolth, the priestesshood could switch to worshiping Ghaunadaur and have him keep sending them yochlols to keep the transition a secret.


Obviously, this isn't to say that things would easily remain unchanged after Lolth's death or that giving the drow a new deity would merely be a palette-swap; mass revolution and dramatic societal changes are definitely a possibility and even very likely. My point is just that the priestesses have been at this whole "evil scheming and totalitarian government" thing for quite some time and there are a lot of options for how they could delay or entirely prevent a loss of power.