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Menzoberranzan


Menzoberranzan, the City of Spiders, is a fictional city-state in the world of the Forgotten Realms, a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting. It is located in the Upper Northdark, about two miles below the Surbrin Vale, between the Moonwood and the Frost Hills (north of the Evermoors and under the River Surbin). It is famed as the birthplace of Drizzt Do'Urden, the protagonist of several series of best-selling novels by noted fantasy author R. A. Salvatore.

Ed Greenwood, Salvatore, and Douglas Niles collaborated to release a three-book box set in December 1992 called Menzoberranzan: The Famed City of the Drow. A review for Pyramid identifies Menzoberranzan as one of "the most famous pieces of the Realms".

The first two books cover the history of the fictional setting, while the final book serves as an adventure module.

The city has 20,000 drow inhabitants and hundreds of thousands of humanoid slaves such as goblins, kobolds, bugbears, duergar, svirfnebli, orcs, ogres, minotaurs, and giants, as well as herds of rothé kept as livestock. The city trades poisons, mushrooms, riding lizards, spell scrolls, wine, and water. The worship of Lolth is prevalent, and the city has the clerical academy Arach-Tinilith, a spider-shaped building where priestesses are trained. One of the branches of the city's triune academies of Tier Breche, Arach-Tinilith is neighbored by the warrior school Melee-Magthere, and Sorcere tower where arcane spellcasters are sent to study. These academies are the quarters of some of the most powerful clerics, fighters and wizards, respectively, and the title of master of an academy is coveted, since being the master of Sorcere or Melee-Magthere is as high as the power ladder goes for some houseless drow or even noble males.


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