I came up with this while sitting in the library earlier today. I hope folks like it. Two quick things 1) the early part of the text fits with my post from the Changes to the Planes thread, just to give some reference. 2) I have create a little advanced tech in the post, but I hope its acceptable for the setting. Anyways, enjoy!
___________________________________________________
During Ragnorok, Lolth, the spider queen, like all other powers, somehow ended up on the primes as a mortal. But unlike most other powers, she didnt die there, she returned......
Lolth, using the wild magic surge reclaimed her divinity. Doing so restored Lolth to her former self, somewhat. She has since appeared as an ebony skinned elf of great beauty and splendour.
She did alter the demonwebs a little, but still has a love of spiders. However, she now hates Driders – including the remaining ‘mortal’ powers of the drow pantheon. So she invests new proxies and sends them out to hunt down and destroy Driders! Some Driders escape this purge and have hated Lolth and the drow ever since. A Drider god does exist, its bloated form even more gruesome that the former Spider Queens.
A major effect of Lolths restoration is that the Drow, who before Ragnorok had truly begun, had already made great massacres of many elven lands, faired better than most mortal races, their clerical magics were returned and proved more stable than other forms of magic, and cleansed many surface worlds of their surface kindred. However, their mastery of the surface worlds would not last, as with the skies clearing, they found the light of the now brightly shining suns not too their taste, so they retreated into darker places, the underdark, thick forests etc. With their retreat into the underdark, the Drow found that their old practices which made life in the underdark possible now faced uncertainty and sporadic dangerous side effects. So the Drow abandoned the study of arcane magics and sort mundane means of surviving their dark world.
Eventually, this lead to the development of one of the most technically competent races. Many drow males suffered heavily after Ragnorok, as their arcane practices were almost completely useless and with the abandonment of arcane magic, they turned their great intellects to technological artifice. Drow may not field the most advanced technology in the multiverse, but it is the most reliable and drow understand how to use it better than most. As befits the Drow, their technology is primary focused on warfare and survival. Many demon princes petition Lolth in the demonwebs, asking for her aid in their continuing blood war, asking for weapons, troops, but Loth rarely gives more than the merest gifts. It is widely known that many Demon princes would like nothing better than to ransack the demonwebs and pillage all of its military hardware for themselves, but the Drow know their trade well.
One of the few truly advanced pieces of technology that the Drow field is the short ranged Web Rifle. It fires a web of monowire at its target, ensnaring it, then constricting in upon itself, cutting the unfortunate victim to pieces in the process. Any struggling merely quickens the victim’s death. Only veteran troops are issued these weapons. Priestesses often attire themselves with a smaller version of the weapon, the web pistol, which functions much the same. Any individuals that let these weapons fall into enemy hands are dealt with quickly and harshly. It is rumoured that the Loths of Hades are offering a very large sum of credits to anyone that can acquire one of these weapons intact. Of course, the Loths deny such claims. One of the weapons features to prevent it falling into the wrong hands is that its ammunition, the monowire, is highly flammable and when packed density (like in the weapon’s clip), it can be explosive. The clips are therefore shielded against excessive heat (the weapon gives off little to no heat, useful against underdark predators that see within the ultra-red range), but the grip of the weapon contains a bioscanner, which if a non-Drow girps the weapons, triggers a spark within the clip and firing mechanism, resulting in a small explosive, the equivalent of an anti-personal mine detonation, destroying the weapon. Very few non drow even realise this features exists. When the elite patrol teams are issues with Web Rifles, and expect predator encounters, they are also equipped with heat dampening armour, to reduce their own heat signatures. The ammunition’s flammable properties have also lead to a favoured assassination method among Drow special operatives. The victim is caught within the webs, then the drow ignites the monowire (techniques vary), burning the victim’s internal organs and causing massive collateral damage to the victim and removing any remnant of the monowire from the corpse. This leaves very little direct evidence against any drow within the local area, even if police forces recognize the assassination technique.
___________________________________________________
So if some of that seems short-hand style, but I was writing it as it came into my head and just needed to get it down. If people like and approave of it for UPS, then i'll write it up properly
Kal
A+