She

She


The true name of this Goddess is never spoken aloud. Only her priestesses and priests may name her and then only when worshipping her with secret rites. She is the Queen of Spiders and the ultimate sovereign of all drow. All drow honor ‘She’ as their mother and protector. She is their inspiration and the reason that spiders are sacred to them. The legend of her creation is paralleled by the way the drow themselves were cut off from the main body of the elven race and exiled beneath the earth. She has other names that the races of Ashfar use to refer to her, but the drow only ever use the term ‘She’. They know well enough who they are talking about.



Alignment: Neutral Evil

Dominions: Destruction, Death, Evil, Magic, Protection, War

Favoured Weapon: The sacred weapon of She is the net, symbolic of the webs that entrap her foes

 The Creation of She 

The creation of She is a central elven legend. Brith the sun god, the second child born of Nuith the Star Goddess, was originally deemed unworthy to hold the throne of the elven gods. He was a proven warrior and his courage was unquestionable, but the seeress Lumiya proclaimed that his nature contained a weakness, an evil. Given time, this evil might grow to consume him.

While Brith was still not pure in body and soul, he would not be worthy of the responsibility that was to be his.

<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRomanPS","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:TimesNewRomanPS">The outward sign of this evil within him was his left hand. The body of Brith was beautiful and well proportioned, but the left hand was dark and hook-nailed, the back of it covered with coarse hairs, as if it belonged to something else.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRomanPS","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:TimesNewRomanPS">Thus, the sun-lord Brith went into the deserts of sand to search his soul and judge whether he was worthy to be a true King of all elves. After thirty nights of wandering and meditation, he made his decision. If there was evil within him, he would cut it out.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRomanPS","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:TimesNewRomanPS">This was his warrior’s mind speaking. Another might have tried to come to terms with the evil, to overcome it by force of will, but not Brith. In a single moment, he drew his sword and hacked his left hand off at the wrist, then flung it with a curse down a rocky ravine, into the darkness where it belonged.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRomanPS","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:TimesNewRomanPS">Brith returned to his fellow gods, who welcomed him. Only Lumiya was silent, knowing that the evil had not been overcome but merely moved to a place where none would see it.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRomanPS","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:TimesNewRomanPS">Gods are immortal. Their body parts are no less immortal, whether they are still attached or not.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRomanPS","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:TimesNewRomanPS">The left hand of Brith, still living, still evil, crouched in the darkness. It pulsed, slowly, realizing that it was free. For the first time, it was <span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRomanPS-Italic","serif";mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-Italic">itself <span style="font-size:9.0pt; font-family:"TimesNewRomanPS","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:TimesNewRomanPS">. The fingers elongated; new ones exuded themselves in spindly lengths from the wet stump. Four thin, bony fingers wavered feebly beside a stubby thumb, like some horrible birth deformity. The fingers and thumb thickened, darkening to match the rest of the skin. A single hand had become two hands, fused at the wrists.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRomanPS","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:TimesNewRomanPS">The knuckles of the thumbs congealed together, forming a bulbous head. Their curved claws clicked as they met and became inward-pointing jaws. As the body gained mass and the fingers became longer and thinner, the thick black hair that had covered the back of the hand now sprouted over the whole creature. ‘She’, the devouring spider-goddess, was born – the evil that the sun god cut away from himself and cast into darkness.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRomanPS","serif";mso-bidi-font-family:TimesNewRomanPS">In the darkness, the spider-creature found comfort and strength. She soothed her burning wounds in the cool lightless air. Life was already beginning to breed in her bulbous belly. Away from the light of Brith, shielded from the influence of the stars, she absorbed the darkness into herself and fed it into her growing eggs like mother’s milk. Her children would shun light, even as she did. When the time came for the stars to send their ambassadors to earth, they would be <span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRomanPS-Italic","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:TimesNewRomanPS-Italic">opposed <span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRomanPS","serif";mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS">. The darkness too, would have a voice. It would speak through Her spawn.