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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edena_of_Neith" data-source="post: 2621257" data-attributes="member: 2020">(humor)  Edena_of_Neith here.  I have moved down to Southwest Florida, and because of this I have been required to do some research on widow spiders.  We have three kinds here:  the black widow, the brown widow, and the red widow.  All are equally dangerous.  And, unfortunately, all are equally omnipresent:  it's a matter of get used to it, or don't live in Southwest Florida.  (sighs)  So, I found a link (among many studied) concerning widows, and here it is:  <a href="http://www.doacs.state.fl.us/pi/enpp/ento/venomousspiders.htm" target="_blank">http://www.doacs.state.fl.us/pi/enpp/ento/venomousspiders.htm</a>  Based on this and on the other research I have done on the widow spiders, I must regretfully conclude that Gary Gygax and R.A. Salvatore got it all wrong about the drow.  I mean, no disrespect to those esteemed personages, but it would appear they both fell victim to the Celene/Evermeet Propaganda Machine.  The actual black widow seems to be rather shy and reclusive.  She comes out at night to hunt small insects, and hides in her web during the day.  She is reluctant to bite humans, and more reluctant to inject her venom ... she only has a limited supply of venom, and thus is sparing about it, and also she is accustomed to only injecting enough to paralyze her victims, so she can eat them alive or leave them for her offspring to eat (typical, apparently, for many spiders.)  The black widow is so reluctant to fight, so timid, she might even flee her web if the web is attacked (although nobody should ever count on this.)  People have allowed black widows to crawl on them without being bitten, showing the spider is reluctant to bite (but do NOT try this.)  The black widow WILL fight, will bite, will poison, if she feels she is being attacked, or if she has offspring in her web.  Now, black widow bites commonly occur because the spider gets into clothes, shoes, gloves, and then people don these and contact the spider and start crushing it (I'm guessing the black widow counts that as an attack!)  Also, bites are common because people stick their hands into dark places without looking within first, and they unwittingly contact a black widow or her web (and this contact is interpreted as an attack ... but then again you would probably feel attacked if a 1,000 foot giant stuck his hand down into your home or place of refuge!)  Obviously, the bite of a black widow (or brown widow, or red widow) is A VERY SERIOUS MATTER.  It can cause horrific bodywide pain that can last for days, convulsions, and other unpleasantries.  It means a trip to the hospital ER for the unfortunate victim.  It means muscle relaxant injections, powerful hospital narcotics (and even they may not mitigate the severe pain) and possibly anti-venin.  It can, in rare cases, cause death. ((Obviously, there is no humor about ANY facet of this!))  -  But what happens when you extrapolate the behavior of this real-life menace to a society that models itself after said menace?  Well ...  I am guessing that if the black widow is shy and non-aggressive, the drow are shy and non-aggressive too.  If the black widow runs from obvious danger and goes only after small insects, I am betting the drow are a peaceful people who never fight unless they absolutely must (and they are probably mostly farmers, as well, eschewing the bloody, nauseating business of slaughtering rothe.)  I am guessing youthful drow females are modest, shy maidens who blush and giggle, and whisper girltalk to each other, and are otherwise about as timid and peaceful as girls in a convent school.  I am guessing older drow women are loving, gentle people, and especially loving towards children.  They will fight to the death for their children, when otherwise they would avoid all fighting at all, if they could, finding fighting abhorrent.  They are a bit anti-social as well, given over to personal concerns and raising children.  Drow females are all able fighters at birth, and are taught from childhood on to fight.  They become quite good at fighting (but, as Zaknafein might have said, they are really Dancers, not Fighters (Killers))  And, they specialize in using poison, envenoming their blades and arrows and other weapons with sleep toxins and paralysis toxins and killing toxins.  They are reluctant to use their poison, though, simply because it is difficult to produce.  Again though, despite their capacity for battle and their specialization in poison, drow women are extremely reluctant to fight and will do so only as an absolute last resort.  They MOST CERTAINLY do not kill for sport, for pleasure, or for any reason other than obtaining food ... and then only if they cannot obtain food by peaceful means.  They simply abhor combat.  Drow males, on the other hand, are outward and aggressive.  They want to be the life of the party.  They want to be the talk of the town.  They are dastardly, daring, and bold, the dashing noblemen, the Casanovas, the Don Juans, of the drow race.  But they do not fight.  They don't know how to fight.  For some reason, they just are no good at it, no matter how hard they try.  When push comes to shove, all drow males will flee the scene, after a pathetic attempt at best to match steel to steel.  They always put up a good bluff, but once exposed, they are complete runaways.  Drow males constantly woo drow females.  But drow females are shy and reclusive, and rarely return the overtures.  Drow females rarely flirt.  This leads to a lot of very frustrated drow males (which may explain their wild behavior elsewhere) who tear out their hair trying to figure out ways to win the fair ladies (as it were.)  Drow females do not kill or eat drow males.  This is a fallacy, a falsehood propagated by the Evermeet Bureau of Propaganda.  There has never been a recorded case of a drow female killing a drow male in a tryst.  What IS certain, and well documented, is that the drow are an extremely passionate people, and sometimes suffer injury as a result of trysting.  Perhaps this explains the strange myth concerning drow females.  I have a personal take on where this devouring by the females of the males idea came from, but it cannot be recorded here, in these pages on ENWorld.  For such information is erotic in nature, and would offend Eric Noah's Grandmother.  So, the next time you see a drow, remember not to fall prey to Elven Propaganda:  listen to the truth about the drow, and know wisdom.  Also ...  Since the drow magistresses have successfully impersonated Queen Amlaruil of Evermeet and all the other elven leaders, while peacefully embalming her and them in Temporal Stasis on a temporary basis, this misleading Elven Propaganda machine should soon be shut down.  The drow, of course, had to do this.  They saw that the Seldarine had abandoned the surface elves with the Fall of Myth Drannor and the Retreat, and decided to help them.  Perhaps with the drow running things now, the elves of Faerun will make a comeback.  Only time will tell.  Oh, one more thing.  All that stuff about Lolth is propaganda too.  She IS the Queen of Spiders, and the black widow is a favorite of hers.    So, it is probable that Lolth is the shy, gentle, peaceful Diety to match the behavior of the black widow spider.  Yes, she can fight if she must, and yes, she can poison and kill if that must be, but all this stuff about demons and evil and mayhem and civil war is all elvish nonsense.  Pay it no heed.  Actually, it sounds to me like drow society is full of dastardly, chivalrous men and shy, gentle, comely ladies.  It sounds like they are a very loving, very children friendly society.  A long way from those snide, arrogant, elitist, racist elves who dare to call themselves the Fair Folk.  Edena_of_Neith</blockquote>

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