Alterations to Llolthite Doctrine?

Since the Chosen of Eilistraee is a religious oriented player group, naturally there is a place to have theological discussions. That is in-game religions; please leave real-world religion out of it. Debate the fine points of a certain dogma, how a church can enforce worship while staying true to its tenets or simply why one deity is better than another one is. All are free to talk about it here.

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C'nor
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Alterations to Llolthite Doctrine?

Post by C'nor »

So... I'm in a game (not FR, as such, but both of the characters involved are from there before being transported to their current location) where I'm playing a Neutral Evil (or at least mostly Neutral Evil - she dances right on the line between that and True Neutral, and it probably doesn't help that her sister, who was a Chaotic Good priestess of Eilistraee, is hanging out in her head) cleric of Llolth, and she was recently tasked with reconverting or killing a former priestess who had defected.

During her first conversation (after kidnapping the former priestess and tricking her into swearing herself to a geas not to attempt to escape) with them, she asked why her captive had left Llolth's service, and was informed that it was because Llolth was an insane psycopath; on asking for something to back that up, she was told to look at the Driders, who go mad after failing their tests and being changed to be more like her, and asked what sort of deity would set her followers up to kill each other.

While her response worked, what she said was that the reason Llolth sets her followers up to kill each other is because the Underdark requires her to, both because of the heavily limited resources and the fact that they've managed to come into conflict with just about everyone else down there, partly as a result of conflict over said resources, and it's the only thing that has allowed them to survive; essentially, that Llolth does it only because she's protecting her followers and this is the only way to make them strong enough to live.

The issue is that I'm pretty sure that's not, in fact, the case, if not entirely inaccurate... And almost certain that a later conversation, wherein she said, in response to being told that her prisoner wasn't sure she could believe what she was being told, because every scar on her had come from a priestess of Llolth, that there were some who abused their positions, but nothing in Llolth's commands required them to torture and the like to the extent that they do, at least not on the surface, where her teachings could be softer because of the fact that the whole world was, doesn't line up in the slightest.

As such, what I'm wondering is, basically, just [i:33p6q03c]how badly[/i:33p6q03c] did she mangle traditional Llolthite doctrines, and what changes to them would result if that's the reasoning, as it's a freeform game with no GM so I now have to write up the teachings of this new version of Llolth's church?
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Re: Alterations to Llolthite Doctrine?

Post by Bhaern Quel »

2nd Edition offered this.
[quote:s1si0b87]Lolth is a cruel, capricious goddess, thought by many to be insane. She
delights in setting her worshipers at each other's throats, so that the
strongest, most devious and most cruel survive to serve her.[/quote:s1si0b87]

In some ways it appears to be fairly true of what Lolth demands. Strongest and cruelist are the ones that more so appear to be desired.

I will add this [quote:s1si0b87]Dogma: Fear is as strong as steel, while love and respect are soft,
useless feelings that none can lean on. All drow who do not worship
Lolth must be converted or destroyed. All weak and rebellious drow must
be weeded out. All who impugn the faith must perish. Males or slaves of
other races who act independently of Lolth's dictates (and those other
priests) must be sacrificed to Lolth. Those of the faithful whose
loyalty is weak must be eliminated. Children are to be raised as loyal
worshipers of Lolth, and each family should produce at least one priest
to serve the Spider Queen better than his or her parents. Arachnids of
all sorts are to be revered, and anyone who mistreats or kills a spider
must die.

Such are the commands of Lolth-but the priest who follows them blindly
is on a slippery path leading to swift death. Success in the service of
Lolth lies with those who are attentive to the ever-changing, often
contradictory will of Lolth. Lolth's capricious nature makes
hard-and-fast rules few and uncertainty great. Of course, questioning
Lolth's motives or wisdom is a sin. Aiding nondrow against drow is a
great sin, as is ignoring the Spider Queen's commands in favor of love.
(Lolth often tests her priests by ordering the sacrifice of a favored
consort.) Drow who lose the favor of Lolth are always given a single
chance to redeem themselves. This is usually a dangerous or difficult
mission, though Lolth may test certain individuals by setting no task
at all and observing what they do. Those who willfully fail are
destroyed. Lolth commands other worshipers to do this (in turn, testing
them). Those who fail through mischance or poor planning or execution
are usually transformed into driders. Lolth often plays favorites among
her drow worshipers, but those who ride high one season are warned that
Lolth can turn her dark face upon them without warning and undoubtedly
will sometime soon.
[/quote:s1si0b87]
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Shir'le E. Illios
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Re: Alterations to Llolthite Doctrine?

Post by Shir'le E. Illios »

As I understand it Lolth is like the ultimate survival-of-the-fittest deity. When drow tries to kill the other only one will survive and thus is proven the fittest, the experience having made them stronger and thus, so goes the reasoning, made the drow race stronger.

This is reasoning that often comes from those focusing on individual strength, reasoning that if the individuals are stronger then the community is (this is also similar to how Kreia in Knights of the Old Republic 2 reasons). They tend to fail to see the power of cooperation and love and respect where if the community is stronger then the individuals are stronger.

On top of that Lolth is also strongly a Chaotic deity, finding strength in being ever changing and personal freedom (that's at least something Eilistraeens can generally agree with).

Take that chaos, that survival-of-the-fittest, add in some evil, drow sensibilities and no small dose of madness and you get Lolth.

Not very pleasant.


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Re: Alterations to Llolthite Doctrine?

Post by Irennan »

IMO -Lolth or not- ''drow kill each other because of limited resources'' isn't very compelling as answer. That kind of situation can be solved through birth control, rather than random murdering, and I think that drow have developed quite efficient methods to gather the resources they need (breeding Rothé, raiding, trading). Besides this kind of society inevitably leads to stagnation and loss of potential.

I think that If the dark elves got to grow in a positive environment which promoted sharing of ideas and gave the individual value, instead of downplaying it in favor of power for its own sake, their civilization would have been far more advanced and powerful by now. If they didn't constantly kill and backstab their own people, warriors as trained as theirs would have conquered and built a sort of underdark empire by now, or even more. Instead the drow have been immobile for millenia, when it comes to progress and development.



AFAIK, survival of the fittest is only one of the reasons Lolth wants the drow to live like that, the other being her obsession with wanting the entire world to bow to her. As Shir'le said, Lolth is individualistic and values personal freedom, but as something one must have over the others and not as a principle. For this reason her entire style of life revolves around dominating and acquiring power over other people, and it shows when you look at drow society. The dark elves have very little choice or freedom, when it comes to their lives. They are brainwashed into believing that the individual has no intirinsical value, that ''status'' and ''powaz'' are the only things that matter and can make a person matter, and that they can only be acquired through the favor of the goddess.

This means that a lot of lolthite drow are ready to fanatically pursue anything the Spider Queen deems appropriate, and she easily makes tools for her mad goals out of them (for example most drow have their life chosen without having a say on it, because Lolth's dogma says that they have to become X -like when Liriel was forced to study at the Arach Tinilith-).

So you have this funny situation where dark elves try to acquire power over each other, while most of them have little control over their own lives. This is why drow look frustrated and pathetic, rather than ''ebil'' to me, and why some of them feel the need to ''break free'' or to give back to their people the freedom that they were denied (Eilistraeens and Vhaerunites do this, for example), because freedom -in the above sense- is what Lolth strips her followers of in order to make them instruments (and this, combined with the ''surival of the fittest'' principle, makes them perfect at that).



As for the modified doctrine you were talking about, IMO your version isn't as far from the ''official'' one as you could think. Setting aside the fact that this kind of approach isn't very effective if compared to other, more logical alternatives, what you described is ''fighting over resources'' and consequently survival of the fittest (even tho such a thing would happen even without Lolth, if methods like birth control weren't used), which is one of the pillars of lolthite dogma. However if you want to give a meaning to the cruelty that is one of the primary characteristics of drow society (like the scars that were inflicted on your character by various priestesses), you have some heavy alterations to do, because as it is now Lolth is evil because ''powah and evulz'' and not because she has some compelling motivations.

You could describe this situation as a result of ''tough'' love: the Spider Queen does this to the drow to teach them to ''earn'' their freedom, but this doesn't make much sense -IMO- and would completely contradict Lolth using the dark elves as tools for her revenge, or the grand plans she has for them (her two quests, I don't recall how they are called).
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Re: Alterations to Llolthite Doctrine?

Post by Shir'le E. Illios »

[quote="Irennan":1jawzs01]If they didn't constantly kill and backstab their own people, warriors as trained as theirs would have conquered and built a sort of underdark empire by now, or even more.[/quote:1jawzs01]
Of course it could be argued that the drow tend to be so well trained [i:1jawzs01]because[/i:1jawzs01] they constantly backstab and kill their own. They've got great incentive to become highly trained. On the one hand out of self-preservation to survive the attacks from others. And on the other hand to be perpetrators themselves and thus rise in power.

This focus on individual power does tend to make for powerful individuals. Which leads to the eternal struggle between good and evil, testing individual-based strength against community-based strength. Or at least it seems that way to me (in issues like these).

[quote="Irennan":1jawzs01]You could describe this situation as a result of ''tough'' love: the Spider Queen does this to the drow to teach them to ''earn'' their freedom, but this doesn't make much sense -IMO- and would completely contradict Lolth using the dark elves as tools for her revenge, or the grand plans she has for them (her two quests, I don't recall how they are called).[/quote:1jawzs01]
Interestingly in FR lore Lolth (or Araushnee as she was called then) originally didn't want the dark elves. When Corellon Larethian gave the dark elves the same skin color as her (and their two children) she considered it an insult. As such, after she got tossed out of Arvandor, it almost seems as if she took the drow more as a way to fling the insult back.

I don't actually know what two quests you're referring to though.


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Re: Alterations to Llolthite Doctrine?

Post by Irennan »

[quote:7ijvr32p] Of course it could be argued that the drow tend to be so well trained because they constantly backstab and kill their own. They've got great incentive to become highly trained. On the one hand out of self-preservation to survive the attacks from others. And on the other hand to be perpetrators themselves and thus rise in power.

This focus on individual power does tend to make for powerful individuals. Which leads to the eternal struggle between good and evil, testing individual-based strength against community-based strength. Or at least it seems that way to me (in issues like these). [/quote:7ijvr32p]

Idk, elite military training doesn't have to involve killing. Also, strong communities made up of strong individuals can exist, I don't see why one thing has to deny the other.
Besides wars are qon by organized and cohese ''soldiers'', rather than poweful warriors, unless they happen to be ''soldiers'' as well.

I'd also say that most Eilistraeen drow - the ones who managed to break free - are very strong individuals, who make up/lead strong communities, as opposed to the Lolthite dark elves. The latter aren't strong individuals -IMO-, they don't value the individual as such, they even lack respect for themselves, as far as I can tell, letting some crazy spider demon control and decide their lives. All they value is status.
Obviously they become fearsome opponents because of what keeping or getting this status requires, but their individuality is kinda incomplete, consisting of imposing oneself and one's personal freedom over the others, but not in fully conquering it. They feel the need of Lolth's approval for most of what they do, and many feel lost without her.

There's also the fact that drow are quite the symbol of stagnation, I see very little progress in their society and this hurts people as crafty as they are. Imagine what brilliant minds who normally have no interest in idiotic power games (because they are) could do if they weren't forced into them. They could advance their whole race way further than it is now. Instead the drow are forced to live in lame underground cities w/o the chance to ever build anything greater because of their mindset.

Lolth society is a failure of a model in this sense, it keeps existing because of deus ex machinas (i.e. Lolth directly interfering with her followers). It has done nothing but limit the growth of the dark elves and make them their goddess' puppets.

[quote:7ijvr32p]Interestingly in FR lore Lolth (or Araushnee as she was called then) originally didn't want the dark elves. When Corellon Larethian gave the dark elves the same skin color as her (and their two children) she considered it an insult. As such, after she got tossed out of Arvandor, it almost seems as if she took the drow more as a way to fling the insult back.

I don't actually know what two quests you're referring to though.[/quote:7ijvr32p]

I wasn't aware of this fact, Lolth certainly tried to corrupt the elves as an act of spite, but I didn't know that she didn't want the drow. Anyway, since C'nor was asking for alteration of lolthite dogma (his/her character is trying to justify her cruelty giving her motivations that actually make sense, instead of conquering everything), I threw the ''tough love'' thing there. However I too don't see it as very compelling.

The two quests are Lolth's main goals:

1)Conquer the Underdark
2)Conquer surface/kill elves/get revenge/dominate world, or something along those lines.

If her goal was to teach the drow to conquer their freedom (like she -in a sense- did with Corellon), she coulnd't use them for those ends.
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Re: Alterations to Llolthite Doctrine?

Post by Dostrealt »

[quote="C'nor":ei4ojzz7]As such, what I'm wondering is, basically, just [i:ei4ojzz7]how badly[/i:ei4ojzz7] did she mangle traditional Llolthite doctrines, and what changes to them would result if that's the reasoning, as it's a freeform game with no GM so I now have to write up the teachings of this new version of Llolth's church?[/quote:ei4ojzz7]

One thing to bear in mind is that the interpretation of Lolth's doctrines by a cleric of Lolth may be quite different to the interpretation by a cleric of Eilistraee, a cleric of an elven deity or a cleric of a different pantheon. There has to be some sort of element of propaganda involved.

You might even have a slightly different interpretation in different parts of the world.

I hear that Greyhawk has Lolth, but she is slightly different there, giving her clerics slightly different powers. So part of this has to be down to the interaction (and conflict) with other churches.

If certain drow houses did not look upon driders as failures, maybe they would have a good role in society and maybe drow would welcome the chance to be turned into driders (and see it as a reward instead of a punishment).

Maybe some drow cities have not "moved forward" because the dominant houses have kept things the same to shore up their own power. Maybe new drow communities could be radically different from the cities their founders came from (but maybe they would fall into a pattern of their own and stick with that).

What do you think?
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Re: Alterations to Llolthite Doctrine?

Post by Irennan »

[quote="Dostrealt":quydnqok]
Maybe some drow cities have not "moved forward" because the dominant houses have kept things the same to shore up their own power. Maybe new drow communities could be radically different from the cities their founders came from (but maybe they would fall into a pattern of their own and stick with that).

What do you think?[/quote:quydnqok]

I don't see how dominant houses would gain benefits from keeping things the same, all the time. Expanding, acquiring new lands, new resources, more space (which in the Underdark are VERY scarce), introducing new technology or changes to improve quality of life would only consolidate their power. No lolthite community has ever managed to achieve anything like this. They have always failed in any attempt at working towards any great goal and its because of the mindset that the doctrine brings. Founders of new settlement would have to forgo it, in order to build anything meaninful.

Obviously constant, pants-on-head retarded backstabbing plays its role in this stagnation, but it's only a symptom. All the BS that Lolth brainwashes drow minds with is aimed to a single goal: making them believe that they have no value as individuals, and that the only way to actually matter is acquiring power, dominating others, thus gaining their goddess' favor. In their eyes even happiness is a weakness, because it means that you are satisfied with the power you currently hold, and that is bad and wrong ofc. When a society works like that, the environment needed to promote cultural and technological growth simply isn't there (actually such a society would never work in RL, but w/e). There's only constant fear of being betrayed/killed and constant trying to the same to the others: no interchange of ideas, no confrontation, no communication, people fear that their view might be seen as heresy to be purged or that their projects could be stolen (or that they could be killed for it ) by their rivals or by someone who finds them 'uncomfortble' for their own plans. There is only tradition, what Lolth wants for the drow, which is perpetuated through brainwashing and taken as absolute, unshakeable dogma -all the rest is unworthy trash to be discarded-.

There's only one way to escape from this is injecting new ideas, and [i:quydnqok]showing and proving[/i:quydnqok] with results that they can actually lead to a better life. They would spread, some people would recognize them for their value, embrace and support them, band together and work/fight to achieve something for them or their race -- it's the need to improve one's own condition that all beings have. It's what Eilistraee do (and Vhaeraun, as he too wants the drow to be united and work together, but to return to the glory their rightfully deserve).

The only drow societies that managed to accomplish great things are the ones free from Lolth's influence. For example, Eilistraeens are few in modern Faerun, but in the past drow (dark elves, w/e) followers of Eilistraee and Sehanine, exiles from Ilythiir managed to found Miyeritar: a nation which developed and flourished to the point of rivaling the sun elven empire of Aryvandaar in terms of arts, culture and magic. Ilythiir itself was a very advanced drow (dark elven) empire, and kept developing when Vhaeraun and Ghaunadaur became two of the most worshipped deities in place of the Seldarine.
That says something about Lolth, whatever drow community she touches is destined to wither, because she only wants them to completely depend on her and be at her feet.
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Re: Alterations to Llolthite Doctrine?

Post by Dostrealt »

[quote="Irennan":15jgey53]There's only one way to escape from this is injecting new ideas, and [i:15jgey53]showing and proving[/i:15jgey53] with results that they can actually lead to a better life. They would spread, some people would recognize them for their value, embrace and support them, band together and work/fight to achieve something for them or their race -- it's the need to improve one's own condition that all beings have. It's what Eilistraee do (and Vhaeraun, as he too wants the drow to be united and work together, but to return to the glory their rightfully deserve).

The only drow societies that managed to accomplish great things are the ones free from Lolth's influence. For example, Eilistraeens are few in modern Faerun, but in the past drow (dark elves, w/e) followers of Eilistraee and Sehanine, exiles from Ilythiir managed to found Miyeritar: a nation which developed and flourished to the point of rivaling the sun elven empire of Aryvandaar in terms of arts, culture and magic. Ilythiir itself was a very advanced drow (dark elven) empire, and kept developing when Vhaeraun and Ghaunadaur became two of the most worshipped deities in place of the Seldarine.
That says something about Lolth, whatever drow community she touches is destined to wither, because she only wants them to completely depend on her and be at her feet.[/quote:15jgey53]

That was the sort of thing I was trying to say.

If you look at things from the point of view of a powerful house that is loyal to Lolth, a stagnated city that is ruled by them for 10,000 years is better [i:15jgey53]for their house[/i:15jgey53] than a dynamic city where the people with merit rise to the top. Powerful people who are where they are by fear rather than by merit are better off if things do not change.
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