Spider Queen necklace

The Spider Queen necklace is a holy object of the drow in the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign. The dwarven High King told Kemp Corvus, Sarah and Ephorus that it had been taken from the neck of a drow matron during an old campaign below the earth, fought together with the Empire. His priests say that in a past war the Spider Queen herself, in disguise, wore it for a while, and the king believed that winning it back would bring a drow house great honour; he thought it one of the main aims of the drow attack on his realm.¹

It is a stone on a black chain, with sharp spider legs that seem ready to sink into the wearer's breast.²

In dwarven keeping

By the king's account, a friendly drow had brought the necklace to the dwarves for safekeeping, and it was hidden outside the capital. Even in a box, only drow could carry it, and attempts to cleanse it had failed. He asked Ephorus to bring it secretly to a safer place in the heart of his realm, under the cover of an ordinary errand for a general; when the companions accepted, he told them they would have it only over his dead body if they meant to keep it. They talked over what it might do to Ephorus, the difference between carrying it and wearing it, and the risk of drawing a god's attention.^{3 4 5 6}

In a vision a woman whom Ephorus later named as his grandmother, the matron of his house, demanded the necklace of him; she called it a religious object without magical power.^{7 8}

The plundered vault

The companions found it in a looted part of the tunnels, behind cut iron bars in a store-room, under a glass dome beside five dead bodies. A vision of the past showed some twelve to fifteen looters, two of them drow, gathering valuables until one of them lifted the dome; smoke or gas poured out and they died. Ephorus took up the necklace meaning to bring it to the dwarves and was not harmed; he felt as though it had recognised him or weighed his intent.^{9 10 11}

Back before the king, the companions showed the necklace and told of the deadly gas. The king did not take it into his own hands but kept Ephorus at his side while the matter was studied.¹²

The will within

As the battle for the dwarven city went on, the necklace pressed ever harder on Ephorus. He asked to have his hands cuffed before him; dizziness and ringing in his ears grew, and one who examined him saw it filling like an hourglass. His senses slipped elsewhere and he felt the necklace's will: not the matron's voice, but something that wanted the dwarves to kill him so that his death would set it free. A companion went to tell the king, and Ephorus, finding words again, cried out for help.^{13 14 15 16 17}

After the battle it was thought that the necklace might have lost its power, but no one chose to touch it again. It was shut in boxes one inside another and carried down beneath the fortress.^{18 19}

Spoiler: The truth about the necklaceRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #44; Sürgün Günlükleri #45 · Say what you have read

The companions suspected that the affair had ended too easily. An imperial spymaster then told them that the necklace had been used to draw the drow up from below, without the dwarves' knowledge, as part of the Imperial operation against the drow cities; the necklace used in this way was afterwards called a fake.^{20 21 22}