Rich Morris' Comics - YAFGC and The ComixBlog

I am guessing one can draw different conclusions from different books. Still, War of the Spider Queen and the Liriel series did not sketch a chaotic, self destructive society. Sure, not a very healthy one, but it was not full of random slaugher and cannibalism. Intrigue, manipulation and cunning was as much a part of the equation as cruelty; it reminded me of Rennaisance Italy, if your last name was Borgia. So, as a society it did look sustainable only not for too long, and after all this is fantasy we are talking about. They do not have to nitpick everything.

It is occasionally pointed out that the reason drow cities manage to function long term is because there are racial enemies nearby to keep them from weakening themselves too severely and the loss of those enemies would be a bad thing.


Lolth certainly knows how to keep her followers right on the edge to maximize her amusement and keep them functional.

Not too hard to see what Corellon saw in her .

Yeah, too bad he missed the pure evil thing.

Maybe he did. Maybe he liked it .

Depending on which edition you use, she didn't go evil until he dumped her.

What the heck, it worked for Medea.

I don't know about first edition but the current story is she got dumped because she tried to murder him, repeatedly, to take over.

In Forgotten Realms, sure. But Lolth is a core setting deity now. Her origin story is up to individual DMs to decide on the details, but the core fluff at least implies that her current chaotic evil alignment is a result of her going batshit insane from living in the Abyss for millennia. Personally, I think having her start as a non-evil deity and making it unclear as to who betrayed whom first, makes her a more interesting figure.

But why would she end up in the Abyss without first being evil? It wouldn't make the slightest bit of sense.

I don't know. Maybe she just didn't have anywhere else to go when 'dear hubby' threw her out of Arvandor?

According to the 4th edition Manual of the Planes, Arvandor has several portals (now sealed by Sehanine) leading to the Abyss, so perhaps Lolth fled through one of them and got stuck.

Again, why would she need to if she wasn't already evil? Even if she got banished without being evil she could have just set up pretty much anywhere else. And I can't imagine the circumstances where an entire pantheon of goodly deities would condemn a fellow goodly diety to the Abyss.

Sure, it's open for each DM to change things as they see fit but Lolth just wouldn't be Lolth if she was a victim of anything but her own pride and ambitions.

Look, it's no good asking me. I only posted what's implied in the 4th edition fluff for anyone who might not be familiar with it. It's not my job to justify it just because it doesn't match your own personal 'take' on Lolth. It's implied in the core 4th edition fluff that Lolth wasn't always evil and that she may one day be reconciled with the other elven gods. There's really no more to it than that.

I could post how I chose to reconcile this in my own setting, but that's not really relevant to this thread. And it wouldn't help, because you've already decided that Lolth must have always been an evil monster.

Which is fine. At your table, Lolth is the way you prefer her to be. At my table, she's the way I prefer her to be. Both of those take precedence over anything WotC publishes.

Just remember that your own interpretation of something in D&D fluff is never going to be universal. Some of us like simple black-and-white morality where an evil deity must always have been pure evil. Some of us prefer shades of grey and deities that experience character development.

I never said Lolth was always evil, just that she was before ending up in the Abyss.

But you're right.

Part of that goes back to the beginning. Once she got chucked out (probably, like Medea, for being a Neutralish anything to get the job done type), the Monolithic FORCES OF GOOD. all upheld the exile, because they always stick together in everything. Which, since there weren't that many planes way back when, left the Hells and the Abyss. And the Hells, being all lawful, generally sided with law-and-order Good. Which just left the Abyss.

Echoes of this can still be seen in 3E (I've never even touched a 4E book, so I can't say). All Goodly Outsiders speak the same language and have very similar cultures. The Abyss and the Nine Hells speak different languages, and spend vastly more time and energy trying to wipe each other out than attacking Good.

Chaotic and Lawful Evil outsiders actually speak the same language, the demons just bastardized it. Basically they speak the net speak of the language.
The way I see it, Lolth started Good but she allowed herself to become corrupted bit by bit becoming Neutral (which is fine, there are plenty of Chaotic Neutral elvin dieties) but then slipped to evil. Naturally an evil goddess among a pantheon of good and neutrals can not play along for very long and Lolth got herself caught and banished.