Spider Sensation
November 15th, 2011
Hello everyone, and welcome to another exciting edition of Grave Plots, where we bring you new plot hooks and adventure ideas each and every week. This week we'll be concluding our animal response articles with my own favorite animal, the s- wait what's that? Alex, you have a request? Spiders? Well, okay, I guess we'll be concluding the animal response articles in two weeks. In the meantime, let's talk about spiders. It was actually a few weeks ago when my good friend and fellow necromancer Alex Riggs brought up the subject of doing an animal article on spiders.
Naturally, I was pleased to oblige, but with Alex I should have known there would be more to it than that. You see, Alex brought up the very good point that when we see spiders in fantasy, they tend to be doing one of two things: randomly haunting dark places, or serving as mounts or just plain ambience for the dark elves and similar spider-obsessed creatures. I tried to point out that hanging out in dark places and ambushing prey is very natural behavior for spiders (giant or otherwise) and that, realistically, that's exactly what they would do. Apparently, though, his point was more that it wasn't very interesting to see spiders portrayed the same way every single time, rather than that it wasn't realistic spider behavior. Anyway, long story short, Alex requested that the article have something new to do with spiders, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.
In general, spiders are one of the most diverse, successful, and fearsome creatures on the planet. Few creatures inspire such strong emotions as the spider. Generally these are very negative emotions such as revulsion, hatred, and fear, rather than the fond feelings most of us get for more furry and normal-looking creatures. Spiders are one of the few things that just about any human will kill on sight and feel absolutely no remorse for. After all, spiders are creepy and poisonous and therefore pretty much need to die. I've personally dealt with quite a few of these little arachnids myself, and I wouldn't be too surprised if you had done similar dirty work over the years.
Spiders, on the other hand haven't taken this lying down, and over 100 people were reliably reported to have been killed by spiders in the 20th century. Now, I know that number might be shocking for some of you; by way of comparison, the box jelly fish kills about 15 times as many people as all 40,000 species of spiders combined. Now most of us are working under the misconception that spiders are a lot more of a threat to people, and while you should probably still be concerned about deadly spiders if you live in the jungles of Brazil and walk around barefoot, in general we probably worry an inappropriate amount about spiders. This is, however, to our advantage as adventure writers, since we're creating fantasy adventures, and the perception of a thing is far more important, not to mention more interesting, than reality. As a result, today we'll be focusing on that illusion. But don't forget that fantasy games feature a much more formidable and lethal form of spider: the giant spider. Which, as I understand it, has been responsible for the deaths of a great many foolish woodland wanderers and drow castle invaders. Still, today's plot will focus on the smaller variety of spider.
Tiny Spiders
In D&D, these tiny creatures can usually be found populating the swarms that threaten adventurers foolish enough to infiltrate their dungeon hallway homes. Since today's article is all about doing away with the expected traditional uses for spider monsters, however, we'll be doing away with swarms for our plot and featuring these frightening foes individually.
Now, you might be concerned that individual tiny spiders don't actually have stats outside of a swarm. This won't be a problem for our proposed plot involving the little devils, and this isn't really the article for stat blocks. I think I can rustle up some quick stats, though, if you feel like things need to come to blows between your PCs and the tiny spiders.
Tiny Spider
N Fine vermin
AC 20, touch 20, flat-footed 18 (+2 Dex, +8 Size); suffer a -10 penalty against bludgeoning attacks made by creatures of Small size or larger
hp 1 (1 HD)
Melee bite +1 (1 plus poison)
Poison (Ex)
Bite – injury; save Fort DC 8; effect 1 Con; cure 1 save.
Feel free to make more potent spiders if feel like you need more of a challenge or something to represent a more impressive kind of spider, such as a Brazilian wandering spider.
The Averbrook Infestation
The idyllic town of Averbrook has long been an oasis for jungle travelers and traders passing down the Aver River. The beautiful, mid-sized town is often treated as a resort by the locals and much of its income comes from travelers looking for a place to rest and unwind on their journey. So when it became evident that a vast host of spiders had come to infest Averbrook and that the people were beginning to panic, the local government decided that something must be done before the town's economy is destroyed.
As a result, the town council is reaching out to adventurers to solve the spider infestation problem, and with a prize in gold pieces on the line the PCs will have their work cut out for them in alleviating the towns suffering. When they arrive in town, the PCs should notice a distinct lack of people out and about enjoying the many amenities of Averbrook, but that large spiders (about 6-10 inches from end to end) can be seen skittering about, completely unchecked. The vermin are more aggressive than most and will try to bite any creature who approaches too close. While this is unlikely to result in death, it certainly causes a panic and could lead to injury and illness. A pair of white tents, draped with insect nets nailed to the ground with steel pitons, sits in the town square, the only sign of human habitation left in Averbrook. One of the tents belongs to the town council, while the other belongs to a surly old exterminator specializing in the disposal of vermin.
The council happily welcomes the arrival of the PCs and sends word to Ghert, the exterminator, to meet with them in their tent. With the meeting underway, the council explains to the PCs that the spiders moved in over 3 weeks ago, and that due to the aggressiveness of the creatures they were forced to evacuate the town. They hired a specialist to deal with the horde, but even though he's proven to be a skilled exterminator, despite his best efforts the spiders just keep coming. It has become clear to the council that this is a matter beyond the skills of an ordinary man and that it is time they reach out to skilled adventurers to discover how the spiders are thriving despite the best efforts of Ghert.
Investigating the town reveals that spiders have managed to overwhelm the city pretty thoroughly, and webs now stretch between nearly every vertical surface in the town. Though the spiders seem to be distributed randomly, careful observers will discover that there are spiders moving regularly between the town proper and the outer walls. Traveling just outside the walls reveals that someone or something constructed large burrows, containing massive and well-preserved spider nests. Destroying the nests will allow Ghert to purge the town of vermin in just a few hours. After the PCs report the tale of the spider nests, the town government pays them handsomely for their services and asks if they're interested in more work, to find out who's responsible for the construction of the burrows.
Well, that’s it for this week’s Grave Plots. I hope you join me next week for a rousing discussion on wands. Until then, allow me to wish you all the best in your gaming endeavors.