Following their sojourn in the Demonweb
pits, any of several fates may await the PCs,
depending on the results of their attempts.

A. The characters perish in the Demonweb
pits.

Should the characters die in their battle
with Lolth, they obviously fail in their supposed
mission to track down and defeat the
source of the evil in Sterich. Lolth will succeed
in weaving her bridge between her abysmal
<dimensions> and Oerth, with the following effects:

The black bubble that has engulfed Istivin
becomes transparent 1- 10 days after Lolth
weaves the gateway between the worlds. Individuals
may MOVE freely between the inside
&& outside of the bubble.

The interior of the bubble is lit by a dim, violet
light, regardless of day && time. Creatures
affected by sunlight are then able to
come and go without ill effect.

The native populace of Istivin is gone, enslaved
by Lolth’s forces and either moved to
another world or the Abyss, or given as gifts to
those houses in the Vault of the Drow loyal to
Lolth.

A silvery gateway, similar to those that link
Lolth’s Demonweb with the other <dimensions>, appears
in the audience chambers of the Earl’s
citadel. This silvery gateway only allows those
to pass through that have previously passed
out of the Demonweb, keeping invaders out.
The portal’s location on the Demonweb is just
to the right of the portal to Lolth’s spider-ship.
The only way to Lolth’s plane is through
the gate in the Fane of Lolth.

Lolth’s spider-ship returns to Her <dimension>,
filled with the swag looted from Istivin, including
the nation’s ruler (His Magnitude,
Earl Querchard) kept as a personal minstrel.

Those entering the dark bubble that surrounds
Sterich find a blasted land filled with
servants of Lolth---spiders, drow, bugbears,
driders, shadows, vampires, and undead.
These forces suffer no disadvantage under the
dome, and in addition, the lack of light makes
the AREA a haven for evil human and humanoid
troops (including euroz, jebli, and of
course the jotun), who flock down into
Sterich is search of plunder. Only a heavily
armed force would be able to reach the Citadel
of Istivin.

The bubble continues to grow over time, at
a rate of 1 mile per week, so that in a year the
bubble will expand 2 hexes in all directions.
Lands that come under the sway of the dark
hemisphere are pillaged by the forces within,
who rarely venture beyond the bubble’s expanding
limits.

The above situation continues until Lolth is
SLAIN, and her hold over Her ship, Her <dimensions>,
and the gateways into other worlds is totally
broken. Players who want their characters
(presumably new ones) to go after Lolth again
must pass through the open gate at the Vault
of the Drow.

Should the surviving PCs in
the campaign seek to avoid Sterich, Lolth, and
her conquests like the plague itself, the situation
will continue, w| Keoland troops trying
to keep order in the AREA, for 2 game years.
By THE END of that time, opposing forces of
good (both lawful && chaotic), powerful
druids, and even (secretly) followers of Iuz the
Old will band together and, wielding powerful
magicks and invoking great powers, drive
Lolth’s creation from Oerth. Of course, following
the destruction of Lolth’s magick (leaving
Lolth herself snug <in Her dimensions> and
unharmed in this case), the land will remain a
blackened, burned land, ripe for bandit-kings
and petty tyrants to assert their rule.

B. The characters defeat Lolth, but she escapes
through 1 of her mirrors.

When Lolth passes through 1 of Her mirrors,
she is abandoning NOT only her spidership,
but the Demonweb itself. Both begin to
break up, returning to the elemental Chaos of
that particular <dimension>, with the portals sealed
off and Lolth’s armies <in the other dimensions> cut
off from further reinforcement.

Lolth has prepared a bolt-hole in another
<dimension> of The Abyss, ruled by another demon
lord who in the past became indebted to Her
(choose 1 of the many such evil creatures set
forth in the MM or MM2).
Once there, of course, her demonic rescuer
will NOT hesitate to pay her back for all
slights real and imagined incurred upon Him
over the millenium. Lolth is reduced to a miserable
status, and plots Her revenge against
those that brought her low. She does, however,
eventually return to rule her own <dimension in> The Abyss, such as it is--a mass of total
Chaos, requiring years of toil before regaining
any sort of status.

The characters who defeated but did not kill
Lolth will, starting about 6 months after the adventure,
have 1 encounter a month that is
Lolth-related. These will not be major encounters,
as Lolth’s power is greatly reduced, but are
sufficient to indicate that the demoness holds a
warm spot in Her heart for the characters. Examples
include the following.

An outdoor evening encounter is a hunting
pack of 12 huge (wolf) spiders.

A Type I Demon suddenly appears at the
character’s inn, teleporting <without error> onto the dining
table in the middle of dinner.

A drow | hunting party (patrol, either all drow
|or| mixed, tries to kidnap members of the
group. The party has been sent by the houses
of Kilsek, Noquar, and Despana, whose <link to Houses>
power has been weakened by the flight of the
Spider Queen and seek to restore their (temporal)
power by offering the offender up as
sacrifice in <the Great Fane of the Egg of Lolth.>

A box arrives for 1 of the PCs,
containing 5 live black widow spiders
(hp 1, AC 10, poisonous).

A character is victim of a human agent of
the drow, a <wizard> |or| <priest> assigned to tail
the group and CAST malefic spells on them
(curse, cause disease, poison) without engaging
in open conflict.

This type of behavior continues for 10
years, or until the characters (or Lolth) are
SLAIN.

C. Lolth is SLAIN <in> Her home <dimension>.
If Lolth is killed in the final encounter with
the PCs, the ship and Demonweb break up as
noted above, and the gateways to the various
<dimensions> (including the passage from the Great
Fane in the Vault of the Drow) are severed.
Lolth loses her title to <3 dimensions ov>The Abyss,
and Her soul is lost in its Chaos. Perhaps She
can ESCAPE, weeks or centuries later, but with
the status of a mere Demi-goddess (at best),
rather than Lesser. It will be a long time indeed
before She regains any sort of position of
real power in the demonic hierarchy.

In the Vault of the Drow, Eclavdra and
house Eilserv easily reduce the power of the
other rival houses, as the <priestessa> of Lolth regain
no spells of 3rd or higher level. The conflict
leaves house Eilserv greatly weakened, and it
will be some time before Eclavdra and her Elder
Elemental God gather sufficient power to
challenge the people of the kingdoms bordering
the mountains.

Sterich will be unharmed by its time under
the impassable dome, for its wise and just
ruler has let cooler heads prevail, and with
Lolth’s death Her plan to invade the AREA dissolves
like dew on a spider’s web. The Mage
from Keoland, Lashton, takes full credit for
the safe recovery, but the wiser sages (such as
Algorthas and Randos) know who is truly responsible
for the defeat of Lolth’s schemes,
and are well-disposed to the characters in the
future--perhaps to the point of calling attention
to the fact when King Kimbertos Skotti
of Keoland is seeking to assign new lands to
adventurers willing to tame the wilderness.

Here ends the adventure GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders.