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War of the Spider Queen is a six-book series written by several authors and overseen by R.A. Salvatore. It takes place in the Forgotten Realms.
The series follows the adventures of a group of Drow as they search for the reason that Lloth, their goddess, has fallen silent. Their quest will take them around the world, and under it. Meanwhile, back at Menzoberranzan, the status quo has been upset.
The books and authors are as follows:
- Dissolution - Richard L. Byers
- Insurrection - Thomas M. Reid
- Condemnation - Richard Baker
- Extinction - Lisa Smedman
- Annihilation - Philip Athans
- Resurrection - Paul S. Kemp
There is a character sheet.
Tropes used in War of the Spider Queen include:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Splitter and Gromph's magical vorpal blade.
- Acquired Poison Immunity: Danifae had this in her Reaver-induced hallucination.
- Affably Evil: Pharaun and Aliisza among others.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Gracklstugh and the Scoured Legion attacked Menzoberranzan thanks to Nimor's influence.
- Exclusively Evil: Being Drow, naturally the whole cast. Also see: Chronic Backstabbing Disorder
- ...And Show It to You: Jeggred to Ryld.
- Anyone Can Die: Six companions set out from Menzoberranzan, picking up two along the way. Guess how many survive?
- Badass Bookworm: Pharaun and Gromph.
- Bar Brawl: Ryld seems to have an affinity for them.
- Bi the Way
- Break the Haughty: Quenthel in Insurrection. She got better, however.
- Brother-Sister Incest: Greyanna thought this was occurring between Pharaun and his other sister. She later offers herself to Pharaun in exchange for his loyalty only to have him laugh in her face.
- Carnival of Killers: Gromph sending various demons after Quenthel.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Seems to be a common trait among the drow. The main characters of the series spend more time trying to kill each other than they do on their actual mission.
- Cobweb Jungle: Because everything having to do with spiders is sacred to Lolth, it's actually a crime to destroy a spider web in Menzoberranzan.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Done to Faeryl.
- Conveniently-Timed Attack From Behind: Subverted in the three-way deathmatch between Quenthel, Danifae, and Halisstra. Halisstra hit Danifae with one just as the latter was about to kill Quenthel. It didn't take, unfortunately.
- Deadpan Snarker: Pharaun
- Dog Pile of Doom: While on the Ship of Chaos, lots and lots of rats swarmed Jeggred to try to take him down. It didn't work.
- Door of Doom: The door to Lolth's personal domain in the old Demonweb Pits.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Menzoberranzan.
- Final Battle: No less than three of them: Gromph vs. Dyrr, the entire party vs. the yugoloth army and the Melee a Trois between Quenthel, Danifae, and Halisstra.
- Great Escape: Ryld and Pharaun get one in Dissolution attempting to escape from the alhoon's cult.
- Hand Signals: The drow have an entire language of these.
- Hitchhiker Heroes: Halisstra and Danifae. Of course, since the original party had a hand in making them hitchhikers in the first place, it also ended up being a case of Teeth-Clenched Teamwork at first.
- Ineffectual Death Threats: Quenthel constantly makes them to Pharaun throughout the series. It's eventually averted near the end of Resurrection.
- Loads and Loads of Characters
- Lovable Rogue: Pharaun and Valas
- Lovable Traitor: Pharaun, to Ryld. His traitor status with the others, notably Quenthel, is much more vitriolic.
- Make Room for the New Plot: Congratulations, Ryld and Pharaun, you helped stop the slave uprising! Now go find out what happened to Lolth.
- More Deadly Than the Male
- Molotov Cocktail: The stonefire bombs. Not only did they act as their real-life counterparts, they literally burned through stone.
- No Endor Holocaust: The aftermath of the destruction of House Agrach Dyrr was never actually seen in story. Noticeably averted, however, during Dyrr and Gromph's battle in the Marketplace.
- No Honor Among Thieves: Pharaun barely hesitated before leaving Ryld for dead in Dissolution.
- Our Elves Are Better: Drow are full of themselves.
- Punched Across the Room: Things on the receiving end of one of Pharaun's Bigsby's (whatever) Hand spells are typically subject to this.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Run.
- Religion of Evil
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: A good portion of Dissolution.
- Shaggy Dog Story: The heroes spend over five novels and several months to find out what happend to Lolth and how to fix it. With probably only about half an hour of marching before they finally find her, she wakes up all by herself and was never in any trouble to begin with.
- Sibling Rivalry: Quenthel and Gromph spend much of Dissolution trying to assassinate each other to various levels of failure. It gets to the point where it could be considered a Running Gag.
- Status Quo Is Goddess
- Sword and Sorcerer: Type 1 with Ryld and Pharaun.
- Summon Bigger Fish: Both Quenthel and Danifae summoned bigger fish (namely a klurichir and a giant spider hoarde) against the yugoloth army in Resurrection.
- Taking Over the Town: The Jaezred Chaulssin took over the ruins of Ched Nesad after its destruction. They fully intend to rebuild it, as the beginning of the process was shown at the end of Resurrection.
- Walk Into Mordor: In order to get to the Planes of Soulfire, you have to walk through the Pass of the Soul Reaver. And survive a Mind Rape while you're there.
- Whip It Good: Favored by Quenthel.