Beloved of Lolth Campaign (IC)

[Geekus Maximus]

This is a Role-Playing experience. You are about to be cast into the dark and treacherous realm of the drow. As sinister as they are beautiful, powerful and corrupt, the dark elves rule the sunless depths like no other race. Cast out of Corellon Larethian's court, Lolth led her banished children deep into the earth. Drow society is decadent and harsh. Here, only the cunning survive, for the poisoned blade kills all drow equally, but those with enough wit, may be able to see it coming soon enough to escape it, or--better yet--deflect into the back of your enemy. Those honest enough to realize their deficiencies must be valuable in other ways to those in power, or die for someone else's amusement. Life always hangs by a silken thread in the Underdark, and Lolth's priestesses are ever eager to put a corrosive dagger to that thread, at any time. You must choose to either band together, or betray one another; and sometimes those lines become blurry.

GM NOTE:

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Welcome! If you are playing here you MUST read and understand this introductory post. After ChronicLunacy has posted the images, you may start posting. All players, please include a link to your character sheet on your first post (I'm keeping links to them, so keep updating your sheets). If you are reading this as someone who wishes to join in, please PM me or use the OOC Thread, to express interest and run your PC concept by me, then make your character. Death is a very real part of drow society, so it's possible that your character will die. Don't let that be the end. Make a new character, and pick it up from there. Any new characters from after this point (even from existing players) don't need to be dark elves, but the highest total ECL you may have must be equal to the one you left off as. Minimum is ECL 5. Example: say character A was a drow wizard lvl 5 (ECL 7) who gets killed by a beholder. Now he can choose to become character B: a drow of a different class lvl 5, +2 for drow Level Adjustment, or he could choose to be a half-dragon drow warlock 2 (2+5 LA=ECL 7), or any other combination that totals 7. There's a lot of potential here, so let's have fun.

Dark Elf City setting: T’orrb-Nyzzlaen (torb nihz-lain) (using Forgotten Realms and standard 3.5 source material, except as noted.)

Active Characters
Geekus Maximus aka GM—Q’orlin, thirdboy male drow Monk 3 Order of Vlaq’th
Elonin—Zinghufl, highborn-low caste, male rogue 3
Killerloop—Faerlyn, low caste, female fighter 3
ChronicLunacy—Alaunara, highborn-fourth daughter female cleric 3 of Lolth

House Avarae Hierarchy (who bosses who around) and Assets

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Matron Avariss Avarae cleric 10/demonbinder 5/divine disciple 5
Senior Mistress, first daughter Valistreth cleric 10/arachne 8
Second daughter L’ielrra half-fiend favored soul 5/blackguard 5
Third daughter Ahzgulth female draegloth barbarian 2/fighter 2/rogue 2
*Fourth daughter Alaunara female cleric 3
16 house clerics
Weapon master Phiszt fighter 10/swashbuckler 10
Firstboy Derzen conjurer 6/arachnomancer 10 (also Insignia Enchanter)
Secondboy Siizin ninja 5/fang of lolth 5/eye of lolth 3
*Thirdboy Q’orlin male drow Monk 3 Order of Vlaq’th
5 house wizards lvl 5 (2 necromancers, 2 evokers, 1 illusionist)
8 lvl 3 ninjas
*Zinghufl male rogue 3
160 elite recon: rogue 2, scout 2, ranger 2, or multiclassed 2 HD
*Faerlyn female fighter 3
800 lvl 1 male fighters

Slaves
2 Choldrith (cleric 5 of Lolth)
80 Chitine silkweavers
1 Half-green dragon troglodyte cleric 10 of Tiamat
10 troglodyte clerics lvl 3
600 Troglodyte warriors lvl 1-5
1 kobold dragon shaman 5
500 kobold house slaves/experts/miners/trapmakers

Extras
12 Spiderglaive turrets (3-elf-team operated)
Various kobold traps

Rival houses (stance toward Avarae/level of Lolth’s favor) : Baelnor (enemy/favored), L’ssai (truce/favored), Ael’drin (truce/lukewarm), Vle’qlth (enemy/unfavored), Mizzrin (neutral/lukewarm), Fae’nyl (enemy/lukewarm), T’ndlissor (truce/unfavored)

House Rules

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1) Spell-like Abilities: feats which would grant drow extra spell-like abilities are now granted by ability scores.
Highborn (detect good, detect magic, levitate) now requires any dark elf with natural Cha 15 or higher
*The other feat TBG* *(clairvoyance/clairaudience, suggestion?)* now requires a female dark elf with Wis 15 & Cha 15. Feats which further enhance a drow's spell-like abilities must still be taken.

2) House Insignia: every dark elf possesses a house insignia, (doesn't take up a slot, but must be in character's possession to function, and only functions for one individual) which contains any single, non-domain specific, divine or arcane lvl 1 spell, or a special option: insignia contains detect good, detect magic, and levitate, but wearer may cast only one of the three per day.

These insignia are able to be enhanced when a character achieves HD of 5, 10, 15, 20. May exchange existing spell for one of higher spell level, or add multiple spells into the item, as follows:

Single (HD:max spell lvl)-- 5:3 10:5 15:7 20:9
Multiple (HD:max spell lvl)-- 5:2 10:3 15:4 20:5

If adding multiple spells, may change existing spells to another of the same level for free. Or, instead of adding multiple spells, the character may instead choose to imbue the insignia with enhancement bonuses; special weapon abilities that apply to any weapon wielded; special armor abilities that apply to any masterwork armor/magical robe worn; or possibly other extraordinary or supernatural abilities, approved by the GM.

These standard improvements are without any cost (gp or XP), but if a PC wishes to improve existing spells, as well as gain multiple spells or additional abilities, this costs XP=HD x 200 per spell improved. The enhancement is invalid if the XP cost would result in a loss of level. Insignia may be improved at any time after the requisite HD has been attained (to allow the PC to earn enough XP to pay for the desired improvement, if it would cost XP to improve it that way)

[ChronicLunacy]

House Avare Maps

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Interior:

Exterior:

[ChronicLunacy]

Alaunara Avarae

Silk slipped against bare skin as Alaunara crept from her luxurious bed and padded lightly toward the vanity. On her way past her bedside table she deftly released a small catch on a hooded lantern and the room was suddenly bathed in soft glow of violet faerie fire. The lantern was ever-burning, enchanted by one of the artisans in the merchant district, and allowed her to adjust her eyes out of the realm of darkvision and into the normal color spectrum.

Upon her bed lay her latest lover, a fine male specimen from the fighter school with long hair splayed about the pillow and beautiful skin marked several times by white scars that had made him all the more appealing. He was quite dead, but had not been when the first of the swarm of spiders had begun crawling out of his mouth. He had been an eager diversion, but one quickly forgotten. The poison she had used on him during their...combative lovemaking was nearly a waste. However, he had made the mistake of stepping on a spider during one of his foot patrols, so the punishment was fitting...almost poetic. "What luck!" he must have thought when I commanded his company, she imagined. Alaunara felt a mischievous little grin play about her delicate lips as she reached down to allow an arachnid larger than the ring she wore alight upon her finger. The holy creature's eight legs brought it deftly up to her wrist as she cooed to it and stroked its thorax like a favored pet.

Alaunara brought her hands up to wind themselves in her long, silver tresses. She maneuvered her white mane into a single bun as the spider crept up to her shoulder and then threaded into her hair as it would a web of its own making. The spider crept up onto the top of her head, growing larger as it did, and gathered the different locks of hair into its legs. When the bun was perfect, the spider hardened into a shining, adamantite statuette to hold everything in place. Alaunara looked herself over in her vanity mirror and posed appreciatively. As a finishing touch she pulled a single lock out of the bun and allowed it to fall in a slight curl across her forehead. "Perfect," she smiled.

A sheer spidersilk robe was removed from a hook nearby, falling in shimmering waves to her ankles. Alaunara went to the window and sat on the sill. She crossed her legs and looked out over the Avarae compound, wondering what surprises and opportunities the today held, and how she might best turn them to her advantage. She licked her lips, eager to continue schemes of yesterday and begin the conspiracies of today.

[Geekus Maximus]

It was nearing the end of the day, 'an hour til midnight' is what a surfacer miles of stone and earth above her head would say. Of course, there was no natural way of measuring the time of day underground, but the use of magical clocks had recently become more affordable, and every house had at least one of the devices. They came in different styles and sizes, each artisan crafter trying to appeal to anyone's sensibilities with a variety of choices, but they all functioned in the same way.

Alaunara had been able to acquire a small one of her very own, able to sit on one of her dressers in her room. This one was a simple glowing orb set upon a short, carved black obsidian stand. The color of the orb slowly turned, from left to right, in exact synchronization with the rotation of the world. Twelve hours of day was represented by a reddish orange glow, and twelve hours of night were represented by a purple-tinged blue.

Alaunara might want to think about disposing of the body soon. Not out of fear of someone finding it, but simply to keep her bedding from becoming too soiled...but of course, soiled sheets were the concern of slaves, and could result in further amusement.

From her room's position on one of the 'legs' of Avarae's spider-shaped palace, it afforded her a panoramic view of the compound. It was intentionally compact, to put as much as possible within darkvision range. All slaves wore small tokens, holding either dim multicolored faerie fire, or towing tiny floating balls of light. It made keeping track of them much easier, even if they were outside of darkvision range. Dim light traveled far in a place otherwise devoid of significant light. As she looked out toward the larger city of T'orrb-Nyzzlaen, beyond the enchanted webfence strung between the tall columns standing at the house's border, she could see other points of dim light, some affixed to permanent structures, and some moving along the paved city roads--likely the slaves of another house out on errands for some matron.

It seemed like a calm night. The troglodytes down in their pits were gathered around low campfires, and their leader, a big green specimen with clearly pronounced draconic features, was telling tales of their history, or about their backward religion, or some such slave nonsense. It kept them content enough to avoid unnecessary beatings and torture to keep them in line as slaves.

Matron Avariss was a proponent of restraint in the way of excessive physical abuse of slaves...as long as they performed their duties like the tools they are. One slip of negligence was of course harshly punished. The kobold clan and chitine tribe shared the caves and holes of the two large mounds situated to the back of the Avarae property. The kobolds worked Avarae's private mine tunnels, which extended past the cavern wall, and deep below the city's surface level. There were kobold teams working on some ongoing projects around the courtyard, maintenance or some new defensive traps perhaps. The chitines kept to themselves, they were the most privileged of House Avarae's slaves. They were inferior to the drow, of course, but they worshiped Lolth in a very pure way, having more spiderlike traits. They also supplied Avarae with exquisite silk clothing, rope, tapestries, etc. It was also a significant source of revenue from the marketplace.

Avarae's drow soldiery were on their regular patrol routes throughout the compound. Mainly patrolling the perimeter of the troglodyte pits. The spiderglaive turret operators were conducting their standard maintenance, but of course using the time to chit-chat, taking longer than they should to get the job done.

All in all, a fairly normal, unremarkable night.