The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

with choking dust. There was some concern about finding
the other tribes of drow who had been scattered when the
dark elves were caught between the surface elves and the
shangu, but these were trumped by the concerns of House
Arras’zur and House Narrishtah for their own survival.
Satisfied at last that the job was done as the dust settled, the
drow of these two great Houses, numbering well into the
thousands even after the horrid losses of battle, collapsed in
exhaustion amid the dry stone and billowing dust.
The drow knew little of the powers of the shangu however,
or of the forces they could bring to bear. The ogre slaves of
the shangu were busily clearing away the crumbled stone
and digging new paths through the Underdeep, flogged
ever onward by the desire of their masters to reach the two
Houses, the greatest prize of breeding stock and slaves that
had narrowly escaped their grasp.
The drow of House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah were
taken unawares by this newest assault. Still reeling from
their losses in the first meeting with the shangu mere days
before and with many of their warriors lost in the scheme to
bring the shangu and surface betrayers together to destroy
one another, the exhausted drow were unable to mount a
defence against the renewed attack. They fled into the
Underdeep, a leaderless, frightened rabble with the shangu
and their minions close on their heels.
The drow feared escape was impossible this time, that the
two great Houses would be destroyed and consumed by
this unimagined terror from the depths of the Underdeep.
Desperate and terrified, they called out to their gods for
deliverance from their enemies, and their prayers were
answered. Ahead of the fleeing drow, the tunnel they
ran through began to widen, silvery wisps of spider webs
drifting and wafting through the air. The passageway grew
ever broader, until the foremost of the drow saw, at the
limits of their vision, a solid wall of spider webs sealing
off the tunnel. Some began to panick, afraid that they had
been trapped, but the more faithful continued forward,
trampling the doubters, and the thick mesh of webs parted
before them.
The drow found themselves in the first of a series of
enormous caverns, glowing with the light of luminous
fungus and resounding with the rush of water through an
underground river. Spider webs festooned the walls and
hung thickly from the ceiling and everywhere there was
movement as the children of the Dark Mother scurried
about to carry out her will. The shangu did not falter in
their pursuit, undeterred by the prospect of mere spiders
standing in their way. However, the drow that had been
their prey were bolstered now with renewed hope and
faith in the strength and power of their goddess, and with
hordes of arachnids gathering around them, they stood their
ground in the face of the assault. As the enemy herded
their slave-beasts forwards into the caverns and the battle
began in earnest, swarms of spiders of all sizes rushed to
meet the attackers. Mighty shangu leaders wrestled with
giant, bloated webspinners as the remaining drow warriors
cut through the beleaguered ogres and abominations, the
magical webs of the Dark Mother’s sanctuary hampering the
invaders but letting the drow pass without obstacle. Soon
the assault had been repelled and the shangu thrown back
in defeat, and now the survivors found that they were the
hunted, with innumerable spiders dogging their footsteps
as they fled. Few shangu ever returned from those caverns,
and many of the drow families of House Arras’zur and
House Narrishtah still keep a shangu skull as a treasured
heirloom of that day.
With the shangu gone, the drow gave thanks to the Dark
Mother for their deliverance from the enemy. Some drow
were not sufficiently grateful however, clinging instead
to their devotions to the other gods of the drow and only
mouthing the words of gratitude and supplication to the
Dark Mother. The faithful drow called on the Dark Mother
again and now the spiders infesting these caverns began
to hunt among the dark elves, culling the faithless from
the faithful and hanging the poisoned, screaming heretics
in webbed cocoons from the ceiling beside the bloated
corpses of the shangu and ogres upon which the vermin
still feasted. Some few of the faithless fled the caverns
before the spiders could come for them, but the dangers of
the Underdeep soon overcame them.
The battles with the surface elves and shangu had depleted
the numbers of the drow, as had the Dark Mother’s culling of
the heretical drow. House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah
were large Houses however, and there were still several
thousand drow between them when the last of the faithless
was fed to the spiders. Convinced they were safe at last
behind this screen of the Dark Mother’s children, the drow
of both Houses began to construct their new home, which
would one day become the webbed city of Drak’kamuth.
The first construction to begin, before homes or fortifications
or storehouses, was a temple to the Dark Mother. This
early building still stands as part of the enormous temple
complex in Drak’kamuth devoted to the Dark Mother.
House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah both had priests
among their number and the peace that followed the war
was soon broken by the two Houses contesting which of
them would be in control of the burgeoning priesthood
of the Dark Mother. This desire of the ruling families of
each House to dominate her priestesses was insulting to
the Dark Mother, who sent a plague of venomous spiders
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