Queen of the Spiders

Setting: Greyhawk / Underdark / Demonweb Pits Unlock: Complete Against the Giants Difficulty: 1.50× Part 5 of 5 — The Greyhawk Arc

The thread that started in a village inn east of Hommlet ends here.

The giant raids were a mapping exercise. The Slave Lords were a supply network. The Temple of Elemental Evil was a distraction and a test. All of it — every piece the party has touched since the moathouse — was infrastructure for a plan that has been running for longer than the party has been alive.

The Demonweb Pits are not a place that surface-dwellers go to. The party is going anyway.

Unlock Requirement

Complete Against the Giants before attempting this campaign. Use !campaign queen-of-the-spiders to begin.

Stages

Five stages descend through the Underdark and into something that is not quite a place — the Underdark roads, the city of the drow, the Fane of Lolth, the entrance to the Demonweb, and the Demonweb Pits themselves.

The campaign follows the standard named campaign structure — rest shrines between stages, Brother Yvannis appearing at stage 3, and a party vote at the end to determine the outcome.

The Boss

Lolth, Demon Queen of Spiders, waits at stage 5. She is not a monster in a pit. She is a presence — vast, patient, and completely aware of everything the party has done since the moathouse east of Hommlet. The fight that follows is not a standard boss fight.

Come prepared. Come in at full HP. The rest shrines are real — use every one of them.

Endings

After the boss is defeated, surviving participants vote on how the campaign ends. There are four possible outcomes. Each carries a persistent consequence that follows players into future campaigns. What Lolth knows — and what she is willing to tell — depends entirely on what the party chooses.

Stage Milestone Titles

Reaching each stage earns a permanent title regardless of the final outcome.

Clear Title

All survivors of a full clear earn a unique title for having entered the Demonweb Pits and come back out.

Arc Completion Title

Completing all five campaigns in the Greyhawk Arc — from The Village of Hommlet to Queen of the Spiders — awards a unique arc completion title to all survivors:

[Who Walked the Greyhawk Arc]

This title is awarded once and cannot be earned again.

Artifact

A unique artifact drops to a random survivor on full clear. It is something taken from the Demonweb itself. It does not age. It does not decay. It holds tension that has nothing to do with its physical properties.

TIP

ℹ️ This is the hardest campaign in the Greyhawk Arc. Difficulty is 1.50× — the same as The Lich King of Thay. The boss fight has mechanics that do not appear in any other campaign. Heal at every shrine. Enter stage 5 at full HP.

WARNING

⚠️ The Greyhawk Arc ends here. What the party chooses in the vote determines what they carry out of the Demonweb — and what follows them afterward. The consequences of this campaign are the heaviest in the arc.