Tome of the Spider Queen

A religious book written by Lloth for the people she created: the drow. It is now the foundational text of Llothism.

Document Structure

Clauses

• Stories of Lloth's divinity (as written by Lloth)
• How to organize the Drow Monarchy and what powers it should hold
• How to organize the Lloth Temple and what powers it should hold
• Commandments for the perfect drow

Historical Details

Background

Lloth wrote this document when she realized that she wouldn't be able to directly control the drow anymore, as the border between the celestial and material planes became harder to traverse. She wanted to leave them with orders on how to organize their society to make it as perfect as she envisioned.

Public Reaction

According to the somewhat exaggerated account of how this Tome was passed to the drow starts with Lloth making a public announcement of her waning presence in the Material Realm. The drow who heard this fell immediately into despair, crying out for their goddess and begging her to stay.
It was then that Lloth presented the Tome of the Spider Queen to her beloved creations, saying that this book would guide them long after she could no longer be physically present with them. She told them to always hold strictly to its tenants and if they did, they would be the most powerful, perfect race in all the realms. 
As the high priestess took the Tome from Lloth, the other drow wept with joy and vowed to remember Lloth's words and keep them holy forever.

Legacy

Without the Tome of the Spider Queen, Lloth certainly would have lost influence over her people long ago.  While most drow outside of the priesthood don't implement Lloth's commandments in their every day life, the Tome is still regarded by as a holy document and the main mechanisms of drow society are organized around it. Every drow child is taught to read using the Tome and every drow household has at least one copy.
There has been some efforts to move away from strict adherence to the Tome in drow government, but these have so far succeeded only in discarding some of the most outdated and arbitrary rules. The Lloth Temple's power, especially its control of education, has ensured that most drow would be extremely uncomfortable if the government deviated from any of the fundamental principles in the Tome.

Read the Document

Tome of the Spider Queen

Lloth Mythology

The first section of the Tome recounts various stories of Lloth, many of which are highly exaggerated or completely made up. Their purpose is to convince the reader that Lloth is a powerful goddess who must be obeyed and to provide various morality tales that can justify later proclamations.
One of the most significant stories provides the only account of how Lloth became half-spider. According to the Tome, a giant spider sacrificed itself to save Lloth's life and, to honor that sacrifice, Lloth cut her body in half at the belly button and sewed the spider's body and legs to herself. This tale is almost certainly untrue, but the only person who could correct the record is Lloth herself and she doesn't seem inclined to do so.
Another key myth involves what happens when a drow dies. A drow's soul is said to be attached to its body by hundreds of spider silk threads that are formed over the course of the drow's life. Lloth's messengers, which are silver spiders, are said to come to a drow immediately after death and unravel the threads holding their soul to their body. The spiders collect the silk and send it to Lloth, who can use it to read the history of that drow's life to determine how worthy they are to be by her side. Lloth then tells her spiders where to put the soul on the Eternal Web and from there, the soul must navigate the web to reach the center, where they will live with Lloth forever.

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Drow Government

In accordance with the Tome, the drow are ruled by both the Lloth Temple and the Monarchy. The Monarchy addresses the drow's physical needs, providing access to food, shelter, water, and every other possible resource for drow who work. Most drow are also employed by the Monarchy.
The Temple controls the drow's intangible needs. It provides basic education for all drow ages 5-22 as well as optional higher education opportunities. The Temple decides on the curriculum, runs the testing, and determines who gets in to higher education. The Temple also determines who gets to have children and monitors how those children are raised.
The Temple and Monarchy share control of the military, with the Temple handling military education and the Monarchy making decisions about how and where to deploy soldiers. The highest position in the military, the Commander, must pledge their allegiance to both the Queen and the High Priestess.
The two branches also share control of lawmaking, but since the Monarchy only gets two votes on a seven-member council, the Monarchy cannot really influence the laws unless it gets support from at least some members of the Temple.

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The Commandments

Lloth's greatest obsession was creating the perfect society and she believed that that started with creating the perfect people. To that end, she laid out a number of commandments that she expected individual drow to follow in their every day life. If any drow couldn't follow these, then Lloth viewed them as somehow inherently flawed.
Most of the commandments are vague, such as the commandment to "strive for physical and mental perfection" and to "honor those above you in rank."¹ Others are incredibly specific, such as the commandment that women should never wear rings on their hands and that men can never grow their hair past their shoulders.
Lloth also has a lot of commandments related to colors. She forbids drow from wearing green clothing, requires her priestesses to wear black and gray, and forbids anyone except the Queen from wearing blue. The Web Keepers are the only priestesses allowed to wear colors while representing the Temple, in which case they wear shades of purple.
In modern times, a number of the commandments have been given less emphasis or interpreted more loosely. For instance, drow do wear green, but only as an accessory like a scarf or belt. In addition, the Queen is the only one who wears a very specific shade of bright blue, but other drow may wear darker shades.
That said, a drow that plans to petition the Temple to have a child must demonstrate strict compliance with all of the commandments for at least six months prior to the application.

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^{1 These vague commandments have been translated into more concrete requirements by the Temple. For example, the Temple restricts what fabrics drow can wear based on their rank in society. This is justified as "honoring" those of high rank by allowing them exclusive access to rare clothes, but in practice, it reinforces the extremely hierarchical nature of drow society by providing a way to immediately determine the rank of the person you're speaking to.}

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Type

Text, Religious

Medium

Organic

Authoring Date

2043 BT

Expiration Date

None, still in effect today