Demonweb Pits
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The Demonweb Pits, also called Lolth's Web or the Demonweb, is the 66th layer of the chaotic evil-aligned plane of existence known as the Infinite Layers of the Abyss.
Description
The layer is the home of evil drow deity Lolth, her consort Keptolo, and her champion Selvetarm. The plane resembles a giant spiderweb across space, formed from strands of interwoven planar matter. Lolth's palace is a giant iron stronghold stylized in the shape of a spider that crawls across the web strands of the plane.
The 1980 first-Edition AD&D adventure Queen of the Demonweb Pits describes the Demonweb Pits as an environment quite unlike the Material Plane, stating that many magical spells and effects do not function as expected here. The web strands themselves are reported to be composed from the lost souls of the Abyss, surrounded by a grey foul-smelling fog above and to the sides of each strand, forming a tunnel-like structure.
Structure
The Demonweb Pits contain portals to a variety of other worlds and planes, including a cloud world, a tundra, a jungle, a savanna, a woodlands, and a more conventional fantasy world. The Demonweb is accessible from the first layer of the Abyss, Pazunia, through a dark pit.
Other destinations of the gates in the Demonweb Pits include:
- The Black Fen
- Caer Sidi
- Celene
- Erelhei-Cinlu
- The Frozen Lands
- The Great Ocean
- Guldor
- Iron Wastes
- Istivin
- Lolth's Prison
- Nightworld of Vlad Tolenkov
- Red Forest
- Spiral Desert
- Truegard
- Ulgurshek
Publishing history
The Demonweb was first introduced in David C. Sutherland III's 1980 adventure Queen of the Demonweb Pits, which was reprinted as part of the Queen of the Spiders superadventure. The setting was visited again in the 1988 adventure The Throne of Bloodstone and in the 1997 adventure Dead Gods, where the player characters travel through it on the way to the Vault of the Drow (reversing the route taken in the original adventure). It was remapped and expanded in the 2001 Dungeon Magazine adventure "The Harrowing," and the various sources compiled and expanded in Fiendish Codex I (2006) and expanded still further in Expedition of the Demonweb Pits (2007).
Lolth and Selvetarm were described in great detail in the 1998 Forgotten Realms product Demihuman Deities, though there is no significant information on the Demonweb itself there.
References
Citations
Bibliography
- Baur, Wolfgang, and Gwendolyn Kestral. Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2007.
- Boyd, Eric L. Demihuman Deities. Renton, WA: TSR, 1998.
- Cook, Monte. Dead Gods. Renton, WA: TSR, 1997.
- ———. "The Harrowing." Dungeon #84. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2001.
- Dobson, Michael, and Douglas Niles. The Throne of Bloodstone. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1988.
- Grubb, Jeff, Bruce R. Cordell, and David Noonan. Manual of the Planes. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2001.
- Jacobs, James, Erik Mona, and Ed Stark. Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2006.
- Moore, Roger E. "Gates in the World of Greyhawk." Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1995. Originally appeared in TSR's America Online folder, later moved to its website. Available online:[1]
- Sutherland III, David C, and Gygax, Gary.. Queen of the Demonweb Pits. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1980.
Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index
The Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index (EGI) is based on previous work of Jason Zavoda through '08, continued by numerous other fans. The EGI article has a list of sources, product names, abbreviations, and a link to the full, downloadable index.
| Topic | Type | Description | Product | Page/Card/Image
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amulet of the Demonweb Pits | Item | Artifact, | Epic Level Handbook, D&D 3.0 | 307 |
| Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits | Adventure | Located in: Abyss, | D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth | 1 |
| Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits | Adventure | Located in: Abyss, | D3 Vault of the Drow (adventure) | 20 |
| Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits | Adventure | Located in: Abyss, | Deities & Demigods (1st & 2nd printing), AD&D 1e | 107 |
| Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits | Adventure | Located in: Abyss, | Deities & Demigods (3rd+ printing), AD&D 1e | 92 |
| Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits | Adventure | Located in: Abyss, | From the Ashes: Atlas of the Flanaess | 72 |
| Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits | Adventure | Located in: Abyss, | World of Greyhawk boxed set (1983) | 30 |