The Sleeping Queen

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Overview

Aisling (Feyspeak \ˈaʃlɪŋ\ for dream), the Sleeping Queen, is the Fey Goddess of the Nodders and the ruler of the Court of Repose, a Midnight Court founded in the aftermath of The War of Erasure. Her Court explores a Bleak interpretation of the Strange Essence of Orientation, seeking Meaning through transcendence achieved by withdrawal, altered states, and the deliberate surrender of attention.

Among mortal scholars, Aisling is poorly understood but widely encountered. References to her appear in dream-journals, alchemical notebooks, and the testimonies of addicts, mystics, and visionaries. Knowledge of her Court comes primarily from Strange wanderers who encountered Samhanai sanctuaries, from Orisons who seek her blessing, or from half-mad addicts who encounter her realm in their escapes.

History

Origin

Before Arcadia, Aisling was an Elf of the late Shattered Age, c. NIR 700, born into a contemplative culture that prized altered perception through ritual fasting, trance, and psychoactive draughts. She was a gifted dreamer, able to recall visions with impossible clarity and guide others into shared reverie.

As the Strange Sea began to intrude upon her dreams, Aisling followed it willingly. She crossed into Arcadia seeking escape from waking coherence, believing that Meaning could be found only by loosening one’s grip on the self.

Ascension

Aisling ascended c. NIR 1400, after the War of Erasure had dissolved the Court of Alignment. She claimed the Bleak vacancy of Orientation left in the wake of Lolth’s division. Where Lolth’s Bright aspect demanded reverence and structure, Aisling taught surrender to euphoric oblivion.

Fey drawn to her philosophy became the Nodders, whose bodies grew translucent and fragile, eyes sealed shut as their awareness turned inward. Thus was founded the Court of Repose, one of the Midnight Courts.

The War of Erasure

During The War of Erasure, Lolth became the primary third target of Denial, the philosophical warfare invented by The King Who Never Was. His assault attempted to disprove her philosophy, strip her of her Fey Godhood, and dissolve her Court.

Unlike other victims of Denial, Lolth did not refute the argument.

Instead, she performed a horrifying miracle called The Erasure. This not only defeated The King Who Never Was, and dissolved his Forgotten Court, but it annihilated the Strange Essence of Condition entirely. This impossible act ended the War instantly and permanently destabilized Arcadian cosmology.

Lolth survived, but her Court of Alignment did not. In the wake of The Erasure, Lolth split irreversibly into two aspects, one Bleak and one Bright, each claiming a fragment of her former truth:

• As the Lady of the Web, she rules the Bright Court of Genuflection, one of the Midnight Courts, teaching meaning through reverence and worship.
• As the Spider Queen, she rules the Bleak Bleeding Court, one of the Midnight Courts, teaching meaning through pain and suffering.

As the only Strange God to wield two sources of Strange Power, Lolth is widely feared and regarded as the most powerful creature in Strange. She is the unspoken enemy and secret idol of all other Fey Courts. However, Arcadia still reeling from the savagery of Denial and The Erasure, all hostilities between Courts has become one of influence, proxy struggles, or ritualized and symbolic conflict.

Concordance

Lolth took no part in The Concordance. She regarded it as both theft and folly, a pale imitation of her former Court, bearing the stolen echo of her old title. Though she did not intervene, her hostility toward the fused Courts is undisguised.

Description

In her anthropomorphic form, generally regarded as her Lady of the Web aspct, Lolth appears as an impossibly beautiful elven woman with six, long, slender arms. She wears a beautiful silken dress with spider web motifs, rich in dark purple hues. Her skin is pale to the point of translucence. Her blonde hair is so long as to reach her feet, though it floats weightless as if in water.

In her surreal form, Lolth becomes vast and arachnid: a towering spider of smooth, glossy black chitin in an ever expanding aura of silvery webs. The pointed tips of her legs are deep purple. The only part of her that is not arachnid is her head. She has the head of a corrupted Sidhe with too many eyes, all deep purple in color, hair long and raven black, swirling like a dark storm.

Personality

Lolth is patient, precise, and absolute. She does not rage, plead, or negotiate. She remembers every slight and every philosophical failure. To her, mercy is incoherence, and forgiveness is weakness. She despises improvisation, distrusts pleasure, and loathes philosophical ambiguity. Her greatest hatred is reserved not for her enemies, but for those who believe harmony can exist without cost.

Philosophy

• Bright Aspect: Meaning through reverence and worship
• Bleak Aspect: Meaning through pain and suffering
• Obsessed with ritual (Bright) and punishment (Bleak)

Society

Lolth’s Courts are rigid, hierarchical, and brutally efficient.

The Court of Genuflection is composed of The Chain, whose crystalline growths and ritual brands mark their ascent through acts of devotion and loyalty. The Court is orderly, ceremonial, and suffocatingly reverent.

• Essence: Orientation
• Essence: Bright

The Bleeding Court is composed of the savage Redcaps, who embody punishment physically. Status is earned through inflicting and enduring pain in accordance with Lolth’s decrees. Their society is violent but coherent, bound by fear and certainty of purpose: everyone will get what they deserve.

• Essence: Action
• Essence: Bleak

Both Courts obey Lolth without question, and thus get along better than any Bright/Bleak Courts can. Neither believes she can be opposed.