House Illafin is just an infant compared to the towering history-laiden families in Menzoberranzan, having splintered from an aged and dying House, but it is quickly becoming the most recognisable slaving houses in the city. A vanguard of the new generation, nearly everything about Illafin’s methods are unconventional – though every bit as ruthless and ambitious as any other drow, they operate in what they proudly call their ‘new ways’, their distinctive innovations and talents.

The House is effectively ruled by three Matrons. Of course, this being unacceptable in Menzoberranzan, one acts in official capacity as Matron while the other two ‘assist’ – in reality, the three are at almost equal footing, a triplet sisterhood that rules as triumvirate. Perhaps most uncharacteristic is the way this hierarchy is held together by the complete trust the Weird Sisters have between themselves – though many observe that this trust can be explained to an extent by the amount of time they spend in each other’s heads (some going so far as to suspect they are simply of one mind altogether).

Their unique slaving methods are based on the powers of the willing – the truth that those who want to perform always perform better than those who are forced to. Matron Desire, being something of a psionic lighthouse, attracts from all over the world the ruined and hollowed-out minds of adorers. Lady Debt’s unrelenting wit tempt mortals and fiends alike with deals and compacts of apparently mutual benefits. Lady Death is a gentle speaker who can coax the dead into her service. Being then enamoured in Life, Death and the Planes, the Three Sisters collect their willing servants from every portion of existence.

Illafin slaves, because of this, are slaves that always obey, and obey enthusiastically. They throw themselves into their tasks, however cruel or depraved or difficult the jobs may be, and quite literally work their fingers to the bone if not told to stop. Which is convenient for Lady Death, who mostly only requires the bones to allow the individual to work even past the event of their death. There is nowhere and no time in which, once you have entered the service of the Sisters, you can ever leave. Not that any Illafin slave ever wants to escape.

Matron Akor’wae Illafin, Lady Desire, Singer of Love

They come, from every corner of the dark, having pried open and pushed themselves through every little warren and hole in the earth until they found a road into the Underdark; and those who have not been happily ripped apart and eaten by the darkness’s creatures, come swarming to the gates of the city and bang on the iron with their fists, demanding to be let it. They are unaware of the contemptuous glares of the guards and slavers, or the horrified uncomprehending stares of other slaves (or at least, those who still can still feel horror) at their wild eyes and flushed cheeks. They are elves, humans, dwarves, goblins, every individual one can conceive of – and they are united by two things: the sounds they make (a low groan, a want, a keening) and the symbol they have carved into their faces (with sticks or bits of glass, or anything they could find).

A heart encircled by webs. We love with our hearts. Our life is sustained our hearts. We are ruled by our loyalties, the laws of our hearts. And if you carry this insignia as they do, the heart captured, you have surrendered all three aspects to the rising star of the Menzoberranzan, the slaving house with no slaves, the House Illafin of three webs.

They open the gates, and one guard resignedly attempts to escort the crowd – vainly, because they already know where they are to go. There is a music in their hearts that fuels their travel, burns up their minds, and the closer they get to the House the louder her voice sings and commands every fibre of their being. The Matron. The Matron. They love her, though they’ve never seen her in their lives as anything more than a beautiful glow of light in their dreams, always beckoning. They’ve abandoned their lives for her, their lovers and families and newborn children, all to buried themselves in the earth to be near her; the people in their lives will never know what happened to them, nor would they understand if they found out. So it is that everybody on the surface knows someone, a friend of a friend maybe, who just vanished one day – maybe their meal still hot on the table, or their fireplace still lit, like they simply stood up and disappeared.

Miles and miles below the feet of their loved ones, they have to be restrained while the gates (spiked on the outside – designed only to keep people out) are opened, before they fall to the ground and fawn at their life’s goal accomplished. They have completed their pilgrimage. It is the grounds of House Illafin, where no-one is kept by iron – no daggers to their throats, no chains on their feet. In the new premiere slaving House of the Menzoberranzan, there are no slaves.

She comes to them. They dare not touch her, not even look at her – she is indescribably beautiful. To an individual of clean mind, passing by, she may indeed look very beautiful; but that individual would not be able to see what they the faithful see, the divine glow that wreathes her figure from head to toe. Every moment of her presence is ecstasy. They will never leave her service, not matter what she does to them – even though she takes the handsome ones to her chambers to devour their minds, and snaps the necks of those with strong bones (how incredibly her fingers feel on their jaws, right before they die!) for one sister, and gives others to another sister, as food for her pet monsters. They will do everything she asks, willingly. They volunteer involuntarily. They writhe and frenzy to her lovesong.

There are no slaves here. Only those who wish to dance.

Lady Lar’wae Illafin, Lady Debt, Speaker of Law

She hears her sister’s harvest outside her window, letting the observation slip easily into her mind, flicker through, not disturbing in the least her avid concentration. A silent battle of wills is taking place, here in one of her private chambers. The horned devil in her circle hisses, and despite itself and its situation, the fiend admires the drow house for its methods, for its silk chains. They have taken into the realm of the mortals the kind of games that fiends with each other in Hell and the Infinite Layers, and they play it with the skill of those who can’t die, and the enthusiasm of those who haven’t.

With a syllable she anchors him to the Prime Material. With another sentence she revokes his powers. Every word she says, magical or otherwise, is a chain – she lays out laws and duties, snakes them around one’s hands, and in a minute one is trapped in a house of paper. A slip of parchment can bind a person stronger than any metal, but they are your chains and not hers – they are agreements you have made, contracts you have signed, compacts you have consented to. Your own words are the binding force that lets her pull you to the ground and demand service.

There are no slaves here. Everyone only does what they have willingly promised.

Lady Aun’wae Illafin, Lady Death, Whisperer of Loss

They will come to her.

She reaches out her hand into the dark, feeling the warmth engulf her, the empty howling of that place attempt to pull her in – but she is a skilled and well-travelled seeker in this place, and in that darkness she strikes up a small light. They come to her, the souls of the lost, drawn to fire, having forgotten for so long what light and heat are like. She feels them hook themselves onto her spell, onto her magic, and with a soft sigh she pulls them from the hollow skies and rises from her meditation. They have come.

The rest – the bones and the flesh, the stitching and mending, the patching and growing – is easy. Life – even the kind that has died – makes no demands upon shape and size. She raises her hand, and a hundred bones on her floor rattle and shake and reform to what pattern they wish, and being whole once again, having followed her bright-song out from the darkness of oblivion, bow to their mistress. She sings of the dark, and it is a pull that only those who have entered that complete shadow can hear, that only the dead understand. They obey her every syllable. She only need whisper (she rarely raises her voice) and they follow, they come, out of the dark.

There are no slaves here. Only those who seek the truth.