Cult of the Spider Queen

The story of the Spider Queen’s cult in the Land of Mists began when three drows were engulfed by mists into the demiplane of dread. Contact between the Drow and the Shadow Fey occurred in the year 577 BC, deep underground in Arak.
For the immortal shadow fey, the existence of the Gods is not disputed, but neither is it appealing. These people have lived for countless years abandoned by any deity and enslaved in the Shadowfell, and do not face their own mortality or the value of the promise of an afterlife conditioned on divine worship. Despite this resistance to the divine call, the Drow’s claims of the deity Lolth struck home to the most depraved and cruel of the faeries among the Arak. Total freedom to pursue their own selfish pleasures appealed to the evilest instincts of immortals bored with their existence, and many shadow fey converted to this creed.
Before long, they found that this alteration in their conviction and belief would also take its toll on their bodies, and their faerie forms were transformed into Zeldrow, becoming very similar to the very Drow who had converted them. Among these worshipers was Tristessa, a sith of the Unseelie court, who became an ardent worshiper of the Spider Queen. Shortly after absorbing the knowledge of the Drow, she slew them to become the High Priestess of this faith.
The cult drew worshipers primarily from among the Unseelie Court, and Prince Loht felt threatened by the cult’s growing power. He suppressed the cult in Arak, and was opposed by its cultists, but the clash between these force was limited by the Law of Arak, which prevents a shadow fey from murdering another member of their race.
In the midst of this conflict, Tristessa discovered that she was pregnant, even though she had not slept with any other fey. She believed that this child was a gift from her Goddess, although many accused her of having lain with evil forces and demonic entities. 
When the child was born, it was an aberration with spider legs. The cultists saw these deformities as a sign of the Spider Queen’s disfavor. Tristessa was firm in her conviction that her child was perfect and a sign of the goddess. Loht took advantage of this division among the cultists to strike a clear blow against his enemies. Arak’s Law was broken, and Tristessa and her baby were murdered after she was impaled and left to receive the lethal rays of the surface sun.
The death of Tristessa’s body did not lead to the destruction of her essence, and she became a powerful Banshee and the Darklord of the wastelands of Keening.
One of Prince Loht’s most loyal servants took the blame for the heinous crime of murdering an immortal fey and violating Arak’s law. The blow weakened but did not destroy the Spider Queen’s cult.
The shadow fey Courts have suppressed this cult in the Shadow Rift, and exiled and isolated the shadow fey who turn into Zeldrow, but this has only increased their devotion and madness in the worship of their evil Goddess.

Exceprt from Weathermay's Survival Guide to the Mists

Founding Date

577 BC