Lolth
formerly Araushnee

The Spider Queen, Queen of Spiders, Demon Queen of the Abyss, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, Weaver of Chaos, The Hunted, The Mother of Lusts, Dark Mother of All Drow, Lady of Spiders
Spiders, evil, darkness, chaos, assassins, and the Drow Race

Lolth is the goddess of the drow race and society. She is responsible for the nature, customs, laws and survival of most drow communities. The Spider Queen maintains her absolute rule over drow cities by means of her clergy, who tirelessy seek out and destroy all traces of dissent, disobedience, rival faith, or sacrilege and who ruthlessly enforce the Way of Lolth. The Spider Queen foments unending chaos in drow society and sets the drow eternally at war with each other both for her own amusement and to prevent complacency, runaway pride from asserting itself, or the rise of other faiths. Lolth is also venerated by chitiness, a small spiderlike race that are castoffs of the drow.
Lolth is a cruel, capricious goddess thought by many to be insane. She delights in setting her worshippers at each other's throats so that the strongest most devious and most cruel survive to serve her. Lolth roams the Realms often, appearing in answer to the rituals of drow priests, and working whatever harm she can to the enemies of the drow. The Spider Queen secretly wants to be worshipped by humans and elves of other races on the surface Realms, and sometimes journeys among their communities whispering of the power of Lolth can bring. Lolth is malicious in her dealings and coldly vicious in a fight. She enjoys both personally dealing and causing death, destruction, and painful torture. Even more, Lolth enjoys corrupting elves and humans to her service. Her favor and aid can never be relied or trusted. The Spider Queen enjoys the company of and can converse with spiders of all sorts.

As Araushnee, Lolth was once a lesser power of the Seldarine and the consort of Corellon Larethian. She was the patron of artisans, the goddess of elven destiny, and -- later by Corellon's decree {she had him completely entranced by her grace and beauty for she was the opposite of Corellon in every way. Woman to his man, darkness to his light, artisian to his warriorness}-- the keeper of those elves who shared her darkly beautiful features. The Weaver of Destiny bore Corellon twin godlings --Vhaeraun and Eilistraee -- before she turned against her lover and betrayed him. First she aided Gruumsh One-Eye, chief among the orish gods, in one of his perrenial battles with the Creator of the Elves, and then she set Malar on the trail of weaken Corellon after observing the Beastlord defeat Herne on Faerun. When these plots failed as a result of Corellon's skill at arms and Sehanine's interference, Araushnee raised a host of hostile powers -- the anti-Seldarine-- to assault Arvandor. Despite the treachery of Araushnee and Vhaeraun, the assault failed and Corellon's consort and son were revealed as guilty. By order of the Council of the Seldarine, Araushnee was transformed into a spider-shaped tanar'ri and banished to the Abyss.
As an Abyssal Lord, Araushnee assumed the name Lolth and conquered a considerable portion of that foul plane, driving off Ghaunadar and subjugating Kiaransalee in the process. The Spider Queen then turned her attentions towards corrupting the mortal children of the Seldarine and reclaiming her divinity. Lolth's attentions were drawn once again to Abeir-Toril by the intrusion of the moon elven heroine Kethryllia Amarillis into her domain, and the Spider Queen immediately began to cultivate followers among the most cruel and corrupt of Corellon's children in Faerun. In the centuries that followed, Lolth made great inroads among the war-like Ilythiiri, who had long since spread across the South conquering their kinfolk under the guidance of Vhaeraun, and to a lesser extent Ghaunadaur. Lolth's machinations among the elves culminated in the Crown Wars, and eventually the curse and descent of the Drow into the Underdark. Now in her webs, claiming the destruction of much of elven civilization in Faerun, the race that became known as the Drow were hers.
In the centuries since the Crown Wars, Lolth's followers have continued to spread throughout the Underdark. While other powers contest her rule, the Spider Queen's dominion over the dark elves continued to expand, albeit more slowly than before. Lolth's followers have been occupied with the conquest of the Underdark, and the destruction of the faerie elves of the surface. The Spider Queen has never ceased in her efforts to destroy the elven sanctuary of Evermeet.
Although the Spider Queen detests all the members of the Seldarine, Lolth reserves her deepest hatred for her former lover, Corellon Larethian, who banished her to the Abyss and named her tanar'ri. The Spider Queen particulary loathes Sehanine Moonbow for her part in foiling Lolth's bid to replace Corellon as head of the Seldarine. The Spider Queen has also vowed vengeance against Fenmarel Mestarine, who spurned her after initially falling to her seductions.

Since the Time of Troubles, Lolth has assumed additional aspects as two of her many stategems to increase the ranks of her faithful and thus her own personal power. In the drow city of Menzoberranzan, in the Underdark beneath the North where Lolth --or Lloth, as she is known there-- appeared during the Time of Troubles, the Spider Queen has allowed rumors to spread of a new demipower of chaos and assassins, Zinzerena the Hunted. While Zinzerena was once a legendary drow assassin and later an emerging demipower of a world other than Abeir-Toril. The Spider Queen recently slew Zinzerena --or at least banished her influence from the Realms-- and assumed her aspect as a test to see if additional divine aspects increased or decreased the total (albeit fragmented) divine power available. In the Lands of Light, Lolth has long found that the deeply imbued racial antipathy of the surface elves towards the Spider Queen interferes with her attempts to seduce otherwise eminently corruptible individuals. With the death of Moander, Lolth has capitalized on a more comprehensible (and tempting) force of evil to the nature-loving surface elves than the Spider Queen. Lolth has assumed the Darkbringer's aspect and portfolio of rotting death, decay and corruption and revived its cult in a bid to add elven, half-elven, and human worshipers to the ranks of her faithful.

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