The Banishment of Lolth
According to the myths of the surface Elves, Lolth was once an elven goddess of weavers and destiny known as Megwandir or Araushnee, and her worshippers produced the best silk in the multiverse. After trying to usurp the throne of Corellon Larethian, she was transformed into a demon and cast into the Abyss. There, she slowly regained her lost divinity by corrupting the dark elves.
The Drow consider this myth blasphemous; their goddess was always supreme, and never bowed before another deity. She was always Lolth, and names like "Megwandir" or "Araushnee" are fictions invented by the light elves.
In this Drow myth, Lolth, "strongest and wisest" of the elven gods, approached Corellon Larethian and suggested that he help her convince the other elven deities to "spread wisdom and skill" among the Elves in order that they could dominate the "lesser races". Corellon agreed, but betrayed her in the end, arguing instead that the Elves should remain exactly as they were rather than being reduced to the level of "these new beasts".
Furious, Lolth visited the strongest and most skilled of the mortal elves in secret, cloaked in darkness and night, teaching them the arts of weapons, deception, magic, and survival. These chosen Elves named themselves duaral, a word meaning "Hunters of the Crescent Moon." This word eventually became the modern word Drow.
When traitors among the duaral revealed their secret training to the other elven gods, they were terrified that Lolth's chosen might come to dominate elven culture. To prevent this from happening, Corellon led the other Elves into war, and the gods marked the skin of the duaral with darkness so that they would be easy for the other Elves to distinguish from their own. Though the duaral were more skilled, the Elves were more numerous, and ultimately the duaral retreated beneath the world, where their enemies were too cowardly to follow. There, they thrived.
A variant of the "expulsion from the surface world" myth, that is more popular among the Drow, is that there was no war between Lolth's followers and the mewling servants of the other elven gods. Instead, Lolth led her chosen away in the dead of night, marking them herself so that they could better blend with the darkness. She chose kingdoms for them under the surface lands where they could rule without distractions from their weakling cousins.
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