XaniriDragonspider of Irinax

Xaniri – Dragonspider of Irinax

Xaniri was born in the deepest chamber of the Sanctum, the egg it hatched from already weeks overdue by the time the shell finally split. The rite that produces a Dragonspider has been practiced by the Daughters of Irinax for longer than any living Drow can account for, each generation of priestesses claiming to have refined it further than the last. The paste fed into the egg is measured not by weight but by the number of lives spent to render it, and Xarinath’s brood are said to carry within them the remains of entire slave caravans, ground down to feed a single clutch. What crawled free of the shell bore the shape of both its makings at once, arachnid in its legs and its patience, draconic in the ridged plates along its back and the smoke that rolled from its mandibles when disturbed.

The Drow do not pray to Xaniri the way they pray to Irinax, but they keep it as they might keep a relic too dangerous to leave unguarded. It has lived in the deepest chambers of the Sanctum since it hatched, fed on whatever the Daughters bring down from the surface, growing larger with each passing decade. Some among the priestesses believe it is not simply an image of Irinax, but a shape being perfected across generations, refined again and again until it might one day hold more of the god within it than symbol alone. Whether this is doctrine passed down from Irinax’s own whispers, or simply hope worn thin by centuries of repetition, none who have asked the question inside the Sanctum have lived long enough to answer it.

Xaniri feeds more than it needs to. Those who venture too close to its lair rarely leave enough behind to be called remains, and the Daughters take this as proof the rite was done correctly. A creature made from that much death should hunger the way Xaniri hungers, and should keep hungering long after any ordinary predator would have stopped.