Is a male blackguard of Lolth possible in drow society? I understand that a blackguard in service to a deity rarely deals with the deity themselves, rather they beseech the deity for their favor and the deity sends an evil outsider in their command/control to fulfill the contract for them (or I suppose there could be some automatic divine prayer forwarding system that doesn't even have to be acknowledged by the deity and goes right to an underling to take care of) and even though they didn't deal with their god directly they are in service to them, but in this case it would be a male drow asking Lolth for her divine favor in conquering her enemies and not a female. I understand that Lolth doesn't simply cast out males and does have plenty of uses for them aside from simply breeding, but is there lore favoring her deigning to gift a male her powers even through an intermediary like a myrlochar? Or is a non-heretical male drow's only avenue of blackguard-dom through divine service through Selvetarm?

A blackguard contract with a Lolth-affiliated demon would be particularly appropriate. Even direct divine service is possible.



Granted, that is Demihuman Deities, but the educated consensus must be that the apparent limitation of clergy to females in F&P was not some magical IC change that killed off 4% of Lolth's clergy within a span of 6 years (or whatever the 2e/3e gap) but rather the simplifying tendency of the 3e material to fit more gods into one book and not confuse potential buyers. We should stick with the old lore. The level restriction is debatable, but you can't translate 2e levels into Amia levels. Blackguard powers are well within that flavor range, that's for sure.

Gender has never been enforced on Amia, anyhow. Some people, even DMs, may grumble about it, but there really is no rule against it. Never has been and never should be.

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It is also important to realize that such a character, while fully allowed on the server, should probably expect significant adversity ingame. There are many, many things that FR gods--in their infinite wisdom/apathy--allow that most their followers straight up don't approve of.

So yeah, by all means, it's a valid IC concept and will probably create some very interesting RP, going against social norms and whatnot. As long as you don't take offense to other PC's reactions to your PC personally. Male Llothlite clergy gets about as much of a break as Drow paladins of Corellon. Possible, but again, a very hard path to walk IC.

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They said it all pretty good, so let me give you a little IC spin on it:

I can speak for my character (currently the Ul'ath'tallar) -and to a lesser extent others in the Temple- to say a male cleric of Lolth would be frowned upon. By that I mean they'd definitely get some gruff. Zrae (my char) has issues with males in general due to backstory and so that would make her less inclined to believe the male was not lying. However with the right RP and time she would likely come to accept it; it would just be a hard road, as it should be. I can say with how things currently are in the Temple a male cleric wouldn't get very high in the rankings at all, however. Maybe.

But for a BG of Lolth, that's a bit different. A male making a soul-pact with Lolth, or even one of her demons, would probably garner some respect. He would not be quite as ridiculed, mostly because he's not claiming the divine spells that should be coming from Selvetarm are actually from Lolth (all IC, that mindset) and instead he's chucking his soul wholly into Lolth's hands to curry her favor. And if she allows it, then that's pretty awesome. So he wouldn't get as much gruff, but probably some compared to a male cleric.

That's all how I see it going IC currently, just figured I would give you an IC taste of how it might go down.


edit: I want to add that I'm not trying to dissuade you, or anyone else, I just wanted to give a fair warning about it all

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Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play:
Salema Nefahri :: A penny for your thots
Zrae'a'stra'fryn :: That which nightmares are made of
Khasir :: From the East a storm is coming

No arguments there, with either of you. Intra-faith conflict is the best kind. A male divine caster of Lolth would an interesting empirical fact that challenges the authority of the establishment, but it can go either way.

As for the usual attitude that "males should follow Selvetarm", that's a slightly skewed perspective IMO. Demihuman Deities seems to suggest Selvetarm is a demigod mostly worshiped in Eryndlyn and by exiles near Waterdeep. He's not some global household patron for male drow. Granted, Amia has a firm following since maybe 2006, 2007. But you can't say that on a global scale, male drow turn to Selvetarm and female drow to Lolth - the former probably isn't even known everywhere, let alone worshiped in any institutional framework. You'd need an established church organization to be a cleric, so most drow settlements simply don't offer the option.

(On a side note, the regional character of faiths is sadly underplayed on Amia. Just because Toril has a shitload of gods for every purpose doesn't mean they're actually worshiped everywhere. Especially a lot of the demigods are local or limited to an extremely specialized segment of society. Then again, my personal opinion is that FR should have even more demigods and divine heroes tied to places and myths, like our Saint Nabessa.)

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Agreed on the Lolth/Selly thing, Iron, though I think he has more worship than that. Haven't looked deep into it, though, probably cause I'm used to how it is on Amia.

I think the main reason for the Selly worship was to give males a viable option for being a cleric. Every single male is still expected to venerate Lolth over all, but worship Selly for spells or whatever reason. Lolth is supposed the be the be-all-end-all after all. So I think it is more to just free up character choices and such. That's how I think of it, at least.

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Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play:
Salema Nefahri :: A penny for your thots
Zrae'a'stra'fryn :: That which nightmares are made of
Khasir :: From the East a storm is coming

I more or less chose this route because of all the opposition that I would encounter trying to attain it, but I wasn't sure if it was doable, which thanks to you all I'm confident it is. I'm aware of the difficulty of male priests, and while I know blackguards are a different creature entirely, the addition of divine spells (likely divine for mechanical issues and not lore ones) that blackguard get might have made it look like a pseudo-priesthood, especially given how Lolth uses magic and this character would get to claim that his power was given down to him through Lolth (albeit through an intermediary most likely). My plan for the character is to be more of a very devout temple guard type, wishing to further embroil himself within the church and become more useful by becoming a blackguard of Lolth and from there becoming more of a specialized tool/weapon for the temple and the priestess use completely forgoing the cleric route as he isn't the type to espouse and teach others of Lolths ways, just enforce them.



Is the direct divine service a server change thing? From what I've read on blackguards (which is what little I could find in the lore forums and the Forgotten Realms wiki so I'm not sure how reliable it all is) a blackguard contract has to be done through an evil outsider. Is there a rule change or is it just RPed out that a deity themselve can come to a character to offer the terms of a contract? And would Lolth even do that if it was normal on the server? She rarely takes a direct hand in much of her follower's business even when it is directly related to her. Or were you meaning more along the lines of after proving themselves in the service to their deity that the deity themselves may then make a direct appeal to the blackguard? Because that situation seems far more likely, once a blackguard has done enough right in the eyes of their patron deity that deity could reward them with their presence or the same deity could give them a specific task they wouldn't trust others to do.

I think while it's "possible" to form a blackguard pact directly with a deity, it generally doesn't happen. Gods tend to have bigger things on their minds than individual mortals. In any case, direct "peaceable contact" with a deity would probably be the sort of thing that the DMs would take rather a dim view of, since RPing the gods is pretty much their exclusive purview. Unless Dustspray (aka Lolth) says otherwise, obviously.

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Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026

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It's a pretty established canon thing that Blackguards can just be your run-of-the-mill divine servants. It wasn't just an Amian exception before we changed Divine Champion to alignment-neutral. I say this every time Blackguards come up: the whole "Faustian pact" thing is an interpretation of the very terse tidbit on the special requirement. The book introducing the class doesn't actually say anything about them making contracts. I like that because it's the cooler way to go about it, but we can't really say it's the (only) canon intention.

The most well-known canon blackguards are probably Gareth Cormaeril (in the novel Thornhold) and Scyllua Darkhope (Fzoul's bitch). The former is a fallen paladin of Tyr worshiping Cyric, and the latter is, well, also a fallen paladin of Tyr and a blackguard champion of Bane. Zedarr T'sarran, a blackguard from the City of the Spider Queen module is a champion of Kiaransalee. None of them, to my knowledge, have made any particular pact with a lower fiend.

Note that the special requirement is, verbatim: The character must have made peaceful contact with an evil outsider who was summoned by him or someone else.

This draws no explicit connection between the outsider contacted and the source of divine powers. Common sense says there's probably some connection, sure. (Although it could also be a kind of initiation ritual, much like Pale Masters spending the night locked in with undead - not like that particular undead is the PM's frame of reference for all time, either.) But it certainly doesn't allow us to infer that a Blackguard must make a pact directly with the creature he summons (insofar as there is a pact). You're right that you're not going to summon a deity to write you a contract in blood - but that isn't required to become a Blackguard in the first place. More likely you'll join a church, then after their mortal initiation rites a cleric summons a servant of your patron deity, to whom you tell of your desire to serve the god they all serve. Then you proceed to gain divine powers as any divine champion, cleric etc. The "contract" you make, if any, is the same implicit relationship between a cleric and patron god. The evil outsider that was summoned need not play any crucial part after the initiation.

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This is really pretty much how I envisioned becoming a deity focused blackguard would work. Since blackguard powers are less prayer related the way cleric powers are, it's not handed down directly form the god they are working for but is derived through some lesser minion of the god through whatever rites, rituals, or pacts are necessary and that is the last time you ever see the minion and can assume from there on out you are on your holy mission of evil. I don't see a god doling out even a fraction of their powers directly to a mortal unless they were the chosen of that god, so they enforce their minions to give away portions of their power for the deities benefit. It was just while looking up as much info as I could on blackguards through the forums it was stated that one of the requirements for becoming a blackguard (in lore sense not mechanics) was peaceful contact with an evil outsider. So while I do not believe selling my character's soul to that outsider is a necessary part of becoming Lolth's blackguard, dealing with them on Lolth's behalf was still required.

Deities give powers directly every day. To clerics, to druids, to paladins, to rangers, to divine champions, and a plethora of other prestige classes. Blackguards need not be any different (though some are, dealing only with fiends instead of gods). Yes, I suppose you could get your power from one of Lolth's closest servants as well, but that's not really required. I don't think there's anything iffy about making contact with a yochlol or something who acts as the messenger of your devotion to Lolth, and then getting your spells (you do have a divine spell list) directly from the deity like any other divine class.

Both work, but you shouldn't feel there's something wrong about the deity option. Gods do grant their powers to mortals. Why? Because that's how they get power. Look at it this way: every follower gives power points to a god that lets them compete with other gods and control ever greater aspects of reality. Divine spellcasters are especially effective followers, both by the strenght of their devotion and the impact they have on the world. Giving them powers is an investment that generally pays back. Lolth could delegate the job to a servant, but I assume that would also mean less power points for her; some of the attention and devotion of the mortal would go into fuelling the servant itself, who in time could become a subservient demigod. She might want that, or she might not.

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Males in Lolthite-dominant societies such as Menzoberanzen are born with a significant cultural disadvantage: females by birth are higher in the heirarchy because Lolth decrees it (or so they say). Female Drow are usually taller and stronger then their male equivalents also.

Its highly appropriate that a male Drow in these circumstances will use every advantage possible to crawl to the top of the ladder without being thrown off it by their rivals. Pacts with evil outsiders is just one of many ways to do this: Succubi and Glabrezu would flock to the ambitions of Drow males like moths to a flame to offer their pacts. If the male is incredibly lucky, Lolth might even send a Ychlol to make a pact.

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Plays:

"I'll think of something once Amia:EE drops."

I must point out that this is an often repeated and false belief with the single supporting fact for it being from drow of the underdark which itself says that females seem to be slightly larger and heavier but the difference is tiny enough to really not be a noticeable difference at all. Further the actual stats for FR drow put males and females at the same exact height range (and actually still has males 5lbs heavier as a base). However it is important to note that while not any bigger they ARE just as big as male which is not the case in any other elf subrace (or most other races).

As for the blackguard thing however... Your sponsor is a demon (or devil) one serving a particular power yes but the amount that power cares really isn't going to be too much, you give them your soul they give you some power so it is doubtful Lolth would really care unless they started actively trying to use they powers against her own goals... and even then she actually might just find it amusing.

As a drow though blackguard does make sense, its a quick way to gain power, there is really easy access to demons (relatively speaking) and especially if your are a lolthite your soul isn't going anywhere nice anyway. Plus drow always want more power (Of ALL types) and selling your soul or making pacts works well.

Finally purely from a lore standpoint I find male BGs of Lolth far more reasonable than ones in the service of Selvetarm, mostly from the fact that Lolth being a former power in the Abyss actually has quite a number of demons at her service to make such contracts whereas Selvetarm (despite having gained some demonic status from absorbing a minor demon lord) being both subservient to Lolth and Lesser to her both as a Deity and in any demonic hierarchy has far fewer demonic servants making a pact with him harder in the first place. Plus really as long as you aren't a male trying to be a priest of Lolth or claiming you have her favour granting your power its likely that neither Lolth or any females would really care.