Arakh

Overview
In life, Arakh was Vrahn's younger sister, one who helped her understand the vital importance of her sorcery and who stood by her side as the First Queen gathered her followers and migrated south. Resenting and ultimately despising her sister for her stringent rules and emphasis on sorcery as a determiner of caste, the nonmagical Arakh turned on Vrahn and attempted to kill her in her sleep, only to be scattered to the winds by magic. Those who could be proven to belong to her line became the lowest of the upper crust, but retained their resources as Vrahn's blood. Their secret worship of Arakh revived the hell-bound soul, who overtook the body of the spider demon subsuming her.

The Cult of Arakh has waged endless acts of terror against the Vrahn Queendom, establishing a nation surrounded by hostile wildlife. The still-loyal dark elves belonging to her bloodline suffer resentment and bigotry, and many plot in secret to destroy the Vrahn Queendom and place their demonic lady on the throne.

Appearance
The Abyss has altered Arakh's form almost beyond recognition. Bleached white and stained with blood, two extra arms connected by webbing extend from her ribs, ending in razor-sharp points. A mouth filled with venomous fangs rests below a chitinous helmet welded to her flesh. The asymmetrical collection of rubies placed there serve as her eyes, which pierce illusions, minds, and souls alike to see intent.

Divine Mission
Arakh would love for nothing more than for Arakis to conquer the Vrahn Queendom, and devotes every iota of power not delegated to wars in Abyss to her followers in Arakis, supplying them with magics, artifacts, and monsters that should never be allowed to see the light of the sun.

Religion
Every woman in Arakis is fiendishly devoted to Arakh. Those displaying insufficient devotion are sacrificed, transformed into driders, chitines, or ettercaps in a horrifically painful process that bends and breaks both body and mind. Men are used for breeding stock or consorts, discarded at the slightest provocation or the moment a more appealing partner appears.

The government of Arakis and the worship of Arakh are one and the same. The high priestesses of Arakh are the theocratic rulers of the isolated country-in-exile; her divinely chosen champions are the elite soldiers of its armies.

Priestesses feed male concubines or disgraced women great spiders in frenzied rites before an impassioned, riled crowd. Scarification and religious transformations are common within their ranks as a show of devotion by those not chosen to be her priestesses. Every part of Arakissan society devotes itself to their goddess, a cult mentality on a national scale.

Afterlife
Conisim was once a land of endless hunting, filled with shadows and webs where insectoid demons hunted each other in an endless bid for power, ruled by an immense world-spider. Subsumed into its form, posthumous worship gave Arakh the power to overcome its own will and eventually dominate the level of Abyss, altering it to serve her own whims.

Magic Properties
The wriggling of living corpse-flesh stained red with leaked blood and venom are the hallmarks of the priestesses of Arakh. Her worshippers and priests pale into an ugly off-white like their goddess, the keratin in their bodies grows and overtakes the ends of their extremities, in extreme cases armoring their hands and feet into claws and forming a helm over their heads and shoulders.