The Spinner of Shadows was a great demon tied to Lolth that became trapped in the world of Eberron in ages past, becoming one of the Overlords. She was eventually freed by the Lords of Dust and proceeded to leave Eberron for the Demonweb Pits, where she was absorbed into the greater whole of Lolth.[2][note 1]
Description[]
The Spinner up close and personal.
The Spinner took the form of an enormous drider, resembling a muscular drow woman with the lower body of a monstrous spider, bedecked in ornate chitinous armor and carrying an immense and jagged polearm.[2]
Personality[]
The Spinner was highly manipulative, arrogant, and cruel, just like Lolth. She was reputed to be the most clever and cunning of all the Overlords, and best able to control events through the skillful manipulation of people while remaining unseen and unknown. She valued nothing outside herself and Lolth (whom she considered her sister), seeing everything and everyone else as a disposable tool or an obstacle to be overcome. She even considered the Lords of Dust and the other Overlords to be a distraction from her goal of reaching Lolth.[2] She was perfectly capable of seeming seductive and sweet when needed,[3] though her true nature was harsh and horrid.[2]
Like Lolth, she highly favored drow and they made up most of her cult, with females in positions of prominence. She considered all spiders great and small to be her children, and valued them well above any mortal servants.[2][4]
Powers[]
The Spinner was grossly powerful for a demon and her mere presence was enough to paralyze or mentally dominate mere mortals.[3] Only when she was directly constrained by the divine power of the Silver Flame's avatar was it even possible for someone to act against her. She possessed a deadly venom that was slow but lethal, and was untreatable outside of the direct intervention of divine power.[2] Her connection to her spiders was so strong that she could feel their deaths, letting her gain awareness of potential foes within her domain.[5]
History[]
The Skein of Shadows[]
In the ancient Age of Demons the Spinner of Shadows caused great havoc and suffering through her webs of deceit. She was eventually imprisoned in the deeply buried Spinner's Prison and kept under guard by the Silver Flame Guardian and the Church of the Silver Flame. While in this prison she was unable to influence the wider world but gathered a cult of fanatical drow who heard her whispers,[2] drawn from the Umbragen who dwelled in the depths of Khyber in the region of Tarath Marad. There they built the City of Shadows and dominated the caverns, enslaving the duergar and living with the Spinner's many spider children, who watched over her followers and used them as a food source. The wider caverns were home to a great profusion of spiderkin, including chitines.[6]
The Lords of Dust rakshasa Shavkar unearthed an entrance to Tarath Marad and used the promise of treasure to lure surfacers into delving into tunnels at Trent's Well. He also used the Spinner-worshiper Xujil as a guide for hire, allowing him to monitor and control the situation as needed. This culminated in him using a poorly understood prophecy to entice House Deneith into sending Tilde ir'Thul into the depths with Xujil, thinking that fulfilling the prophecy would grant them a valuable and powerful artifact. In truth, the full prophecy related to releasing the Spinner from her bonds. Tilde's expedition was destroyed in the process, and the unfortunate sorceress fell victim to the grand demonic presence of the Spinner. Following the compulsions forced upon her, she found the treasure she sought—an enormous dragonshard embedded in a demonic spider-shaped artifact that attacked her.[3]
In response to this failed expedition, Sabira d'Deneith was sent by her House in another attempt to meet the conditions of the prophecy, once again with Xujil as a guide.[7] Like Tilde, Sabira's group took heavy casualties before reaching the City of Shadows, and was lured into a trap while meeting Tilde again. Unfortunately for everyone, Tilde was not dead but had been consumed by the Spinner's power, turned into an insane drider-like monstrosity with a metal lower body and the dragonshard sphere embedded in her abdomen. After a torturous battle, Sabira and her sole remaining companion Greddark managed to destroy Tilde and the artifact, escaped,[8] then narrowly survived an encounter with Shavkar. Although they had survived the trials and defeated the agents of the Spinner, Sabira understood that they had actually fulfilled the prophecy and completed a step in the Spinner's escape.[9]
The Web of Chaos[]
The Spinner was freed by the Lords of Dust, and then betrayed them.
Not long afterwards during the Darkening and the Sschindylryn invasion of Eveningstar in the mid-1480s DR of Faerûn,[note 2] the rakshasa Gnomon located the hidden Spinner's Prison in the depths of Khyber and put together a force to free first her and then more fiendish Overlords, hoping to usher in a new Age of Demons. The cultists like Karas and Sabriz Rinzyn Kho were aided in this task by the whispered instructions of the Spinner, who also directed them to gather up as many dragonshards as possible before freeing her.[2]
Though Gnomon's scheme was detected by the forces of the Silver Flame, the cultists managed to enter the road to Tarath Marad and successfully weakened the wards that contained her, with flame eater spiders devouring the very essence of the Silver Flame Guardian. When the rakshasas requested her to aid them in freeing more Overlords, she simply slew them and announced her sole loyalty to her sister Lolth, calling out to the goddess. In the battle that followed the champions of the Silver Flame attempted to restore the wards and trap the Spinner again, while the Spinner used her flame eaters to weaken the Silver Flame Guardian and called on the local demons of Khyber to serve her in battle. The forces of the Silver Flame managed to relight the wards in the end, only for Lolth to personally intervene and create a Rift Between Worlds from the Demonweb Pits, allowing the Spinner to escape into the Abyss and take the dragonshards with her. The Silver Flame, the Twelve, and the Gatekeepers then arrived to secure the location, only slightly relieved that the Overlord had fled into another plane instead of conquering Eberron, but also horrified to discover that the Rift was still expanding and would eventually pull the whole world into the Demonweb as a prize for Lolth anyway.[2]
Lolth sticks her head into the Eberron setting.
Now join me, sister! Let go of your physical form and join me! Become greater than you ever were! Become one with Lolth!
After reaching the Demonweb, the Spinner was met by Lolth and offered the chance to merge with the Spider Goddess. The Spinner readily agreed and was consumed by Lolth, becoming part of the greater divinely demonic being.[2] The dragonshards she had stolen were then used to create the Orbs of Lolth—tools to contain the power of Mystra and the Weave as part of Lolth's bid to become a greater goddess of magic. The heroes of the Silver Flame went on to explore the Demonweb, meet Elminster, and fight the forces of Lolth in Cormyr. After first saving Eveningstar from the Sschindylryn invasion, they eventually undid Lolth's schemes with the Thread of the Weave and definitively saved the day.[10]
Appendix[]
Notes[]
- ↑ The exact nature of the Spinner is left vague beyond being a powerful demon that considers Lolth her sister, and them having an uncharacteristic mutual respect for each other. She could plausibly be a very powerful demon, a lost independent avatar, an aspect, an exarch, or something stranger. As it implies that they know of each other but have not previously met, it may be that the Spinner was created at the same time as Lolth from Araushnee, truly making them sisters.
- ↑ Menace of the Underdark (including Web of Chaos) is dated to the period of 1484–1485 DR, as it references the ongoing Darkening. Shadowfell Conspiracy (including Disciples of Shadow, Shadow Under Thunderholme, The Druid's Deep, and The High Road of Shadows) are dated to the same period, as they are stated to take place at roughly the same time as Menace of the Underdark.
External Links[]
Spinner of Shadows article at the Eberron Wiki, a wiki for the Eberron campaign setting.
Appearances[]
Novels & Short Stories
Video Games
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Marsheila Rockwell (July 2012). Skein of Shadows. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 21. ISBN 0-7869-6139-9.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 Standing Stone Games (February 2012). “Web of Chaos”. In Dungeons & Dragons Online. Daybreak Game Company.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Marsheila Rockwell (July 2012). Skein of Shadows. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 0. ISBN 0-7869-6139-9.
- ↑ Marsheila Rockwell (July 2012). Skein of Shadows. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 19. ISBN 0-7869-6139-9.
- ↑ Marsheila Rockwell (July 2012). Skein of Shadows. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 23. ISBN 0-7869-6139-9.
- ↑ Marsheila Rockwell (July 2012). Skein of Shadows. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 22. ISBN 0-7869-6139-9.
- ↑ Marsheila Rockwell (July 2012). Skein of Shadows. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 1. ISBN 0-7869-6139-9.
- ↑ Marsheila Rockwell (July 2012). Skein of Shadows. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 24. ISBN 0-7869-6139-9.
- ↑ Marsheila Rockwell (July 2012). Skein of Shadows. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 25. ISBN 0-7869-6139-9.
- ↑ Standing Stone Games (June 2012). Dungeons & Dragons Online: Menace of the Underdark. Daybreak Game Company.