Clawborn Sorrow

In the Night Below set, WOTC came out with a new monster called the Clawborn Sorrow. I didn't really know what to do with it because it is an Eberron monster. It looks like a cross between a drow and a giant scorpion.

WOTC has really made driders seem like being punished by Lolth for failing her test is more of a blessing than a curse, and then they come out with this thing. I don't really think Lolth's touch is going to bestow scorpion traits when she is the spider queen.

A few couple months before Night Below came out I picked up two minis from ages back (can't remember the company) that I thought I was going to use for Tlincali...but the Tlincali, the Scorpion Man, and the Clawborn Sorrow are all three very distinctly different variations on the same scorpion theme. Tlincali don't have the fore claws, but have human hands. Scorpion Men have human arms and scorption claws. Clawborn Sorrows have no arms, do have scorpion claws, and have drow features instead of human.
These guys were clearly more like the clawborn sorrow than the other scorpion-ish creatures, though they are bald. I painted them up like the clawborn sorrow put out by WOTC.

What is their ecology in my Realms? Good question. I looked at this site, Descent into Darkness, which has developed a lot of information on drow religion.

I've made Lolth's son, Vhaeraun, the patron not only of drow males, but also all those whom Lolth has cast out. In my world there are three types of driders--I won't go into my rant about that--because there are three types of drider minis available. In the original materials, all driders became warriors and lacked any secondary sex characteristics as part of their punishment by Lolth. Because D&D is marketed primarily to teen-age boys and they like nothing so much as boobs, driders started being made with breasts. So, in my world warriors, wizards, and priestesses can all fail Lolth's test and retain their secondary sex characteristics.

Priestesses of Lolth are no longer in her favor, so she wouldn't grant them their spells...but loving the delicious irony of it all, Vhaeraun grants the spells to the fallen priestess and forces them to worship him if they wish to continue casting spells.

The warriors who fail become traditional driders. When they have shown exemplary service to Vhaeraun, he rewards them by transforming them into Clawborn Sorrows. Further exemplary service will result in complete restoration to drow male form and these drow males are his most elite followers.

Or, anyway, that's how it works in my world.

Lolth, as she is supposed to look...

Well, if you've been reading this blog for a while, you know I have a burr up my butt about current deptictions of Lolth as a drider.

It ain't right, because driders are the unfavored of Lolth, so she would not logically transform her unfavored ones into her likeness. You can read the long rant about that in the other post.

I'd been using the head you see here on a Ral Partha Giant Black Widow miniature for years as my "proper" Lolth, but the body was too small and it wasn't very scary.

I recently got a second Reaper Miniatures Labith: Female Spider Centaur and used the body from that for my Lolth body. I didn't think the legs looked scary enough for Lolth, though, because they were very thick and not enough like a black widow.

Since I had legs left over from the Giant Scorpion I'd used to make the Aboleth, I tried using them. They worked really well, but I had to do some clipping, bending and filling in with green stuff to get them to both fit in the leg sockets and support the weight of the miniature. Then I broke the Frost Giantess head off the old Lolth and glued it on the new body. I think it looks fantastic. Very evil, very cruel, and very Lolth-like.

Aspects of Lolth shouldn't look like a drider!

This is a longstanding gripe of mine. Nobody has released a good figure of Lolth, ever, to my knowledge. What constitutes good? Something reasonably accurate to the descriptions of her in the original 1st edition products.

Lolth appears as a drow of unparalleled beauty and cruelty, as a giant black widow with the head and face of a drow, and as a giant black widow spider without human head. The cover art of the old Demonweb Pits modules show the drow head on top of spider eyes, which is icky. I don't really want that, either.

At any rate, my beef with current depictions of her is that she looks like a drider. For example, the cover art of Queen of the Demonweb Pits by Paul Kid. Ick again.

The drider is a transformed drow who has displeased Lolth and fallen out of her favor. There can be no greater display of favor of a god than to transform something into their own image. Hence, it is impossible for me to concieve of these drider-like Lolth's as anything approaching her actual avatar, because only that which is favored by her would look like her.

If someone can give me an explanation why my line of reasoning is faulty, I'd appreciate it...but not as much as I'd appreciate having someone do an actual, accurate Lolth...especially if it was a boxed set with all three of her forms.

Until then I'll have to make due with the Ral Partha giant black widow with a Grenadier Frost Giantess head I glued to it. It isn't perfect, but it is better than one of these female drider versions.

Actually, what I'll probably do since the Ral Partha giant black widow body is disproportionally small compared to the head, is break the head off and glue the head directly to the body of the 03085 : Labith, Female Spider Centaur by Reaper Miniatures (their own contribution to the non-Lolthy Loths).

I think that will hold me over until someone does an actual Lolth to my satisfaction. I'll post my version when finished.

The old rule books don't draw a distinction in appearance between drider wizards and priests, and don't mention warriors at all. This from the Monstrous Compendium:

All driders are able to cast the spells that normal drow can use once per day. Driders also retain the magical or clerical abilities they possessed before their weird transformation. A majority of driders (60%) were priests of 6th or 7th level before they were changed. (Remember that drow priests, and therefore driders that were priests, can also use clairvoyance, detect lie, suggestion, and dispel magic once per day.) All other driders were once mages of 6th, 7th, or 8th level.

And yet, nearly every drider picture and miniature has them decked out like warriors and not priests or wizards. And there are no drow priests, only priestesses. Well, it just isn't tidy.

They also seem to indicate that secondary sex traits disappear during the tranformation to drider, leaving all driders sexless and the only possible avenue for more driders is the more drow failing Lolth's test. You can get more information on driders from the Monster Manual II, page 60, the Monstrous Compendium, Volume 2 under Elf, Drow. There is also a section in the Drow of the Underdark, pp. 9-12. There is also a good article on driders in the January 1988 issue of Dragon Magazine, Entering the Drider's Web: What happens after a drow fails Lolth's test. None of these sources give any indication that driders look like Lolth, that she would like looking like a drider, or that driders have any secondary sex characteristics.

But, with 3rd Edition, we get driders with boobs and Lolth with a torso and two arms (and, yes, boobs) everywhere drow items are sold. Even untidier. Something had to be done, and I'm the only OC/ADHD guy I know who can do it to my satisfaction.

Because I can't not buy the miniatures, and if I have them, I have to use them somehow in my campaign...here is my break down of drider kind:

First of all, driders now retain the same secondary sex characteristics they had as drow, however these creatures are sterile and have no interest in copulation. As it says in Drow of the Underdark, "Lolth wants their existence to be a series of torments, not to create a race of enemies for the drow."
The old, original drider miniatures by Grenadier are the standard drider. These are promising drow male warriors who failed the test. Any drider figure which appears to be male and carries a weapon is this type of drider.

I think this is a RAFM miniature, possibly from the Cthulhu line, but could be Ral Partha. At any rate, it is clearly a drider-ish creature without boobs or weapons, so I am using it as the result of a drow male wizard who failed the test of Lolth. I call these "Draeders" in my world. Eventually I'll post a complete description of the drader here, but now is not the time.

Lastly, the driders with boobs.

This is that Reaper Mini I mentioned earlier, which is a nice female drider. All female driders in my world become "Drauders." Now, there is only one untidy little detail left, which NONE of the rule books address.

Drow priestesses are granted their spell casting ability by Lolth. If these priestesses have been turned into driders by failing Lolth's test and falling out of her favor, why is she still granting them spells? I am not satisfied with the answer that she does it because she is chaotic. That doesn't wash.

The Spider Queen loves chaos, yes, but as one of the cruelest dieties in the pantheon, I think she loves punishments even more.

I haven't decided yet who might be granting their clerical spells, but I am convinced it is not Lolth herself. I am currently leaning toward driders of all three types in my world being under the (grudging) protection and care of Lolth's son, Vhaeraun. And though he hates the priestesses of his mother, he delights in forcing these fallen priestesses to worship him instead of her, which they do because he is the only power which will accept their worship and grant themm their spells. (You can find more information on Vhaeraun by scrying through Google)

Some of these female driders, or Drauders, do refuse to worship him and give up the use of their clerical abilities entirely, opting instead to learning the warrior's art. They are not particularly good at it, having had no prior training and being new to their drider forms, and so do not tend to last very long in the perilous Underdark.

And that, my dears, is Shandar's Monstrology lesson for the day. I think this is logical attempt to deal with the inconsistencies created by WOTC 3rd edition art (which, admittedly, builds on the inconsistencies of TSR sourceworks). A kind of "unified theory of the drider" if you will.

It works for me, anyway, and if it works for you, feel free to use it. If you have an argument against this line of thinking, please leave me a comment. I'd like to consider it, but better be stronger than just "third edition is better, so just do that you old fogey."