Searith

Known as the Mother of Monsters, Searith is the source of all that is corrupted and bestial. She is one of the most active deities in the mortal realm, though unlike her mother she does not want to rule existence so much as corrupt and pervert it in her image. Searith is known to take many forms. To the drow, she appears as a drider, a spider with the upper body of a drow. Others have seen her in visions as a bloated, monstrous female with protruding organs.

Core Statistics
Name: Searith.

Intermediate Deity

Symbol: A spider's web.

Alignment: Neutral Evil.

Patron Creatures: Spiders, snakes, bats.

Domains: Poison, Corruption.

Cleric Alignments: NE, CE, LE.

Favored Weapon: A kris.

Relatives: Daughter of Dearuhk, half sister of Isod and Shof'uk.

Relationships
Searith does not like to interact with the other gods, having exiled herself from them long ago. Her current position makes it difficult to visit other gods, but sometimes she communes with the evil gods if scheming is at hand. Her attention is more focused on her "children" and those yet left to be transformed into monsters by her corrupting touch. She despises Lo, since many mortals consider her the greatest mother figure among the gods; Searith is often blamed for complications during child-birth because of this strife.

Functions
Searith is the self-styled mother of all living things. She is the origin of many foul beasts, and is patron deity to those wishing to become monsters, foul experiments, or deadly poisons. She created many of the first poisons and diseases, releasing them into the wild through her inflicted offspring. Her ultimate goal is to cover the world with her pestilence, recreating it in her vision of perfection.

Followers
Searith's most notorious followers are the Drow, having been corrupted from the elvish race long ago. Other humanoids worship her, particularly assassins or necromancers interested in poisons or corpse manipulation. In human kingdoms, outright worship of Searith is banned, so the only large communities that follow Searith are within the vast Underdark, and usually consist of Drow, Duegar, monstrous humanoids and even aberrations. Searith is worshiped in the Abyss, under another name, as a deity that brings quick end to long strifes, with an emphasis on her poison domain. She is attributed to the birth of the Fiends, there.

Residence
Searith made the inner folds of Kharlia her home when she crash landed from the dark realm of Nuzalheim ages ago. She cannot stray far from her epicenter, but the caverns leading to her location are rife with webs and slime, a huge network that connects to all corners of the planet.

History
When Dearuhk discovered the ideal of corruption, she shared it with her children. Searith, then a newborn goddess with no deified association, latched on to the ideal and became what she is today. Ripping herself from Nuzalheim, she cast herself into the mortal realm where she eventually crash landed into Kharlia, burying herself deep into the layers of earth. Wol, seeing this, forbade any such inter planar travel to the mortal realm occur again from a divine source, insisting on the use of avatars or other methods. Searith, effectively stranded in the unformed world, began to spread her sickly tendrils through the darkest caverns of the world. Held at bay by forces of nature stronger than her, Searith slowed her expansion and remains where she is today as she was then.

When the Age of Mortals came about, Searith had already birthed many strange creatures in the recesses of Kharlia. As it is said, Searith approached an outcast band of elves one day and they cast themselves at her feet, wishing to commit to a new leader. She instantly changed them into the Drow, and they swore fealty to their new mistress. Taking refuge in the great caverns under the world, they dubbed it the Underdark and many generations of Drow have passed since then. A similar story is told among the people of the Duegar.