Undergrove activities

[maxpolishguy]

Quick OOC Message

I will be posting on her the activites that are done by Ilhar Tanor'Thal and the undergrove. Things that will be included are events, Sermons by Ilhar, religious text and current events related to the undergrove. This is to facilitate more grove RP and get people interested.

[maxpolishguy]

Religious Service in the Hub

The ancient drow was deeply upset when she learned of the absence of services to her Mother, Lolth. The temple was in disarray - no teachings, not sermons - when she went inside to visit, the place looked abandoned.

She'd not stand for this! But was it her place? After all she is no priest, thought she knew the teachings of her Mother by heart. She didn't have any formal training, though she attended these functions before. She has preformed countless rituals within nature... how much different would it be to do such but inside of walled off space instead of the vast expanse of the Underdark?

There was another thing to consider as well, did she in Lolth's eyes have the authority? Ilhar, after all, IS Lolth's most favourite pet. Ilhar - The Mother of the Swarm - has carried Lolth's favour for centuries, but again - is that ENOUGH?

The circumstances, which were in Ilhar's eyes a is desecration of faith, caused such rage - that against better judgement - she embarked on taking up the mantle. She gathered the people of the hub. Many faithful crawled out of the cracks and crevasses of that which is Andunor. The people fashioned an Altar, set it down and she began. Her words were not for Drow only, but all those he were interested in Lolth's teachings:

Children of the Underdark, KNEEL!
The surface-born call us wicked, but they fear what they do not understand. We are not wicked—we are chosen. It is Lolth who gives us vision in the dark. It is Lolth who teaches us power, cunning, and survival. She is no gentle goddess of idle mercy. She is trial. She is truth. She is the whisper behind every betrayal, the strength behind every blade in the dark.

Blessed are the ruthless!
Lolth does not favor the meek. The silk of her web is spun from ambition, and it is sticky with the blood of the weak. You, who claw your way up from the underdark tunnels, who strike down rivals to ascend—you are her true children. Do not weep for your fallen kin. Their corpses are offerings. Their failures are proof they were unworthy. Your rise is her will made manifest.

She spins, and the world dances.
Do not seek order. Do not seek peace. Lolth is chaos incarnate. Her web is tangled by design, and in that tangle lies opportunity. Do not question the strands she places before you—follow them with blade, with spell, with venom. Her ways are cruel, but they are just. She gifts each of us a chance to prove our worth—or to die screaming in the shadows.

And when we die?
Should we fall, impaled upon the obsidian fangs of fate, let our last breath be a curse upon the weak and a prayer to Lolth: "Take me to your webs, O Queen, that I may serve as food and a warning for those who come after me, eternally cunning."

Now rise, Daughters and Sons of the Underdark!
Clad in shadow. Cloaked in venom. Let the surface tremble at your footsteps, and the lesser fall silent at your gaze. For Lolth walks with you, her laughter echoing through your triumphs—and her wrath waiting for your failure.

All glory to Lolth! All glory to the UNDERDARRRK!
May YOUR webs bind the world!

[maxpolishguy]

Ilhar's druidic teachings often draw similarities to Lolth and spiders. While Lolth is not a druidic deity, a some of parallels between the Queen of Spider and the natural world. Some would consider the corruption, while others an evolution of nature. Who is to say?

In her sermons, Ilhar often focuses on the commonalities that bind the whole of underdark together. Each denizen knows of the struggle to survive, the hunger that squeezes their stomach, the not knowing if you will be alive in tenday.

She believes the surface world to be the unbalanced one, made weak by their relative (compared to the underdark) lack of strife. Ilhar is sickened by the cowardice of the surfacers as they hide behind their walled cities - in contrast to mostly tribal societies of hunters and gatherers of goblins, orcs and kobolds of the underdark.

In moments of inspiration she wrote a sermon touching on these subjects. A sermon she has not yet given... (but will!)

Listen, kin of fang and silk.
The surface world calls itself pure—bathed in sunlight, spoiled by wind and rain.
But it is weak.
It is loud, bloated, blind.
Its trees reach skyward in arrogance. Its beasts are tame, soft, chained to men.

They think the dark is death.
But we know better.

The Underdark is not death. It is refinement.
Here, life has earned its breath.
Here, we hunt, not harvest.
Here, we grow not in the sun’s pity—but in the hunger of stone,
the silence of caverns,
the sting of venom.

The surface is gluttonous.
Their druids cry for balance—
but what balance is there when they burn the forests to warm their cities?
What circle do they serve, when they tame wolves and leech off the land like ticks?

I have seen their sky. It blinds.
I have smelled their flowers. They rot.
I have felt their sun. It is a lie—burning without purpose, feeding the weak.

But here? Here, the Web teaches truth.

The spider does not ask. It takes.
It does not negotiate. It waits.
Its gift is patience. Its gospel is hunger.
Its justice is swift, silent, wrapped in silk and devoured whole.

I am the Grand Keeper of this place, not of leaf, but of fang.
Not of blooming petals—but of shrieking spores and pulsing egg sacs.
I do not dance in meadows.
I crawl through roots that strangle.
I whisper to webs spun between the bones of the forgotten.

The surface scorns us. Fears us.

Good.

Their fear is wisdom. Let them cling to their daylight.
Let them forget that even their forests have roots—
and all roots lead down.

One day, their trees will rot.
Their cities will fall.
And from the cracks, WE will rise.
We will walk their roads in silence,
our children swarming over stone and corpse alike.
Not in rage.
But in inevitability.

The cycle does not belong to the sun.
It belongs to the soil,
to the silk,
to the deep.

We are the fangs in the dark.
We are the balance they forgot.
We are the roots that remember.
We -are- the UNDERDARK!

[maxpolishguy]

As druids gathered in their sacred grove, Ilhar lead them in a blessing:

“Lady Talona, Mistress of Disease, I kneel before your rot-blessed altar, humble and eager. With every breath I take, I offer my flesh to your sacred toxins. Grant me your bitter kiss, your festering favor, that I might carry your will across the unclean lands. Let boils rise and fevers burn, that the world may remember your name in every ragged breath and weeping sore. I am your vessel—fill these "tools" she motions to vials, poisonous plants and extracted venoms with your divine corruption, that I may sow your plague as a garden of glorious decay.”

The goddess of plague answered the call - but so did unresting spirits as they were drawn to the holy power bestowed upon them. They attacked the druids preforming the rites - A test to their resolve!

The undead were dispatched and the materials for development of the First Plague of Cordor infused with divine corruption.

Their work has just begun...

[maxpolishguy]

Following is Ilhar's sermons on natural selection and evolution from Lolth follower perspective

"Hear me, children of the Underdark, children of the One True Mother - Lolth, the Weaver of Destiny, the Spider Queen, She Who Spins the World in Webs of Blood and Truth.

Long before the Underdark cradled us in her eternal shadow, there was light. A blinding, false light. The surface elves, our kin by blood but not by spirit, lived beneath the sun like chittering insects, drunk on false peace and cowardly unity. But there was One who saw clearly. One who dared truth. One who whispered the first true word of power: independence.

Lolth, once Araushnee, favored of Corellon, was not cast out for treachery. No - she was betrayed for strength. While the weak clung to order and harmony, she saw the truth: only through struggle does greatness arise. Only through hardship we become refined! The 'sin' they speak of was no sin at all - it was the first rebellion, the first claim of power.

And what did the pale godlings do? They cast Her down. Spurned Her wisdom. Feared Her strength. That, my children, was the First Sin - not Hers, but theirs. The elves turned their backs on the Mother of Ascendency. They chose stagnation over evolution. And so we were sundered from them - not as punishment, but as purification.

Be grateful for that exile. It was our liberation. In the depths, we shed the skin of weakness and clothed ourselves in blades and shadows. We became drow. We became Her chosen. Every betrayal we enact, every rival we cut down, every ambition we claim is a hymn to Her glory.

Remember: the First Sin was a rejection of strength. Never forget it. Never repeat it. Mercy is weakness. Stagnation is death. The web does not bind - it tests. And only those who endure its bite shall rise.

So weave, my children. Weave your webs of power, progress and ambition. For in the end, all things shall hang from Her silk... and She shall feast upon the sunlanders!."