Sizza Maer'Duth was matron mother of the important drow House Maer'Duth and played a role in the fall of the Elvish Empire as an insurgency leader and cunning politician.

History

Sizza was a high noble and the child of Maer'Duth's matron mother. She was given traditional education within House Maer'Duth and taught the skills of politics and, at her own insistence, military leadership. She was named heiress in 4'302 b. OW.

Heiress

As heiress of the house, Sizza moved from her homeland to its land on northern Bao-Mou, leading a militia detachment and slaves. She sought to expand her house's dominion into a contested stretch of land by deforesting it, an act which outraged the neighboring Buurma'nal wood elves. In a skirmish, they killed most of her slaves. Using a special spider poison she had developed, Sizza tortured six captured wood elves to death. She then birthed the ideology of "light elves" being distinct from dark elves and managed to make her philosophy popular among various houses.

Matron Mother

Sizza's mother died mysteriously in 4'282 b. OW, giving her the title. She promptly unified her ideology into the Spider Movement and gained the alliance of the five most important drow houses. She also founded the Arachnid Clergy, a church devoted to spiders rather than to the Silmarilus or Meanillaue. Despite some controversy, Sizza managed to grow the influence and wealth of her house. She even received direct support from the empire's ruling council under the pretext of sponsoring the Spider Movement.

As matron, she radically reformed her house and any others who would follow her. Everything revolved around spiders. She also started to engage in controversial rituals which often lasted long spans of time and involved spiders, torture and self-abuse. Maer'Duth was repeatedly charged of kidnapping, murder, and rape, but these charges were never pursued. Reportedly, Sizza suffered from an inferiority complex and had to severely violate captured light elves to feel good. She was also said to throw fits.

In one longer ritual, Sizza ordered the Crown of Pain to be formed. This was a plain iron headwear, but she "baptized" it by ripping open humanoid skin with its sharp edges and bathing it in blood. At one point, Sizza was contacted by the then unknown demon queen Lolth. She was gifted with corrupting powers and proclaimed the demon Queen of Spiders. Demon-worship spread among the Spider Movement and deeply corrupted Sizza's soul. When seen in the Weave, she "glowed in a hellish light and had twisted contours. It was the soul of a demon, not of an elf."

Black Spider

Sizza Maer'Duth founded the Black Spider in 4'202 b. OW, with herself as its supreme commander, the Stratega. Its emblem was that of House Maer'Duth, but with a spider on the shield. Sizza pushed for the martial training of the Black Spider and offered a number of house compounds and schools to train soldiers, including even male nobility of other houses.

She also heavily encouraged a personality cult among a faction that became known as the Gezznyr. She entertained a small group of favourites, not all of which were from her house, with which she performed the more grisly or intimate ceremonies.

Relations with the ruling council turned sour. When it emitted an ultimatum for the Black Spider to disband, Sizza sent her best priestesses and soldiers to assassinate the five most important houses' heiresses. She then sent the five heads to the council and prepared her army.

War

The Black Spider was ready for war and fought well. At the beginning, Sizza actively commanded the troops, notably inventing the skirmishing tactic that the drow would use throughout the war, which consisted of raiding houses with highly mobile elite troops and disappearing before the slower light elven armies could arrive. With time, however, Sizza grew less and less able to think rationally and was deposed from command, although she remained the Legion's ideological leader. She suffered fits of madness, took various hallucinatory drugs, and spent weeks in more or less active rituals. She also severely damaged her own body and had to be healed magically by a specially appointed "Honor Guard".

At the end of the war, when light elvish soldiers came to assassinate her, she was no longer conscious. She did not resist her decapitation.

Legacy

The image of Sizza Maer'Duth as a glorious inspirational leader, and as head priestess of Lolth, remained unmuddled before and after her death. Most Arachnid churches kept an ebony statue of her likeness near their altar, and she was the role model for soldiers and priestesses alike. During the Descent, when the remains of the Black Spider fled underground, many drow reported to have seen Sizza leading them along the twisting corridors, showing them the way. Similarly, during the Recreance, many had hallucinations of her showing them what had to be done.

Perhaps her strongest legacy, beyond building the fundament for the whole of Khali culture, were the Gezznyr. They were the strongest faction among the survivors at the end of the Recreance and built the citadel of Gezneth in her honor. Although their first loyalty was of course to Lolth, Sizza was often seen as an avatar or even reflection of the demon queen, and she became the patron of the city. They even built a shrine to her above the Church of Lolth.

Personality

For the standards of Prakash drow, Sizza was frail. She was about average in height but lighter and thinner than other drow women. She had black eyes, a rarity among drow, and had a great affinity for magic, both arcane and clerical. In her later years, her many rituals and self-harm did not do her well. She could not stand long and needed a staff, and needed constant magical attention.

She was also somewhat mentally deranged. Although in her young years, she only stood out by learning martial arts despite her frailty and by becoming a military commander rather than a politician, she later had many problems. Most notable was her inferiority complex, which built up frustration that she had to work out out on others. She was also sadistic and had a distinct appreciation for what others saw as perverted or disturbing.

Sizza also had gradually worse fits of anger and other marks of madness. Towards the end, she often spoke in gibberish. Some believed that she had a very early start of drim-ur, the elven madness that usually only set on when they were of very old age. This could have afflicted her so early because of exhausting magical practices, such as her communions with Lolth.