On Driders

An excerpt from the Book of Arachnea:

It is said the cruelest punishment awaiting drow is not death, but the transformation into a drider, one of the Shunned. That statement is far from wrong. Surface dwellers do not understand what it is like. They treat driders just like they were normal drow, with the same moods, the same behaviors, the same way of thinking. Perhaps even some drow labor under that same false impression.

The worst part is in the beginning. There is no word for how terrible it is to look and see the Flesh-Carver's eyes looking through yours into your soul, no comparison for the horror of feeling the full weight of Lolth's madness even for the briefest instant. It shreds your mind until there are only fragments...the pain does not die for the rest of your life. And when you awake, more often than not you are alone, hurting, and afraid in the darkness of the Underdark with creatures waiting for you to die so they can make a meal of you.

A drider does not realize what has happened, with their mind so broken. The hunger Lolth curses them to always feel eats away at their souls, until even those they loved become nothing more than walking, talking meals. If they can control themselves, then these faces are like demons come to torment them with a past they can hardly remember, a life they can never touch again. Hate begins to burn deep within them—they have been robbed of everything.

They are separated forever from life. They do not feel chilled on a cold winter day, or comfortable before a warm fire. They have lost the ability to appreciate a fine meal. And they can never sleep—instead, they close their eyes in a parody and let their goddess-given nightmares begin a macabre display. Time passes, days stretching into weeks then blend into years. It does not matter to a drider. They cannot die unless their form is destroyed altogether.

In time, they do not remember their past, their name, their life before this wretched existence. They forget how to speak, how to laugh, how to smile. Alone in the dark, they stop feeling altogether, lost in the mad visions they have seen. This is the fate of a drider...

--Xunyl Melani, Reverend Daughter of Lolth, with many contributions from Shria Barrison'Del'Armgo, drider and former Reverend Daughter