Lolth (dNetHack)
| Religion in NetHack |
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- For her appearance in other variants, see Lolth.
Lolth is the goddess of the drow in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, and serves as the chaotic deity for the pantheon of several drow heroes - the exceptions are the drow Pirates, drow Binders, drow Anachrononauts, hedrow Nobles, and drow Healers.
As a deity
Lolth is a chaotic unholy goddess, and her minions consist of giant spiders, mirkwood spiders and mirkwood elders. She has two different crowning artifact gifts:
- The Web of Lolth is a chaotic, intelligent and drow-favoring silvered elven mithril-coat that grants magic resistance while carried and grants drain resistance, warning of elves and doubled damage for beam and ray spells (similar to the Magic Mirror of Merlin) while worn. Invoking The Web of Lolth refills energy.
- Lolth's Fang is an unaligned intelligent and drow-favoring silvered droven short sword that has +1d10 to-hit and +1d10 acid damage bonuses, is permanently poisoned, and grants drain resistance while wielded. Against a target that is not chaotic, not a drow, not female, and/or not a primordial or Great Old One, Lolth's Fang deals +1d8 bonus damage for each applicable trait. While wielded as the main weapon or equipped as the offhand weapon, Lolth's Fang adds an extra die of sneak attack damage, which also enables the ability for characters that are not Rogues; it also grants another die of sneak attack damage against targets currently trapped in a web.
As a monster
Lolth has an avatar that can be encountered in Gehennom, with her lair being one of the four demon prince lairs that can serve as the second Abyss level.
As an engraving
For drow characters, engraving the name "Lolth" acts as an analogue to Elbereth for elven characters, and functions similarly to how Elbereth does in NetHack 3.4.3. A drow character that has not turned traitor can use Lolth's engraved name as protection this way if they are playing as any role minus the Anachrononaut (since drow Anachrononauts are myrkalfar and considered distinct from the drow of the present eras), and also worship Pen'a, the deep blue sea, or any unholy god except for Ghaunadaur, the Eddergud, or Ilsensine.
One critical difference is that a drow character engraving "Lolth" and scaring a monster of a higher level than them will lower their alignment record, and the engraving will not work against any monster if the character's alignment record is at 0 or less: Lolth encourages her followers to seek higher stations in life, and that includes possessing enough guile to bring down far stronger enemies without relying on her assistance. Engraving Lolth's name does not work in the Anachrononaut quest, regardless of who is engraving it, and also does not work for drow Binders of the default gnostic alignment.
Engraving Lolth's name works on the vast majority of hostile monsters, but will not work on any of the following:
- any @ human or elf
- any monster that is blind
- @ shopkeepers
- @ guards
- chokhmah sephirah
- @ Wizard of Yendor
- Lamashtu
- the elder priest
- Great Cthulhu
- the Riders
- any monster that has Rider-style revival (e.g., Axus)
Against some other monsters, engraving Lolth only has a chance of affecting them:
- Chaos, with a 1⁄2 chance
- Demogorgon, with a 1⁄3 chance
- Asmodeus, with a 1⁄9 chance
Unlike Elbereth, an engraved Lolth does also work on the following types of monsters:
Origin
Lolth is a major character in the settings of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise. First created by Gary Gygax for the World of Greyhawk campaign setting, she later appeared in the Forgotten Realms setting, and 3rd edition made her a member of the 'default' pantheon. In those various settings, the drow pantheon of gods will always consist at minimum of the leader Lolth, as well as Kiaransalee, Vhaeraun, and Zinzerena, with the goddess Eilistraee as the sole good member. Lolth makes her debut in the 1978 module Descent into the Depths of the Earth, and her role as a deity is first explored in the 1980 Deities & Demigods.
Lolth (Lloth in the Drow language) is the Demon Queen of Spiders and the chief goddess of the Drow, whose realm lays within the 66th layer of the Abyss, also known as the Demonweb Pits. Lolth usually appears in the form of an "exquisitely beautiful" female dark elf that is sometimes covered in clinging spiders, or in the guise of a drider-like black widow spider. She is a cold and cruel goddess that revels in betrayal and bloodshed, toying with her minions and victims alike: she desires little more than absolute fealty and obedience from all drow and (secretly) the worship of humans and other elves, with any questioning of her motives or wisdom considered a sin.
Lolth views those less powerful than herself as either pawns or foes, while holding those more powerful than herself in contempt - naturally, she admires ambition even more than loyalty in her followers, and inspires them to employ any and every means necessary to ascend to a higher station in life, especially if it involves deception, betrayal, and murder. Guile and political ruthlessness are paths to Lolth's favor, while those who blindly obeyed Lolth's demands would be quickly led to their deaths. Lolth uses this to foment unending chaos amongst the drow, ostensibly to weed out the weak and complacent among her servants, but clearly just as much (if not far more so) for her own amusement.
Lolth highly favors drow women to the point that her clergy is almost exclusively female, with a few scant exceptions; they act as rulers of their communities and strictly follow the Spider Queen's will in forcing the drow into extreme subservience and the constant conflict that dominates their lives. Even male drow, who are considered unclean and often treated as second-class citizens, are expected to display complete and total loyalty, and she took vengeful notice if anyone abandoned her faith. To the drow followers of Lolth, success means paying attention to her fickle and ever-changing wants, and even those she plays favorites with inevitably find her turning on them without warning: though Lolth was technically capable of kindness and aid to those she fancied, and always gave one chance for the disfavored to redeem themselves, she could never be relied on and her ultimate motivation was almost always manipulative.
