Inktober 2023 - Spiders

“The spiders of Olbrecht resemble common Orb Weavers, and are though to be related to the tick-like Creepers that inhabit the same region. The spiders are roughly the size of a dog when they first hatch, and can grow to the size of a small house in maturity. They are dull brown, black, and gray in coloration. Their venomous bite and sting are not potent enough to kill, but will certainly paralyze their victim within minutes. Merely touching their dripping viscera is enough to cause a burning and inflamed rash. The threads they weave are incredibly strong, able to support the weight of many of these behemoths. Due to the impossible stickiness of the webs, the spiders are covered in special hairs that are incredibly soft, allowing them immunity to entanglement. They live communally in clusters, and the webs that make up their home engulfs huge swaths of land. They are not skilled hunters, and rarely leave their territory, preferring to let prey come to them and become helplessly ensnared in their webs. If food is scarce however, they will scour the nearby landscape and consume anything in sight. This often results in them covering the area they've decimated in more web, adding to their territory. The interior of their cluster is cave-like, the dense threads blocking out all sun. It is labyrinthian and once entered, is very hard to tell which way is up or down. The spiders also speak their own harsh, hissing, spitting language. The spiders are leaderless, and will not hesitate to attack their own if they are hungry. Because of their sheer size, females only lay a clutch of 20 or so eggs, about half of which will survive to adulthood. The spiders are fiercely defensive of their eggs however, and won't let anything near them, including other spiders. The single uniting factor that brings them to live amongst each other is their shared worship of Lolth, a primordial deity to them. Before the calamity, the ancestors of the modern day giant spiders were cultists who worshipped arachnids, and were lead by a priestess named Lolth. During the period of inquisition when the kingdoms of the land sent heroes about to purge the pagan cults, the followers of Lolth were transformed into ordinary spiders through use of magic as punishment. What became of Lolth herself is undocumented, but she is still revered today by the cult's descendants. After the curse set by Malchoir, much of the wildlife of the land became monstrous and malevolent, and in a strange inversion, seems to have actually restored some of the humanity of the previous arachnid cultists instead of the other way around; their increased size and enhanced abilities allowed for them to become more social and communal, resulting in the fearsome presence they're known for now. The spider cluster can be seen from very far away; dark, dead trees choked in a haze of web that spans for miles. The area has earned the name Loppespeld, meaning "Spider Wood", and is seldom visited. The neighboring Sahuagin and Bullywug civilizations spin grim tales of unwary travelers who came to close too the fringes of the Loppespeld, only to be snatched immediately and dragged into the stringy domain of the spiders.”