This simple and unimaginative name is that given by Ivid III to a network of spies, agents, and assassins in his service.

The simple name is almost a double-bluff; the overkings have tended to favor flamboyant, clichéd names for their personal servitors (Fiend-Knights of Doom, for example). The Web was set up under the aegis of the then-court wizard, Belerak the Wizened, to strengthen the overking’s grip on the other royal houses of Aerdy.

Given such a goal, these agents were organized using a cell structure, so that active cells did not know where their orders came from, nor who their source of instruction was. This, obviously, allowed the overking to deny any knowledge of them if they should be apprehended (and he usually took steps to make sure that cells appeared to be linked to other nobles who were rivals of the target the cell was acting against).

This is sound strategy, but it has one central pitfall. Cells can become autonomous and out of control. Since, over the coming decades, creatures of Chaotic Evil alignment came increasingly to fill the ranks of the web, the problems with this organization grew greater. Now the situation is one of near-complete anarchy.

The old spymaster of the Web, Remaelak, was recently executed for treason. His lieutenants in Rauxes have either suffered the same fate, or else fled the capital. In several major cities of Aerdy, Web spies and agents have been left without instructions or leadership as a result, and have thus opted to follow their own instincts.

Carl Sargent. Greyhawk Adventures, Ivid the Undying, 1995

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