Chapter 15: The City of Spiders - Out of the Abyss

Chapter 15: The City of Spiders. The center of the chaos and madness now spreading throughout the Underdark is the great drow city of Menzoberranzan. Few of the city's drow residents know that the Demon Queen of Spiders is behind the summoning ritual that brought the demon lords to the Underdark-and that the reward for their faith in Lolth might well be their destruction. Menzoberranzan was the site of Demogorgon's appearance in the Underdark, and the lash of his tentacles and the crushing tread of his clawed feet left a trail of broken buildings, bodies, and minds. Unfortunately for the drow, the worst may be yet to come if the renegade drow archmage Vizeran DeVir won the adventurers' support for his plan to use a powerful ritual to draw the demon lords and their fiendish servants out of the Underdark and set them against each other. As the demon lords destroy each other in the material world, their dark essences will be drawn back to the Abyss once more. But one of the key parts of Vizeran's plan involves the characters' making sure that the City of Spiders plays host to this final, devastating battle. Goals If the characters are working with Vizeran DeVir, they have two goals in the City of Spiders: obtain Gromph Baenre's demon summoning grimoire, and place Vizeran's talisman in Menzoberranzan to draw the demon lords there for an epic showdown. Placing the "Dark Heart" After their adventures in the Wormwrithings and the Labyrinth, the characters can return to Araj to deliver the components they have collected to Vizeran DeVir. Over ten days, the drow archmage uses those components to craft a talisman that looks and feels like a five-pound black heart carved of black stone. Imbued with arcane and fiendish power, the dark heart talisman acts as a beacon when Vizeran's ritual is performed, drawing all demons presently loose in the Underdark. The talisman radiates faint conjuration magic even before it is activated, but it's primarily a focus for the power of the...