Adon of Sune… Adon of Midnight.

Fizzl Whipsbang… Fizzl Tyrshand.

What is the name that means "hero?"

Was it a small kender who once gave her life for her compatriots, because it was right?  Or the healer who took his own life because in his moment of hubris he realized the weight of his crimes?

Thus parted the Heroes of the Dark, as their raised children began to shape their own destiny.

The Cyrinishad had been destroyed.  Cyric the Mad would answer for his crimes.

The damage was done.  Midnight, Goddess of Magic, lay dead, and Mystra, the Goddess of Magic, was reborn.  Kelemvor, Lord of the Dead, balanced the gray wastes and reorganized the waiting grounds of the dead to punish the wicked and exalt the honored dead.  Many changes continued to rock the Planes, but the damage that could be undone, had been.

And in the heavens, in a place that was neither Light nor Dark, an image of stars and dark mist surrounding a vast miasma of twinkling worlds that lay upon all the Planes, the Hidden One, Ao, knelt before his Masters.

"The Realms are once again secure."

Fizzl was given a fascinating book called the Cyrinishad.

That was the day she stopped believing in anything but the awesome power of Cyric and started traveling among all the known libraries in Faerun, distributing copies.

The gods of the dark Seldarine have been returned to their Underdark homes to establish and cement their faith.  Their power remains fixed on the belief their followers manifest in their name.  Without them, a god can now wither, even fade away and die entirely.

As fledgling gods, the party remains bound to a mortal life and in need of followers to cement their future power.  Menzoberranzan may have belonged to Lolth for thousands of years, but the blink of an eye to a god is betrayed by her battle with Ellistrae and Vhaeraun, and she along with Ellistrae were cast into the Pit of Ghaunadar during the same battle.  As one power fought for the World Above, another battled for the World Below—and in the end both lost.

The demigod Zin'zarena has awakened from her sleep, free from Lolth's smothering influence, but she is effectively mortal and powerless, and watches from the sidelines as new gods seek to supplant her.

Vhaeraun has wasted no time in establishing himself as the power of the dark Seldarine.  Nevertheless he has extended an olive branch to "new friends."  But how much can the love of the God of Trickery be worth?

Meanwhile, in darker corners, another power stirs.  Not a god of Drow, the goddess Kiaransalee has also awakened, and sets in motion a series of events that will establish her as the new God of the Dead, in which case she will be the most powerful god in the World Below.

"Hell is your life gone wrong."

Inside the cave, the party found themselves in a gray waste, people milling about in and out of hovels as a great wailing sound originated from a great distance.  Moving forward for several hours, they found themselves lost in an abyss of gray buildings and lost people, each pleading for signs from their gods or family that make be looking for them.

"They've been waiting a long time for gods that aren't coming."  It was a familiar voice that identified what this place was.  Vedrin, lost to them many weeks before, stood alive… no, not alive… bearing the marks that caused his death.  "Don't worry, " he said, "it doesn't hurt anymore.  I scarcely notice in fact."  Then he looked them over as one of them blinked and said, "but you're not here to wait with us.  …you are still alive."

The dead, he told them, do not close their eyes.

The accusation brought a city of the dead's weight in pleas, but Vedrin led the party to safety, through twisting streets, until they reached a great spire constructed from bones, nested at the heart of the City of the Lost.

"You get good at hiding when they're looking for you here," he explained.  Vedrin died without faith, and as such it was his destiny to be buried in the Wall of the Faithless for all eternity.  The guards, tanar'i loyal to the god of the dead, would grind up mortar from dead too young to understand faith, and build a wall from their undying souls—including his.

Assisting one of the Faithless in diverting the guards, he explained, earned the same fate, which meant the party would need to step lightly.  They were now at risk themselves of never leaving.

The guards didn't need to find them, however.  The Drow, who value freedom and power above all else, declared that this fate was wrong.  All they needed to do… was kill a god.  Entering the castle yards, they found themselves among a host of tanar'i who challenged them for their impudence.  The fight was short and surprising, as one of the party extended their hand, and eldritch flame danced from her fingertips, exterminating the first tanar'i in a puff of black smoke.

Tanar'i, who desire power, but also existence, wisely took to wing and fled, as the party turned their attention on a member of their own who had exhibited the powers of the gods, which they had seen in Tantras a few nights before.

Deciding to "figure it out later," the party entered the Castle of Bone intent on slaying Myrkul, but they found him already gone, and the tablet claimed by another.  In that moment, on the mortal plane Cyric killed Myrkul and his gray waste began to fall apart.  In a pitched battle through the streets with the released tanar'i now feasting on the souls of the dead, the city itself breaking apart as the Castle of Bone collapsed under its own weight, the party miraculously found itself back on the ship.

The party completed its sojourn to Waterdeep in time to defeat the last vestiges of Bhaal's army, now under the control of one of their own turned against them.  It was when she was herself slain in the pitched battle that Cyric dashed by with the tablets and ran headlong for the celestial stair.  It was the booming voice, "ENOUGH!" that drove the entire world to its knees.

For their part in ending the Godswar, the party were elevated to godhood to build their dark Seldarine, and on their arrival they saw a curious sight… acres of unclaimed stone pillars, obelisks dedicated to as yet unknown gods, whose symbols of authority were as yet unwritten.

And beyond the sight of all, the Hidden One knelt to an even greater power as he declared, "The Realms are secure."

As the party begins to falter, a strange sight over the treetops calls their attention skyward.  It is a sailing ship, some sixty feet bow to stern in the shape of a massive…fish?  Not that they have ever seen a marlin, but they have seen the people who command her as they lean over the rail!

Teth and Ilithenlin have managed to resurrect an ancient Spelljammer taken by House Allevialir many centuries before, and uncovered its secrets.  With their new transportation in control, and the undead army massing beneath them suddenly losing interest in them and running toward Waterdeep, the party realizes the Tablets of Fate must be nearing the Celestial Stair, the last place where mortals can touch the planes of the gods and return at last what was stolen.

Whoever returns the tablets, they reason, we have the favor of the gods.  Envisioning a dark Seldarine pantheon, the party redoubles their efforts, only to discover the pulling call of the tablet directs them toward a small cave in a seemingly meaningless hillside.

Leaving guards aboard ship the party enters the cave, straight into the mouth of Hell itself.

In a pitched battle, the party found themselves outside a destroyed Tantras, and in need of transport to Waterdeep.  They set out on foot, unable to locate beasts of burden in a city trying to unbury itself from the rubble left in the wake of the destruction of Bane and Torm, the gods of Strife and Truth.

The ringing of the bell of Aylen Attricus by virtually unknown heroes saved the bulk of the city, but the lower quarters added a thousand years after the bell was placed to protect the city were decimated.

Drow are unlikely on the surface, and even less likely heroes, but their quick thinking nevertheless saved many lives, and gave several of the guard something to think about.

In a world where magic has gone insane, the more stable powers of these Drow are recognized, and they are allowed on their way without challenge, much to the chagrin of the Purple Dragons of Cormyr, who are still following them, along with mercenaries who witnessed their escape from the Dales weeks before.

Finding their way to an abandoned glade along a river, the party stumbles across an old stone statue, maintained by a lone priest of Azuth in service to his power.  The priest's magic, unlike so many others in the Realms, has not failed in the wake of the Godswar, and the party quickly learns it is because divine power has been secreted away deep within the stone under the clearing.  The statue is just a means of access.

The Drow manage, unknown to the priest, to absorb this power, and since its previous owner is not aware of the theft, they carry divine essence with them toward Waterdeep, confusing the god Myrkul and causing him to divert his plans in their direction.

Scores of undead suddenly attack, and the future looks grim indeed.

The party has celebrated the recovery of their power and the safety of their people.  Menzoberranzan is far from healed, but it has a strong future, provided the powers protecting it continue to do so.

Gods seeking the Tablets of Fate meanwhile have reached out to the leaders of Sel'rue after they participated in the attacks against Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul, and witnessed the death of the goddess Mystra.

In a world where the gods have realized they too can die, there is a more pressing desire to recover the Tablets at any cost.  Even now, three adventurers from the Dales ride a rickety raft along the River Ashaba, fleeing pursuit by men loyal to Mourngrym Amcathra.

Surely seeing them in the company of a few well-intending drow won't damage his perceptions.

The Godswar has raged on for two years.

Menzoberranzan has been the focus of a series of complex battles as the party has returned from the northlands with yet another powerful artifact weapon for their battle, and they begin to understand their fight is with the gods themselves.

Sel'rue initially fled Menzoberranzan to Chaulssin, taking with them the majority of the Manys and the bulk of the crops of rothe and mushrooms, leaving Menzoberranzan to an uncertain future.  An immense arena took shape in the Shatters, what remained of the Manys after the near-collapse of the city caverns, and a bell regularly tolls the announcement of winners (and losers) of many a tournament.

The return of a triumphant party is darkened somewhat by what they have seen with their own eyes—a world gone mad.  Witnessing the deaths of gods has affected the party more than they could have known, and even as they return to home, they find it changed—but not as much as themselves.

Even as Chaulssin and Eryndlyn recover and rebuild, so must Menzoberranzan, host to its own gods, return from its ashes and create a new society as its gods continue to battle over the missing Tablets of Fate and their own followers.

Expelled and for the first time in the godswar running for her immortal life, Lolth is in an unaccustomed position.  She must gather new power, but she has a target.  Word travels that Lolth has injured Ellistrae and prepares to sacrifice her to the Pits of Ghaunadar beneath Waterdeep.

But before they are able to get there, word travels of an even more fantastical battle between the forces of darkness and light in the magical city of Tantras.

Menzoberranzan was a murdered husk.

The surviving denizens, without food or future, were an easy mark for the Queen of Spiders.  Lolth took an avatar of the leading priestess of the Temple of the Many, and with her newfound mortal limitations she found herself cursing the gods of the World Above for their petty squabbles, even as she saw fit to continue her own.

Death became commonplace daily, as the city succumbed to her fury, locked in an avatar and unable to return to her City of Webs and Intrigues.

Even as Chaulssin and Eryndlyn sought to undo all her damage, they found themselves falling short as the twin cities of the fallen gods entered a city filled with starving masses, men locked away in towers of disused and fallen houses as the women slowly turned inward on themselves in self-hatred.

The last stop was the Pit of Non-Believers in the center of the city, a great chasm into which was thrown the bodies of all sacrifices taken to honor Lolth, and if there had been a means the city would have been righted and level once again for the bones heaped upon it.  The bodies were mostly the children of the city, and a lie told to bolster her control of the city.

She said Sel'rue had killed the children….

Luafien, that is the name of the last child I will bring into this world being wholly drow. I was drow. I was completely mortal, I was normal, I was a girl, and more than that I was one of the youngest matrons in the history of my home.  

All of that died with the hundreds that died when tower Freth bounced off the roof of Menzoberranzan. This city was the only home I'd ever known, and it pained me to leave it behind. Wounds cut deep that day, as not only was my city lost to me but a companion as well. In a fit of pique I demanded that the Dark Maiden fix the damage done to Drizzt, and in an instant he was gone, as was all we had done to repair his once damaged mind. I had given him, them all the power to choose only to have it stripped away by petulant goddesses. Were I to voice that comparison though, I doubt Eilistraee would have meant her apology, or brought him back.  The Dark Selderine have proved to be little better than the houses of Menzoberranzan, but for their lofty ideals. 

They call me bold, but perhaps it is only that they forget what it is like to be subjugated to the whim of a mad goddess. Perhaps they never knew, they were never human, but born gods. I can only hope that those I help elevate to our growing pantheon do better. I hope I do better. Our people deserve more. 

My city, my home has welcomed me back with brutality and gore far beyond what I believed them capable of. I thought, when I was younger that        could be reasoned with. I thought… perhaps she was just misunderstood by the men we made just above slaves for her whims. I thought that we could do right for our people and serve her. I was wrong. 

She left my city in ruins, feeding our dying men and woman their own families for lack of meat. All of those killed have been returned to them, there is a benefit to the lack of a god of death. Vaerhun, Ellistraee and I spent nine days clearing away what she did in my name, to spite me. Spiders, on all of them. She'd lost control of them so everything she did, she claimed with a spider hoping it would take them back. They lost faith in her, because of her own actions. A warning, I'd even given her once. 

House Baenre still stands, though justice needs come for Trielle. After all she did to them, the city will ask for her head, I will need show them another way, or her murder will send us back to where we were two years ago. 

My heart breaks for what she did to the city I gave my mortality for. Their needs now come before mine, or I die. My followers must love me better, or I fade away, in a very tangible sense. Though, part of me reads the words that I've lived and I wonder if I've just gone mad. Perhaps I am still in tower Freth, behind the door my mother locked thirteen years ago, and all of this has just player out in my head. That would be the most rational explanation for what I've come to. After the past few years, I might almost wish it, if it weren't for the joy that I've seen. 

Heroes, legends eat at my table, sleep in our beds. Right now, I find myself in a room, in house Do'Urden. A sentence that I would never thought be possible thirteen years ago. The sounds of a girl child echo in these halls, in a way that most would have thought impossible but here it stands, truth. 

Houses have been raised, or restored. Obledra, Mizzrym, Do'Urden, Fey, and Braegan D'Arthe. Each led by a drow that values their people over themselves. Two, with men at their lead. I can only hope that Menzoberranzan will bend its mind to understand that it's working in Chul Siin. 

Would that this were all that was on my mind. 

Between the rebuilding of both cities, I have children without homes. Valen has taken them to Xorrlorlin with Ravel, and the two of them have settled somewhat in the past few weeks. I am sure that Ravel is pleased to see his sister again with her husband, as I understand it. I also have a city that relies on my physical presence to power their magic, thus is the life of a god at this point. 

Gromph Baenre has confirmed that I can imbue objects in the city centers to power them, which will allow me the ability to leave and give my followers they ability to keep going when I am not with them. It has been a gift to be able to leave without the lights going out in my wake. Two miles is not near as far as I'd like it to be sometimes. 

Juchin though was the most surprising of it. Apart from being the Demi God of War with the help of Vaerhun, he called me to the surface to aid some elves and humans that prayed to him in saving Mystra. Apparently her vessel, a vapid girl named Midnight, for all the gods, I wish that I was kidding but that is what she actually calls herself…needed help in tracking her. We found her and even freed her from Death and Murder, but that didn't stop her from rushing the stairs and being killed by Helm. He seemed saddened that he had to do it, but he did it still. 

We woke hours later in the Dales, Shadowdale I think, but honestly, I haven't the foggiest. It was bright, and they were rude. The girl, Midnight, had difficulty coming to grips with what had happened, but were I her, I would have trouble too. I had trouble of my own and did not stay to watch the trial that happened later over the death of someone they called Elminister. Drizzt mentioned the name once, and said he was a great man. I don't know much more beyond that. 

At home though, I was greeted by my usual three man inquisition, plus one older daughter who was up with Lua when the lights went out. Sahven has taken most of this in better stride than I might have at her age, but her father is fairly stable so that must have something to do with it. Regardless, it was their idea that I go through with Gromph's plan to imbue the cities, as it would stop panic in my wake if I chose to continue leaving without telling anyone. 

I swear, sometimes I fall back on old thoughts and think to scold them for being out of place, but if you had witnessed those men, full of bravado and the freedom to speak your minds, you would understand why I stay my tongue. They are entitled worries, just as I am… and I can't help but hope that these shouting matches are happening all over the city, as the men and woman of Menzoberranzan start to find even ground. 

I only hope the peace we've found here will last. 

Tomorrow, there is certain to be more changes, and I've a vested interest in sending more than one of these gods home so that I can try and give these people a relatively normal life, even if it means that those days for me are long done. 

For now, there are gods among them, and crystal spiders looking over them, and for the first time, no one needs fear them, because they are mine. 

Would that I could put feelings to words. 

My heart knows what my mind has come to understand. I was never meant to birth a vessel for Lolth, but I was meant to be it… entirely. She meant that I give her my soul, mind and body, never to return from her occupation. The rage this fills me with overpowers a lifetime of training and brainwashing. 

This knowledge and the power that sits above my heart brings me the power to change, to choose. I have chosen. No more the mindless servant of a goddess that would use me and destroy me to take what I have. The Gods had other plans. 

My whip died with the last of my faith, and with it the barriers that prevented me from knowing her plans for me. I have blasphemed in her city, though somehow I get the feeling that she has little to say of it. My only options now are to leave and ascend, or stay and hide behind the love of the manys that I've fostered, and build a following in her own city. The one thing that gives me pause is Valan. We are twins, and family beyond that. I could leave and save them, or stay and risk them. Is my vanity, my anger or my sense of justice more important than the fate of my house and those that I care for? 

My only true option is to deal directly with Valan and plead to her desire for power. I am uniquely able to provide her with more power than Lolth would have ever shared, and she is my twin, why shouldn't we share in this together. If I can be the goddess of families and travel, why can she not be the one of trade and law? After all, those are what she knows best, they always were.

It is about time that our fates weren't controlled by a grasping liar that only wants for herself. She allows Banre to rape our families and condemn them to death with no fear of repercussion, and that is the first thing I plan to change. They will know fear of a god, and they will fear the justice that will be rained on them. 

None of this pays any homage to the fear that is building in my chest. They steer me, use me and risk my house, and what if it is for nothing? What if I am just another pawn in the gods war that wages around us? Does it matter anymore? Is there anything I can do to change it? Can I protect Drizzt, Dyan'ette, Zin'Teth, Elginn? I am housing a known traitor with intent to give him back a house, that I cannot yet provide him with… If he would even accept me in this. Apparently the implications of sleeping with a demi-god (if that is what I can call myself at this point) are worse than just bedding a drow matron.

If I'm being honest with myself, I can almost understand the concern. I wouldn't be surprised if most of my sources of comfort feel the same. I don't even know that I would blame them… the other option would be to give my power to someone else though, and try to make peace with my goddess, or find another that would accept me… and I cannot bring myself to bend knee to another. Not after all that has been done. 

I should prepare to leave, on the chance that I will not be allowed to remain, and perhaps say my goodbyes ahead of this… leaving others who would follow me the means to find me. Perhaps she was right, Illvarad may be the best place to start. It could be the beginning of a city on its own. 

I will know nothing until Valan and I speak. Until then I must hope for the best and plan for the worst.

The party has returned to Menzoberranzan.

Survival is not its own reward, however, as the party is attacked almost immediately by abyssal spiders seeking the same weapons, and the whetstone that corrupts them to the drow goddess Lolth.

The party has weathered challenges to their faith and returned a known traitor under their protection.  Now they turn their sites toward House Baenre, as the Manys charged by Gromph begin to revolt, and the city enters a period of unrest that will be known as the Small Rebellion.

The dwarven mining party leads their unlikely drow allies to the lowest level of the Undercity mines.  There, they point out a single passageway they say leads to a dwarven burial ground, where they will not go.

However they believe the sword the drow seek will be found there, and since it is not a dwarven blade they have neither love nor intentions toward it.

Hours later, the party is standing before a magical entrance that whisks them away, not to a dwarven mount, but to an Underdark turned upside down that challenges their beliefs to the core.

The party arrives in Mirabar to find a dwarven contingent of soldiers led by a human woman in wait for them.  They sign a pact with the city to enter as prospective clients.

That's when one of the dwarves notices a curious hammer hanging from the side of the halfling mixed in with the drow and challenges her.  They learn she carries the personal emblem of Bruennor Battlehammer, which is enough for the dwarves, but not their human leader.

The dwarves promptly turn their back on the human and return to Mirabar, leaving her to nervously complete her business with the drow. Tensions fade as their entry to the city leads them to a series of stops and eventually the inn.

One of the dwaves challenges that if the halfling carries a musical instrument and Bruennor's hammer, she should be capable of telling its story.  She does.  For three days.  The majority of the city's two thousand dwarves turn out as their duties allow, granting the party a unique popularity with which they are genuinely unaccustomed.

It resolves with the arrival of a new human servitor representing the city, who agrees to grant the drow access to Undercity to continue their search for the next blade.

On the road to Mirabar the party is confronted by a curious lone traveler bearing a ring of teleportation, which he uses to warn the local army that a party of drow is approaching. 

The army arrives in Longsaddle to find the town undamaged and swearing their praises to these drow, who became their unwitting saviors routing another abyssal spider attack.

As the party is separated, they are confronted by the forces loyal to their foes.

Juchin, Ravel, and Teth are seriously injured as giant wolf spiders and a powerful undead attack in force—but the party is successful driving them away.  The spiders curiously vanish when slain, leading one of the party to postulate they are extraplanar, and not spiders at all.

The undead is slain, but a powerful explosion rips through the party as his lifeforce dissipates with the destruction of his phylactery.

The party is driven west by the pull of the remaining baneblades.

As they continue they encounter the last vestiges of an ancient stronghold of a mad wizard, buried deep below the City of Waterdeep.  One of the blades may be located deep within its twisted passages, through one of many portals in the Undermountain that lead to another realm, and a shocking secret that may be more than the party can handle.

Phlan had its revival of the previous century under the watchful eye of Juchin and his band of extraplanar adventurers.  A tiefling, a kender, and a centaur from Krynn may not seem like able or fast companions, but they were effective in taking control of a series of checkpoints in the city while searching for the fabled Baneblades of Demron.

Actually managing to recover two of them, they had separated to cross the Realms and find the remaining blades.  One of them vanished.  One of them was entrapped in stone by curse magic by dwarves guarding the tomb where the blade was kept.  One of them was consumed by his quest for power, and ended up destroying his own city.  The last reached out to the only help she knew.

Dyanette Sel'rue received a plea for aid from the centaur Acacia, and convinced his sisters to render aid after telling them of the fabled blades.  That was when things took an unfortunate turn.  Aun'rae received a vision from Lolth, and the two sisters recovered a whet stone they believed could turn the blades from the elves and secure them for Her purposes.

All they had to do was recover the kender from her stone tomb, where she continued to retain the secrets and locations of the remaining three blades.

That was when Juchin arrived in the city, disguised as a pit fighter.  Killing the Sel'rue arena champion, he demanded a meeting to be named the Sel'rue champion.  That was when he revealed himself, and identified that he was the reason the city of Phlan had fallen.  He was also searching for the kender because she had stolen the baneblades.

Juchin became aware later… the whet stone was working.

The tangled web led the party to the Western Realms, where they recovered the next blade and the kender, through a series of traps and orcish bandits also trying to steal from the dwarven tomb.

Matron Sim'ryyvin spoke heresy while Lolth was watching.

It will be the last time she will ever speak.  Lolth appeared through an avatar and identified the book Ryyv was using as a heretical text written by a drunk woman and destroyed it before her eyes.

Killing her, she determined, would be too good for her.

Meanwhile, the forces of Sel'rue uncovered a plot from the Cult of Ghaunadar to re-enter the city, and used knowledge of the plot to implicate Sos'umptu and send her scurrying to Baenre for protection.  She now resides in their chapel, and Arach Tinilith has accepted a new whipmaster.

Sorcere has also moved forward through urging by Baenre to accept Elginn as an instructor for the mage academy, a position of great power, and Melee-Magthere accepted Valen'rae as an instructor, making use of her training in unarmed combat.

All was not success and glory, however, as House Vandree charged Sel'rue with heresy, having learned of their machinations in Ched Nasad, and attacked during a Peace of Lolth, setting the entire city against them.  Their destruction was inevitable, but not before the Vandree did a lot of damage, targeting the rothe and mushrooms with poison and curses, which continue to threaten the whole of the city.

Sel'rue confronts House Baenre with news of the attack of Kiaransalee and the penance fields, and is granted a meeting with House Symryvvin.  They speak openly about the creation of the Zin Carla at their mother's hands, her death, or their subsequent rise to power in their house.

Symryvvin agreed that this should be concealed when they revealed that Di'ann Sel'rue had been reincarnated as lizard folk.  Previous apocrypha suggested that priestesses could not be raised, because they ascended to the hand of Lolth.  That realization would weaken the power structure centered on the priesthood.

The coterie of Sel’rue was subjected to a vision of dark times, and the fall of their people many thousands of years ago, and learned that someone, close to them, may be worshipping the demigod Kiaransalee.

It was a time of poor plenty and anger. 

Houses squabbled over shortages and children did not grace the altars of the great temples.  There were collapses in a series of caverns used for major traverse and guards disappeared by the score in the deep tracking new routes for the traders.

"Frank" and Tomen Sorr had provided the people of Menzoberranzan with trade goods from the surface for several seasons now, but his time below had cost his livelihood on the surface, and now he needed a place to hide.  But he planned to find one last means of securing his worth, planning assaults on a series of Purple Dragon spies attempting to find their way to the City of Spiders.

Sel'rue found its way into the good graces of Arach Tinilith, and Melee Magthere, while Sorcere took advantage of all Elghinn's knowledge for a further two years as an instructor.  Granting each of them the protection of Baenre, the House enjoyed a series of windfalls, attempting to manipulate the market successfully for many months until they drew the ire of a neighboring House.

They would rise and fall quickly.

Goblins are prone to moments of impropriety, and Muck was happy to encourage their initiative.  The loss of his Matron, and the subsequent loss of Du'rran, the lizardfolk reincarnation of the Matron Diann Sel'rue, left him on the run.

Muck had fortified a position among a few score of goblins and other escaped slaves a few miles outside Menzoberranzan, but he had a feeling it wouldn't be far enough.  One of the escaped slave taskmasters had taken to advising on the closeness of the City of Spiders, enough that one of the orcs had threatened to pin his ears to his tongue if he spoke again.

It was when Frank showed up that the guards started screaming.

Zeerith Xorlarrin had a bold plan, to retake the dwarven forge of Gauntlgrym.

The duergar and denizens of the Underdark commanded the land below, but it was Xorlarrin who commanded hundreds of goblin slaves and drider. 

Eventually the holds of Gauntlgrym would begin to fall, and pushing inward one day after nightless next, the denizens of the Underdark fought for control over the Pit that lay at the heart of the dwarven home.

The Xorlarrin are a warlike band of mystics.  Their psionic talents have made them powerful, exacting, and greedy—far greedier than perhaps Baenre or Barrison.  But something happened there, in the dark, when they suddenly struck out on their own and became a city-state unto themselves.

The Fracture happened slowly.  In fact, it had taken a thousand years.  One of the most venerable houses, with a single matron since Menzoberranzan's founding, had lost their matron.  Not all at once… and not instantly, to be sure.

X.

It was the first of their name, not because they were mysterious, but because they had become a mystery.  The name of their forebears from the time of the Sundering was completely forgotten.  In this case, the "X" represented a name lost to time, which was unusual because the matron was so old she no longer remembered the time of her birth—the time before her skin was black.

The fact that she had died?  Had she?  was very troubling to her people.  Yet there she was, in the hive that had become their minds.

Combining faces and thoughts and names and intentions, until no lie, no opposition, no argument could survive.  Only the cold and pure fact of an eternity gone wrong.  She wandered between their minds, occasionally sifting the rarified fact or hidden knowledge that she desired, and she would take without asking.

She was the center of their world, their Link.  She was everything.  And now that the Link was complete, after a thousand years, it was time to ascend to godhood.  She would become Xorlarrin, the god of the mind.  A few voices failed to instantly agree, and were silenced.  A few more questioned, and were subsumed.  Now all was Xorlarrin, and her mind was cleared of any doubt.

Who were these people to enter her realm?  They were not of the Link.  They were… .Outsiders.  She would expel this cancer of question like a wound heals, until the withered scab fell away to be forgotten.

What was it they said?  "Start by talking about your intentions to attack us after we had done your bidding?"  …was that what I had done?  Very well.  No matter.

The drow party makes its way into a Phlan under fire, recovering two swords but interrupting a war between orcs and fire giants.  Following into the catacombs they discovered an ancient tomb that the previous adventurers missed, and an ancient curse too powerful to ignore.

Dead silence replaced by dead marching, and the coterie of the Underdark found themselves quickly surrounded by zombies led by a mummy.  Fortunately the powers of the clerics did not fail, and the undead were quickly turned away.

Not having a need for them, the party chose to destroy them and continue to the surface, where they found a city on fire as an orcish horde led by a human with siege equipment drove out the last vestiges of a civilized society.

Finding the human leader bought them nothing, however, as the captured human parlayed for his release and promised to betray his ilk, but used the confusion of their next miscast volley from the catapults to quaff a potion of invisibility and beat a hasty retreat under cover of darkness.

They had a feeling they would see him again.

The party had survived countless attacks and intrigues, and even wrested a powerful blademaster and mercenary from their respective nests, but now the Dark Lady of Spiders has demanded something else.

She was aware of the existence of something special in Phlan.  She had seen one of them, once before, twisted for a new and darker purpose.  Now, in the rise of something unexpected, she wanted them all.

The Dark Lady already had one of them, resting in the hands of her most powerful Selvetarm.  The others lay in wait across the Planes.  One, in the lower abyss, in the hands of a mortal enemy who perverted her own spiders against her.  Two, in the heart of the City of Phlan.  Another lay in the dragon horde of the fel drake Shimmergloom.  The last was lost to the hands of an adventurer and sent into the heart of the Undermountain.

The fabulous Baneblades of Demron, suitably twisted to her purpose, would be a powerful force for her people—and she had just created the perfect lure.  Meanwhile, the City of Phlan was already wreathed in flame.

<dl>

Nothing in Menzoberranzan stays the same for long, the same is true for servants and matrons alike. House Sel'rue found itself at the end of a bitter fight, one they had though already won. Fate often has other ideas. Chul'sin, once a populous city was laid to waste, after what appears to be a plague. Only eight hundred of the many survive and all swear loyalty to House Sel'rue as their saviors. 

The consort Teth was cleared of all wrong doing by High Priestess Saus'um'tou Banrae - likely the price of achieving what it was she wanted, her daughter as Matron Banrae.  Though, despite all her various platitudes, the twins were dismayed to learn she had no intention on dealing with the growing cult headed by her own son… 

Following this, a celebration that rivaled any held in the upper third. Their consorts, old and new were well received and sisters welcomed back to the city with open arms. Though, these were nothing compared to the goddess herself walking among them. For two days she held their company, Aunrae and Valan'rae had thought it was only moments, but time moves differently in the presence of a god. 

They were well treated, and even blessed, though Loth is not one for waiting on times of ceremonies, and nearly as soon as she returned them, both matrons found themselves in labor. Within a matter of days, four red-haired children were born to them, one girl and three boys. Fathers beaming, the house settled into its place as fifteenth, and prepared to raise their children. 

More children would come over the next five years. Business would grow, and what was only starting has become an empire. Whores, Rothe, Mushrooms, surface foods by the wagon-full, and no one would dare challenge the house whose children are born with hair the color of blood. Lolth's favored, chosen, but for what and how long? 

The swords are their quest, and time is running out to achieve it. 

I woke this morning with the intention to handle an issue that has been growing, and a dwindling list of people that I could trust. The same is true I would imagine, now. Dyan'ette had been controlled by the lizard that remembers being our mother. The protections I built into him help his blade from us, but not from the rest of the city. It was only when he could not refute the evidence that he came forward. I asked, no in all truth I begged Teth to rebuild his mind, and fix what she had done to him.

I was rewarded with a repaired brother, and then punished with a broken friend. That is the only word I can think of for him. He is a confidant, and someone I trust my life to when I am sleeping. He shares our beds and is taken with Dyan'ette in a way that perhaps I cannot grasp, so he is important. Even Valan did not hesitate when we decided to take him to Xorlorin for help. There was nothing that the Priestess of the academy could do for him but cover up the murders, and declare Dyan'ette innocent, which was no small feat in itself… though her price is high. 

As high, if not more so than the price of Matron Xorlorin.  The house above us, house sixteen is doomed in the morning, if we are not ourselves, only Lolth knows. We attack at dawn, and for a house that has risen so far, I have to hold to hope that Lolth still stands with us, otherwise tonight may be our last night. This is why we hold our Consorts close, we drink our best wine and we spend the night exactly how we would, because if it is our last it should be the best. 

After this, because I must hold that there is an after, we are to host the city for a celebration, welcoming our sister Arkonia to our fold and showing her what we live for.  

There is a growing concern in my mind, something that nags at me, every time I consider telling others that I have taken a consort; it is as if I know that it will be short-lived so I hesitate doing it at all. Add to that, he does not remember all that has happened to him, if he is not the man that I would take to consort, then I would not have him tied to me when he could be of more use somewhere else. This is something I can speak of to no one, so I am left with only this outlet. 

Valan grows cross that she was forced to take Teth as a consort, and I regret perhaps that I did not, to spare myself the looks and complaints that she must have about Dyan'ette. I am too soft with him. I have not challenged him when perhaps I should have, but is it wrong to appreciate his input, even if I do not agree?  No, but what is wrong is allowing that to occur where anyone else can see. 

Perhaps it is too late for that and the only one I am sparing by not making it public is myself. Nothing can help that, I know something is coming. Indeed it may be why I am so sure we will defeat A'lavallier, because there can be no future for me if we fail. 

Griswald the merchant from Silverymoon continued to exalt their good fortune as the trio rounded the bend out of the city and started to two mile ascent toward the World Above.  He couldn't get over the payload they were carrying with them.  "Can you imagine what we're going to make out of this, boys?" he asked.

Frank, the beholder, scratched at his third eyestalk with the grooming tool he guided from his mouth and his primary stalk.  Through his broken common, he intoned in a deep, resonating voice, "Are you sure you shouldn't just take the money and run?"

The bugbear clapped him on the back and chuckled.

"Don't touch me, Larry," the beholder warned.

"Aw, c'mon, I was agreeing with you," Larry replied.  "Don't be a fret."

It was Gris who broke the tepid silence.  "If they are willing to send us up with this much treasure, do you honestly think they can't find it?"  He thought a moment, and the thought chilled him.  "Any idea what they would do to us?"  He shook his head. "No, boys, this is the tip of the iceberg.  You'll see!"

"Or the edge of it," the beholder replied.

The rest of the journey was strangely silent.

Teth laid back in his bunk to think about the affairs of the past twenty or so hours.  The purple plumes over the great Spire played over the city, signaling night in the World Above.  He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but the nightmare images that played through his mind erupted forward again, and he found himself meditating instead.

It had started with a persisting dream that unsettled Dyan'ette.  The Eldest Son had developed a sort of nervous tick in the form of night terrors.  He kept them to himself because the dreams were the stuff men were sacrificed for—killing his matron.

Over and over again, thoughts turned to plans, turned to images racing through his mind, but thus far he had managed to resist.  It was the first time he realized he had blood on his blade and muddy boots that something was actually happening.  But what could he do?

Du'rann, the lizardfolk shaman that had invoked Lloth in a series of sick and twisted rituals, cutting the heads off of several serpents and tying them to a stick to symbolize a Llothian whip.  Then she saw fit in her broken memories of the City of Spiders to purify the entire city from its sickness.

Starting with her son.

It was her magic that had reawakened his dreams.  She had, after all, spent at least twenty years dominating her own son and beating him into submission when magic failed, until he felt intense pain at the slightest thought of betraying or even upsetting her—and so she had reached out from beyond the grave and through a mile of rock to torment him.

Du'rann had been Diann, the matron of House Sel'rue, but now, defeated and reincarnated as one of the lizardfolk she had been introduced to a following of escaped slaves and naturally rose to rule them.   In her broken dreams and thoughts, they saw these people as fellow faithful followers, and worked to reclaim their city, together.

Killing, using Dyan'ette, seemed the easiest endeavor.

Teth rolled over a got himself some tea.  He reached for a mushroom cake and found himself holding a bloody severed ear.  Dropping it suddenly with a sharp intake of breath, he watched as the mushroom cake fell harmless to the ground.  Was this a normal reaction to a psychic surgery? he thought to himself.

After the tea, Teth remembered that he had given Dyan'ette one powerful suggestion, to "forgot those who used magic to dominate his will and damage him for their amusement, and for a time he worried that this might make Dyan'ette forget him, too.  The ritual had not been without its losses.

All he could do now, was wait.

And hope.

The next time he dreamed, it was Teth, not Dyan'ette, who dreamed of a man standing over a defenseless woman and slaying her.  It was going to be a rough recovery.  Meanwhile, two people slept peacefully in their rooms in the Tower Firth, unaware of the pain in another man's dreams.

And in his hands.

It’s funny, life. They taught me to write like a trained monkey to show off at dinner parties, but they never knew it’d keep me sane. They taught me to fight because it was a novelty and the men were bored, but they never knew it’d eventually help me to escape. They made me live with the animals, but they never knew it taught me how to avoid having their children when they raped me. My rescuers told me the man I sacrificed was t “the one”. Oh poor things…. they were all “the one”. Irony.

My grand escape was essentially so simple. I really didn’t want to die, but I was ready to. Instead I found my people. It’s strange to me how much this place feels like home, in it’s dark beauty. The surface people don’t understand this world, it’s apparent. I wanted to be killed by someone with a face like mine, so I threw myself down before that woman, only to be delivered into luxury I’ve never seen before. There’s something they aren’t telling me. For people in power, they certainly don’t know how to school their faces. 

I don’t know what’s ahead for me, but I’m starting to remember things from my childhood. A cruel mother, a terrifying yet wondrous goddess, a world full of strength, courage, and beauty. Perhaps one has to die a little to finally live. Time will tell. For now I trust none. I may never. 

I am regularly surprised when something I have painstakingly careful in planning, actually comes together. Perhaps it is to do with the fact I am so used to our mother taking credit for what we do. Not only are we not dead, but we are thriving. I must admit though, that Lolth must have seen it to be that way, as had you asked me just a fortnight hence, I would have not been nearly so confident about our chances.

That is not to say that we are not still in danger, but what is success in Menzoberranzan without the risk. I would be a fool to think that everything is perfectly placed, we have enemies on every side, and even more that would see us simply out of the way for their progress. That is always be unchanged, but for now at least Banrae has other battles to fight, and we do their bidding. 

We sew the seeds of our plans in the hearts and minds of the houses that will listen, which is why we send our brothers to woo them. They want the blood of blademasters and they shall have them, but they will not take our blood from our halls. There is nothing they can give us that will replace the favor that Lolth has shown us. 

Then with the return of a sister I am filled with unease. This girl, this poor excuse for a drow that has not even a grasp of our tongue and no connection to our people at all… she comes to us, in a way that it must have been intended… but to what end? Is it for our favor or our destruction? Only time will tell, which is why we call on one old enough to know her, and see her story true. I would see her tested to be sure she cannot supplant us, that is the most important part of any of this. If she has no connection to magic, then she is no threat and can be used. Blade master blood flows in her veins as well. 

These things only hold a candle to the dread that grows inside me at the thought that our mother still lives… and in the body of a lizard woman… The thought alone is enough to make me retch. She would have seen me, my child, my sister, my brothers all dead for nothing more than being better at this game than she. This creature cannot go on in her name, wether it is she or not. …Though I do find poetic justice in the idea that if she is brought back, that she lives on in that horrid form… It is the only part of it that does not move me to any more than laughter. 

Should we find a way, I would give her death to Dyan'ette, he suffered at her hands, he could not touch her as drow, but he can destroy her now. If it is her at all…

The city streets stretched out before the cloaked warrior as he strode through the marketplace. Dyan’ette continued to pace the markets and search for this clue and that.

Meanwhile, a figure silently followed, keeping track of his movements.

Dyan’ette paused at a fruit stand and questioned the human slave selling wares what he was selling. He dutifully reported five kinds of melon. None of them apparently were made with “water.”

“Musk?” he questioned, and the slave had simply shrugged. Obviously. He would never have been given one of his own. That would be a waste of good produce. Unless they were being rewarded, slaves ate mushrooms and rothe, and little else. There were laws, and a pecking order to follow, after all.

THe silent figure paused. They grew closer, and watched from the shadows of the crowd. At one point, Dyan’ette half turned, perhaps noticing eyes that lingered too long, and the figure crept back into the shadows. Satisfied, Dyan’ette returned to his bargaining.

Slowly creeping forward.

Dyan’ette counted out the thirty pieces of silver for his purchase.

Creeping…

He reached into hsi pouches and made room for the small culinary delight.

So very close now. He slowly released a blade and raised it to the drow warrior’s neck.

His eyes flew open with panic as the blade sinked deep into his back, just below the base of his skull. His eyes widened, and he tried to scream, but no sound issued forth. The slave gasped in terror and stumbled back into his shop.

Dyan’ette spun around in time to see the assassin fall, knife clattering to the ground. “You should learn to be more careful,” Teth admonished slowly. “You never know what you will run into out here in the Commons.”

Dyan’ette nodded and returned his attention to the slave, He turned again toward Teth and added, “Find out—”

“—-where he’s from, House, etc., etc., I know the drill,” Teth said blithely. “You people…” and he went at once to work. As expected, no house symbol, nor identifying marks. This would be a job for the Sisters.

There are forty hatchlings in my stables. Forty. One would think that would fill me with glee… but all I feel is apprehension. These things, these monsters that would threaten our home, are nothing more than children with voracious appetites, and minds made up about things they cannot understand or know. So, I have just enough time to convince these beasts that they cannot worship the son of Loth in this city, or face the consequences that suggest we implanted this information in their tiny heads. They are not Drow, which means so long as they obey the law that says while they are in Menzoberranzan they do not worship other gods… the houses should be appeased. I would honestly prefer them convinced of her superiority, but I don't know that we have that kind of time. 

Add to this the fact that their mother insists on them molting with her… we have to convince the council to send their prized pets away to molt and hope that they do not break the law. Perhaps in forty years we can have settled with Q'Xorlorin. It would be safer should that dragon attack us for breaking her word. Perhaps that is where I should apply myself, in establishing a presence there, to protect us from what happens here. To protect us from the conniving and deceit that led our own mother to betray us. This is what it is to be a house in Menzoberranzan, and I would not change it, but I would protect my daughter from it, for as long as I can.

The tasks before us, at least have grown more simple, we only need to establish ourselves as a trading power, hand off blasphemous dragonlings without having fingers pointed to us, raise an army of our own in less than six months to protect the house from attacks, and sell the flesh of our brothers for the sake of building strong ties with other houses while the rest of our flesh trade takes off. A small task, I'm sure. Then there is Maya, the prodigy that we have taken as sister. She could serve to be an asset, or an undoing. Keeping her from court would be most simple, though it is not likely that it will work as she's already made a name for herself. She longs for her family, which means that it will fall to us to find them now that the dragons are handled. Oh, and we have to dig into the deep dark for a swath of treasure. likely alone so that we can take what it is we want from it. 

I will say one thing, it is most likely that we will need to leave someone capable in our stead, as we will protect our house by being away from it, as least until the children are born. Knowing that Maya is … good… at heart, she is the most likely choice, we can use her honesty as a tool and set her in the position of Castilian for lack of a better term. Hopefully, she will serve as a deterrent for spies and those that mean to attack us. We will see in time, for now though it is my aim to be the most kind to her, as it will color her favor towards us. That at least is something that we are capable of.

The goblins piled together at the base of the water, washing their garments in the nude.  It was unnoticed that one of them dipped into the water to bathe himself.  It was forbidden, but rules were broken often when the overseers were not in attendance.

Muck slid through the water toward the bottom of the deepest rift.  There, in the dark, he found what he was looking for.  The fish were eagerly pulling at her flesh.  An eye drifted without from its socket, and her hair danced like serpents in the current.

The wand sparked out toward her, and her dead form began to writhe.  Her eyes flew open, and she began to breathe, choking on the water as her skin began to bubble away and new muscles began to grow.  Shiny scales began to protrude from her skin as she writhes in terrible, wracking pains beyond death.

What rose from the water was lizardfolk, but as the naked form was taken back to the slave quarter, it said only one word, and it said it many times.  "Mother.."

This isn't the way I anticipated that things would go. I assumed that Valan'rae and I would have time to establish ourselves, build power… but no. She, our matron, decided that we'd embarrassed her. She planned to have us sacrificed, to Lloth… who's favor we've been shown to have many times. She lost her mind. 

The joke was on her, we were prepared. So was she to an extent. Zincarla are powerful, but only if their maker survives. She wasn't expecting that we would switch our tactics. She wasn't expecting that we would co-opt her forces, or her sons. 

I should be ecstatic because we won. We are matrons of our house.  Instead I am exhausted and jumping at every threat or cross look. I know that the paranoia comes with the daughter that I bare… the only daughter of house Selrue now. 

Now, we only have a dragon, Trielle Baenre, and all of Menzoberranzan to contend with. Apparently, dragon first. 

Mother locked the children in the barracks, and then began to sacrifice them in order from youngest to oldest.  The party acted quickly, and rousted several dead from their long slumber after fleeing to the catacombs.

The guards for their part went to their rooms to wait, and see whether there were about to be a change in management.  Undead, drow, and magic make for a pitched battle in the best circumstances.

The war party met to discuss their intentions.

Daughters of Sel'rue dedicated themselves to the creature's destruction, and mitigated the risk to the city by determining the battle take place in the ruins of El'Varad, the ancient outpost taken up by the former first house in the first days of the city, while the massive caverns that would be Menzoberranzan were still being cleared.

The entrances and exits leave little chance for survival if the dragon traps them inside.  There is only one way in and out.

Haerinvureem

I have no words for the atrocities committed to my blood. A curse laid to insure that any child that came from our blademaster, her son, my brother, would not be fit for Lolth's service. A curse that I never looked for because I did not believe she would weaken our house or our line. 

I was wrong, though only this serves as proof for that. He has the right to be angry, she violated him in ways that even we do not. It is not illegal, but she stripped him of his will, took his mind, body and seed without his concent. If he were anything less than he is, it might have gone unnoticed, I might have never thought to look. The problem is, I am cautious and we take him to our bed habitually, he sired the child I bare, did she think I would never have thought it possible? Does she even care? No, that is a clear answer. 

The betrayal of rewarding our adopted sister with a whip that outranked ours, her whip for that matter… that was repaid by Lolth herself; whips with nine heads each were given despite that we tired separately. Dyan'ette has been blessed with the touch of Lolth, and with that he is near untouchable. Not free as he'd like, he's tasted the surface and I believe we have lost part of him to it, though it would be that lack of the conditioning of our matron. There are grave concerns now however, so rather than dwell I will put it all to use. That being said, should one of the houses he will likely entertain feel obliged to claim him, my sister and I will take him as consort, to keep him here, and there would be no end to the fury that would be wrought should our Matron try to take him before we are done… nor the end of Lolth's, because she has chosen him. I had never considered the likelihood that I would share with our goddess,  though the idea is not unpleasant.

Right now we have a dragon to reckon with, something that will take the might of all Menzoberranzan to face it. It was freeing, I will admit, not being trapped in the confines of the city, though I get the feeling that Dyan'ette was horrified that we would risk so much, or maybe just annoyed that he had to do his job. 

Then this is over, however, I have plans. Our matron refused to train a priest that had the ability to serve Lolth, because then he would have rights to refuse her I imagine. I have the power to preform all of those rites, and to teach him everything he needs to know, and there is little she could do without risking the wrath of the self-same goddess that has singled out Dyan'ette.

Then, and only then can we begin moving against her. I will have my family, my people, and my sister and I will have a house with contacts in plenty. It pays to be a friend of House Baenre, and I think with our last visit we more than entertained them. 

Though, I confessed to Valan'rae that I have been marked, she has removed the wound and healed it clean to remove the ability to set us apart. Some will likely still know, but if my mother had to mark me to prove that I was myself she knows nothing of me. I would like it to stay that way at least while we wait. I know that we will not always rule together, it is always fleeting, partnership. Though, for now it suits us both and we've found nothing to argue over, and I pray it stays that way until it must change.

There is more but I do not trust myself to say it here, perhaps I will be willing to write it, but to put a thing to ink has a way of making it real, so for now it remains unsaid. 

Nearly two thousand years ago she destroyed Chulssin.  Now she is nesting less than ten miles from another great city, and the houses are up in arms and determined to drive her out.  But can the City of Spiders come together to defeat so dangerous a foe when they have their own intentions?

Three hours to die.

That's how long the sacrifice was kept, while Dyan'ette recovered from his wounds.  The destroyed husk of the traitor who betrayed him lay flayed open for the spiders before a burning cauldron.

And Dyan'ette left, not quite a free man, but a live drow.

The massive spire atop the Isle of Rothe has been developed and hollowed over several hundred years to create a massive citadel, surrounded by multiple high walls, themselves surrounded by the massive Lake Donigarten and further protected by the dense mushroom fields and rothe herds that no drow may risk harming.

Tower Freth easily could accommodate far more than the 400 bodies that routinely inhabit it.  Presently, every drow has a room of their own, even the lowest guard and servile.   The tower also houses two dark secrets—a catacomb leading to a necropolis, and a secret passage leading out of the city, both things forbidden by city law.

One level of the tower leads out onto an immense balcony, which provides a beautiful overlook of the entire city.  The Spire and Tower Xorlarrin are easily visible from the heights of Isle Rothe.

The Isle of Rothe is the formal home to House Sel'rue.  Formerly Freth and Hunszrin before them, the Sel'rue dominate city politics by controlling the food supply of mushroom fields and rothe herds.  There are over one thousand rothe and 70 acres of mushroom fields covering a full quarter of the city, but those fields exist only around the one natural water source, Lake Donigarten.

Rothe are the primary livestock of Menzoberranzan, and the blind musk oxen of the deep provide fur, meat, milk, and cheese, as well as occasionally beasts of burden.  There are surface variants that exist in the World Above, and there are ghost rothe, strange creatures from the Lowerdark that appear to have retained their sight, and developed a language of flashing lights to communicate.  Rothe bred with their Lowerdark cousins sometimes gain the ability to cast Silence spells, and transport themselves across short distances, making them unexpected escape artists—better, if they can be trained to use their power with a rider.

Lake Donigarten is home to the twentieth house, Sel'rue, who controls the massive fields of mushrooms and rothe herds that feed the majority of the massive City of Spiders, Menzoberranzan.

Their matron claimed the house in a controversial move after Freth narrowly failed to destroy them two years earlier in an all-out war.  Previous, Sel'rue occupied a far smaller house in the commons near the West Wall, but a house in the Upper Third should suffer no such disgrace—as either a poor house or a target.

There are 278 drow and 166 slaves attached to Sel'rue working the Donigarten on a daily basis.  Roughly 330 of them have formal combat training and can readily rise to protect the city or their house on a regular basis.

After rocketing to the top third over a botched takeover attempt and a series of disbanded houses whose ranks were never released, House Sel'rue and their Matron seem uncontested, and safely nested within the midranks of the Upper Third.

House Sel'rue controls the entirety of Lake Donigarten and an additional 70 acres of mushroom fields used for their massive rothe herds.  Their house encompasses 240 drow soldiers and servants, 38 nobles, and 166 slaves to tend the massive herds of rothe and their mushrooms.

The specific talents of just certain members is listed below…

Bakers
6
Buckle Makers
4
Doctors
1
Inns
1
Painters
4
Scabbardmakers
3
Weavers
6
Barbers
7
Butchers
5
Fishmongers
2
Jewelers
1
Pastrycooks
2
Sculptors
2
Vintners
5
Bathers
2
Carpenters
3
Furriers
9
Locksmiths
1
Plasterers
3
Shoemakers
2
Woodcarvers
1
Beer-sellers
1
Chandlers
5
Glovemakers
2
Magic Shops
1
Pursemakers
3
Spice Merchants
4
Woodsellers
2
Blacksmiths
4
Butchers
3
Harness-makers
3
Maidservants
11
Roofers
3
Tailors
13
Bleachers
2
Coopers
5
Hatmakers
7
Masons
11
Ropemakers
1
Tanners
2
Bookbinders
1
Copyists
2
Hay Merchants
2
Mercers
5
Rugmakers
2
Taverns
1
Booksellers
1
Cutlers
1
Illuminators
1
Old Clothes
2
Saddlers
1
Watercarriers
4
 

The prodigal son returns, and the house is complete once again.

While the matron is less than pleased, there is plenty of disturbing evidence that there are dangers great enough to warrant his existence.  Rumors of a power from the Lowerdark abound, and there are rumors that something is driving them upward toward the city.

Is it just that he was too clueless to know that the wards would be destroyed in his actions, or was it that he played dumb when we brought it to his attention? To think that he would let Dyan'ette be blamed for this when it was Elgin, is almost interesting enough to set them against one another. An amusing prospect when he returns. 

Having laid eyes on him, I can more convincingly reassure any that ask that he is still alive. That may make things more deadly for him however, so I will keep my recurrences to a minimum, just incase someone is listening. I will admit that I am vexed that he did not just come with us when I approached him, but I suppose I can understand his hesitation, he would assume I was there to kill him, especially given that I came with numbers. Really though, if I wanted him dead I wouldn't have bothered to go myself. 

Valen'rae is suspicious, and perhaps she has right to be, but I will not let it divide us, not yet, not until I'm ready to do what needs to be done. Right now I need to convince her that this is for the best of the family, which she believes, and that this is about us, and not about me. Making moves for myself will make me a target. 

I have plans to travel with Minivrae, we have needs that only the surface can provide and she is still willing to accompany us, so we should ingratiate ourselves. We have time to kill before Dyan'ette returns, and might as well make use of it to establish ourselves in the meantime. Mother has her dealings to handle, which means her eyes will be off of us.

Two-tendays he said, that could turn out to be months given what he may need to go around. It would behoove us to keep an eye on the symbol and track it as he goes, perhaps send raids to clear ahead of his progress. That would be easy enough to do without drawing much attention. 

To pose this to others in a way that doesn't immediately call attention to my drive to see him returned will be a test, but one that I am prepared for. The only question is, will our matron comply with our schemes, or will we take her place? I am sure that is something that will become evident rather immediately. I will turn the whole of our guard on her if necessary. Though, it occurs to me that I should find the blade that way used on her in the attack, it may provide insight on what to use to kill her. Mother is careful, which means there are few things that will readily work. Spells are near useless, but some poisons may be effective, and there is always brute force. 

Perhaps I can dupe Elgin into doing it for us, then we can hand him to our blade-master for justice… hm, that does sound like a lovely idea. Our hands would be relatively speaking, clean, and we would be short a man that has betrayed us for his own gain before. A win, win.

The house wizard learns that the eldest son was innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted.  His absence protects the house even now, as word of his presence would cause death on a wide scale.

The death of the second brother destroyed the wards protecting the house, but the house survived the attack and moved forward into House Freth.  The new house on the Isle of Rothe has many secrets, some of which the daughters plan to take advantage of.

The sojourns with the youngest daughter of House Baenre have bolstered their spirits and gathered them new knowledge, but are they prepared for the real secrets hiding in the Underdark?

Minevre is a capable and steely huntress, and makes plans to escort the coterie toward one of many paths that lead to the World Above.  It is time to experience the world you were never meant to know.

(Written in drow, in a flowing hand.) 

I must admit I am beginning to trust my own council above any other. Valanrae is my twin, but she does not always know my mind. Our mother, loyal to Lolth though she may be, is blinded by anger at a presumed slight. 

I know my brother. Dyan'ette had a true appreciation of our culture and a sincere love for his sister. I know his hand, and I know his mind. It was oft opened to me in the early hours of the morning while the house lay sleeping. I cannot believe such a mind would be turned to treason without some sort of sign. 

I believe in my own council that he was made to behave in such disgraceful manner, these notes were not meant to be read by any but he, and that they showed such conflict that his mind did not posses proves to me that he was not responsible for his actions. Even Lolth would see that he be put back to her uses rather than wasted. 

Were he to be recovered he could provide all the evidence and access that we require to turn Menzoberranzan on its ear. We have time however, we have much time before we can be attacked again, and a means to send one out should the same happen again. A route that I plan to use myself, once I have everything I need to retrieve my Dyan'ette. 

My mother will refuse to see wisdom in this at first, which means I will need reasons a plenty for her to accept my choice. I will need to dedicate him to Lolth, in a way that will allow him his life, and glean all the information he can provide me. 

If I am wrong, then no one will ever know that I tried to return him home, they will know he was traitorous  and that he paid the price for his actions. … Not before telling me everything about those houses that seed corruption. 

Again, I know my brother and I know his mind. It is only one of two ways, either he left these things, knowing that I would find them and read them… possibly laying in wait for a trap. Or, he did not mean to leave them behind and he was interrupted in his progress and fled, when he realized that we had been attacked. The guards saw him flee, which means he was close enough to know we were losing… No, it is as I thought he must have fought against whatever they did to his mind. Poor, weak-minded brother… perhaps when I find you I will find a way to guard you against such things…  

Regardless we have work to do, and mine is most problematic, for convincing my mother, and my dear sister of anything they do not wish is no easy task. 

Base and debauched as can be are the drow, none more so than the masters of Baenre.

The party recognizing the rise of a new house into the Upper Third lasted three solid days, and in the traditions of Lloth there were fights, sex, drugs, and all the putrescence of the Underdark.

Ultimately, the party ended and everyone went home, their bellies full and their minds blunted.  But still the priestesses refused to see that Matron Baenre was looking…. old.  And a priestess bearing the blessing of Lloth should be young, and strong.

The party sent from House Sel'rue to take command of House Freth on the Isle of Rothe in Lake Donigarten has discovered looters occupying the keep.  The powers of the keep, expected to be dispelled by the death of the matron, are still fully functional, but for some strange reason it seems under the sway of the looters.

One of them… must have the means of controlling it.  So the question becomes, "who lived?"

The envoy for House Baenre was in fact from the next house above, and they came with the banner of House Baenre, carried by the weapon master himself, a towering man carrying a trident strapped across his back.

House A'Lavallier offered entreaties of magic and jewels, if in return they agree to starve out House Symryvvin and House Hunzrin in preparation for an attack, their envoy claims.

Meanwhile, House Freth falls, and waits for its new occupiers to make a home of it.

The priestess was near death.

Matron Sel'rue had been attacked suddenly, and she had begun to doubt herself.  It was very likely her house would fall this night, and even if they survived it was more likely her daughter would succeed her.

The assassin raised his knife and slashed at her midsection.  She felt the pain as the blow connected, and her vision began to dim.  He stood above her, and for a moment she lost her nerve and cried out in pain.  He raised the dagger, "Fear not, Lady Sel'rue.  I take no joy in this act, but your house has what my matron has demanded; and what the mighty demand, the weak surrender."

She bowed her head, and he moved next to her side swiftly.  He meant it as a courtesy, she understood, and she was too weak to fight any longer.  Her head was a blur of half-remembered spells and commands, and her vision shrinking to a narrow tunnel was nearly gone.

The sound of death.

It was not as she expected.  Then she realized it was because the sound was not her end.  As she fell under the weight of a body landing on her, she watched her would-be assassin's dagger topple from his grasp and clatter to the floor, a small glass bead at the head of the dagger shattering as a green fluid poured hissing to the ground beside her.

She fell backward as the body was wrenched off her, and she locked eyes with… a goblin.  He stood over her for nearly two hours after binding her wounds, and guarded her until she heard the horns of triumph.  Victory?

Her vision finally failed as she could hear the footfalls of her guards rushing down the hall.  "Mother!"  It was her daughter.  One.  Which?  Two sets of arms—two!  and the same voice calling her back from the darkness.

The goblin waited quietly, having placed the blade back on the floor.  Slaves were never permitted such arms in the presence of the matron, but this creature had just saved her life.  The guards towered over him, waiting for orders as her strength and voice returned.  "Release him."

The guards bowed low and withdrew, and she raised a hand to him.  He toddled over, and she realized that his gait was the only thing about him that reminded her of a child.  "You," she said.  "I remember you now."

"Yes, My Lady," he said quietly.

"How dare you speak in the presence of—"

"Silence," she said quietly, rising to her feet.  "He has all the right, having saved this house and myself personally."  She shook her head in disbelief.  "I do not know how, but this is not the first time this goblin has saved my life.  Arm him, and set him at my daughters' side.  What he has given me, let him now serve them with the same distinction."

And so it was the House Sel'rue defeated its rival, and rose to the Upper Third.

The field of mushrooms was washed in rothe shit and stunk of death.  The bodies of three dead hopefuls lay amidst the remains of dead animals while goblins continued to toil without notice of the spectacle—scurrying of course from the path of anyone of higher station, which was everyone.

Meanwhile the goblin taskmaster keeping them on point flashed his whip frequently, glancing backward cautiously to see whether his matron could see his diligence.  If he failed to impress, he would die, whether at the hands of the hopefuls as a target for practice or the hands of his own slaves if he were sent back among them.

Two sisters came to the fore as the matron of House Sel'rue took interest immediately.  Twins were unheard of.  For one of them to survive to their trials was unlikely.  For both to survive and to test together was nothing short of miraculous.  Still, the two sisters kept to one another's sides, watching with interest as a far higher house tested next.

She stood defiant, leering at the drow male who stood at the gate to the next trial.  He did not stir from her path as she approached, and for a moment she hesitated.  "Stand aside!" she ordered with belligerence dripping from her tongue.

The drow male bowed low, and she could see the flash of a blade under his pifwafwi as he shook his head.  "I am sorry, my noble lady, but I am sworn to guard this path, and I've been given the power to defeat you.  None may pass without my leave."

She blinked at him in utter revulsion and shock.  To think, she needed this male's permission to move to her next trials!  She would remember this face, she knew, and deliver him to death soon enough.  "Very well," she said, her voice still dripping with vitriol, "what will give me your leave?"

"Death," he replied, pointing a finger at her.  Blood began to drip from her mouth, then her nose, and finally her eyes and ears as she began clutching at her face, finally tearing chunks of her flesh from her cheeks as the pressure continued to build… until she fell face forward into the muck and filth of the mushroom field.

The hopefuls looked on in shock.  A fourth death.  A fourth house denied a new priestess.  This one was powerful.  The fourth house, in fact.  Her matron turned her back on her, and nodded to the attendants standing nearby.  They rushed forward and began to remove the various magicks and gifts from her body.  When they had stripped her naked and left her in the dirt, the matron strode quietly away—though a few careful observations might tell that she had tears in her eyes.

The last two stepped forward as one.  If it gave the drow any concern, he did not show it, but stood firm against their path.  "Stand aside," one of them commanded.  Again, his reluctant bow and refusal.  One of them pointed a finger at him, "You are a male.  I do not ask your permission.  Now, stand aside!"

His face contorted into a rictus grin, and his visage faded into a growing, swelling spider body, and a low set of fangs driving from his jaw as his legs stretched out before him.  "Then let the final test be done!" he cried, and scurried into the darkness even as the guards raised their weapons to dispatch him.

The lead matron, Madame Baenre, nodded.  Almost imperceptibly.  Quietly.

But she nodded.

Within the foyer lay whips—the mark of a Priestess of Lloth!

They sneered in victory.  Each whip bore four heads, and as they reached forward the snakes coiled their long spindly bodies about their forearms and hissed their delight.  The two strode back to their matron mother victorious, and the trials ended.  It was a red evening as Sorcere tolled out the setting of the sun in the World Above.  Of six prospects, only two had survived.

House Sel'rue had been identified as a rising house, from a terrible set of trials.

Remember that this is a dark campaign.

Characters may have camaraderie, and they may develop friendships or even relationships, but ultimately the Lawful Neutral defends the letter of the law, the Lawful Evil twists the rules to their favor, the True Neutral is entirely self-serving, and the Neutral Evil defends the tenets of power.

Chaotic characters are unlikely to survive for long in the highly-stratified drow society, but those who do are rewarded with tremendous power if they can rise to the top and overcome their counterparts who seek to keep them in check.

And also remember that you are the twenty-third house.  You have only just beaten and clawed your way into the Upper Third, which means you are now the target of every house beneath you.  There are forty houses beneath you all richly desiring your seat.  It's how no lower house survives for long.

Create two guards (F4) to travel with you at all times, on your own personal payroll (10d12+60gp).  Give them stats consistent with warriors (straight 4d6 rolls, observing racial maximums) and make them demi-human servants.  A step up from the slaves running your mushroom and rothe farms, these servants are loyal, armed, and capable.  Purchase starting equipment for them (3d12+20gp), but no magical items.  They're still only slaves.

The year is 1340.

The surface dwellers call this the Year of the Lion.  I am uncertain what this lion creature is.  I presume it is some noble and proud looking beast whose pelt would as easily adorn my wall as any lizard or other denizen of the night-city.  At the very least I trust it would adorn my bedchambers and warm me as I sleep.

My two daughters are my blessing and curse.  Neither and both at the same time.  There is little use to identify either as the First or Second Daughter.  One would as likely kill the other and leave me less a daughter.  Still, it shall happen one ever-night, and our house shall be diminished.

The ruins of Freth are mine.  The great noble houses were only too pleased to relinquish their hold on this ruin.  Strange that none desired it before now.  Perhaps the rumors of the ghosts that wander its even darker halls have the barest ring of truth.

I've my own ghosts to bury, of course.  The death of my beloved house wizard, at the hands of my own son, are a menace to the rumors of the city.  The local massage parlors and planting circles all speak of our house, of our rise, and of the threat of power unprotected… or unbidden.  Dyan'ette, you will die above the world in the sun-reaches, and you will never look upon our beautiful dark holds again.  You shall never see the spires of Sorcere.  You will never be admitted to the halls of the divine, to take your proper place as a sacrifice to our dear spider-queen.

The spiders dance about our halls.  They sense our growing power.  Is it a sign of the favor of the one true goddess, Lloth?  Time will tell.

The great red wyrm lays dead at your feet, but the spoils of war are not what the party needed or expected.  The baneblade is not here.

The party spends time in the library piecing together a next step and makes a discovery.

Worse, the kender's wanderlust is growing more acute as she enters the next stage of her life.  It's getting harder and harder to keep her in one place for very long, short of nailing her to the floor—which has been suggested.

Tyr, Helm, Mystra. 

Three Temples. 

One direction.

A familiar, a magical journey, a cadre of dark elves destroyed, an encounter with moon dogs.

However it happened, the party has come home with the help of a powerful mage.  Now, it's time to explain what they've been up to for the last four months…

Matias was able to warn the rest of the party still waiting at Phlan, and Valen propelled himself to Candlekeep through use of a Teleport spell, and arrived just as the Drow chose to approach.  Valen was nearly ended, but the party threw themselves into combat with spells surprisingly effective against the dark elves.

Catching up after three months, the party fills in Valen on all that has transpired.

So, it's been a while since I wrote, and let me tell you, everything is weird.  Grr work up…different. He was mad that we worked with the blue dragons.  He said I stank, and since he hasn't really wanted to be friends. He did say though that he's not going to eat me. 

We ended up going places, and we've been traveling for weeks now and ended up in Candle Keep. They had all the stuff, so much information I could explode with all of it! I told them all about dragons though, and where to find the graveyard, but I told them to hide it and how to get to it because it would hurt the dragons if people robbed them.  Hopefully, that will make Grr less mad at me.

Right now we are waterdeep! It's so great! I got a pretty necklace thing and a tiara and all kinds of stuff! Then we went into the tunnel, they made bets on whether we would live and come back — which we will. Down there though, we found some creatures from another plane and we accidentally killed one of them, so we rescued the others and sent them up to the surface for mages to take care of.  Then we spent the night with a group of goblins that have a friend that's a drow… whatever that is. He has this red streak in his hair, which I guess makes him special, but I don't know. Otherwise we are staying put here until we rest, and then we're going to try and get through to the library down here. It should help us figure out who Teronthraxis is and how to stop him. 

The party shopped on Rainrun Street and made a host of excellent acquisitions, in anticipation of their sojourn into the Undermountain.  The alcohol flowed freely as bets were tallied for or against the most recent arrivals' chances.

Hilather Blackcloak was known by another name…  Halaster, the Mad Mage Under the Mountain.  There are rumors that the Baneblades were used in the shattering of the Rod of Law.  There is also the realization that two blades were stolen, and one was kept by the ruling family of the areas surrounding Phlan.

The blades were used to shatter a powerful artifact, and then they were scattered to the four winds, in such a way that they might never be reunited—until a certain party was charged with recovering all of them.

The question… is why.