Caught in a web, removed from the world. Hanging on by a thread, spinning the lies devised in my head. Let’s bow to Queen of the Demonweb Pits by Paul Kidd.
Synopsis:
For one man, fighting in the Greyhawk Wars wasn’t hell.
It was practice.
The Justicar, a ruthless ranger with a haunted past, has dedicated his life to protecting the weak and punishing the guilty. But his past is about to catch up with him.
Lolth, the Demon Queen of Spiders, is out for revenge. She has not forgotten her banishment at the hands of the ranger. Unleashing hordes of monsters and demons, she will stop at nothing to kill the Justicar and his companions.
Her vengeance may be the last mistake she ever makes.
Source: Goodreads
SPOILERS BELOW
The trilogy of books featuring the Justicar comes to a suitably epic conclusion in Queen of the Demonweb Pits. Lolth the Spider Queen, angry at the Justicar for destroying her avatar in a fairly embarrassing fashion during his previous adventure, decides to invade the world of Oerth for revenge. Drow, demons, undead: all her minions in their countless hordes begin launching a full-fledged assault on the material plane. And, just to make it personal, Lolth recruits some individual nemeses for our heroes as well: raising the Justicar’s former teacher as an undead hellbent on tracking down and slaying its former students, and releasing Escalla’s evil sister Trielle from imprisonment to take revenge. The result is a story with stakes both personal and apocalyptic, which manages to really drive home the level of danger our heroes are in and the magnitude of the threat to their entire world – and this in spite of Lolth herself.
Lolth, you see, is not written as a very subtle villain. Quite the opposite, in fact: she is at maximum Dark Kantian levels of cartoonishly over-the-top self-sabotaging villainy for the sake of it. Executing her loyal followers for failing her, or for telling her that her literally impossible orders are in fact literally impossible to follow, or for having perkier breasts than her, or because she’s decided she wants to redecorate her throne room with flayed corpses, or just on a whim; wasting tons of time and resources on pointless tasks meant only to flatter her own vanity; and flat-out refusing to do any planning or logistical preparation for her invasion on the theory that, if she just sets her teeming hordes loose and points them in the right direction, all the other details will just sort of work themselves out? I’d complain that Lolth is being written horribly out of character, but… unfortunately, she isn’t really – Lolth’s official alignment may be Chaotic Evil; but unofficially, she’s the poster child for Stupid Evil.
On the plus side, this does allow for some good interaction between her and Morag, her marilith secretary, who is apparently the one demon under Lolth’s command who actually has an appreciation for order: caring about things like organization and logistics and, you know, actually having a plan. It’s a trait which causes Lolth to mock her as “so… so baatezu!”; which, I’ll admit, I laughed at. In fact, not only was Morag a good addition to the cast of characters, this book was generally all-around good in its characterization. In addition to the Justicar and Escalla each getting their own personal nemesis to act as foils, Enid got to play a larger role – you’ll recall one of my complaints about the last book was that she was just a tag-along who didn’t actually contribute – and there’s a running joke about Escalla trying to teach Cinders to fetch which ends up getting a satisfying dramatic payoff.
Finally, like the first book, this one goes back to providing some sardonic commentary on typical adventuring party attitudes and tactics. Even as the group is embarking on a do-or-die mission to save the world, they’re determined to steal all the treasure in Lolth’s domain, even the obviously trapped stuff; and forget all the hordes of the Abyss, the real greatest danger to their health is the mage who insists on throwing Fireball spells in confined spaces. Remember: friendly fire isn’t! Not to mention Lolth finally being defeated once and for all via that old adventurers’ trick, the portable hole filled with holy water.
Queen of the Demonweb Pits was an excellent story, and a fitting conclusion to the Justicar’s adventures.
Final Rating: 5/5
profmorbius 