One type of spider I want to use all the time in games is the Missulena occatoria, or the red-headed mouse spider, especially fantastical spiders with the same coloring as the males with bright red jaws and black legs and blue abdomen. Visually, they are so striking and menacing. I don't have much else to say other than if you haven't already (and you don't hate arachnids!), go look them up! No rambling about artists or any of that, the inspiration this time is purely the creature itself.
First notes:
Spider: Large arachnid (by D&D and Dark Sun standards, not real world standards) with 10 stout legs (5 pairs; 5 legs on each side, 2 of which are frontal legs but not quite developed into true pedipalps), two large, downward-pointing chelicerae with fangs (jackknife chelicerae; fangs only cross in "mutants"), book lungs, spinnerets under the middle of the abdomen, and a visibly segmented abdomen.
Simple description (for male): Large black and gunmetal blue arachnid with a strikingly bright red head and fangs.
Medium beast, unaligned, CR 1/2 (100 XP)
- Stealthy predator. Beneath webbed trapdoors in cave and oasis lairs they lie in wait, nearly undetectable.
- Menacing. Their striking appearance, their hunting capability, and their unique venom make them terrifying to any creatures that are capable of feeling fear.
- Vile diet. Smaller species eat insects, birds, and other small, soft-bodied creatures. Larger species (considered "giant" in other settings) eat anything meaty and even kill animals they don't want to eat for bait to lure things they do hunger for.
Good at: Stealth, explosive ambushes, fighting when cornered.With that stack of notes, I set to filling out the typical stat block. I started with a very simple spider and added a few things to make it more interesting to me. I have several iterations of this thing, one of them was this:
Bad at: Engaging creatures in the open (especially multiples).
Stats: ++DEX.
Equipment: Poisoned natural weapons (fangs).
Menacing Spider, MaleBut that didn't feel very... menacing. I feel good about the way its bite attack works, it's built into the attack that the monster makes a point to avoid killing its prey, of course it needs to have an ability for when it's hiding in a web. And I love using bloodied triggers, they can make creatures feel more alive, more deadly, sometimes more desperate or plain creepy. This one ended up being nicer to newer or lower level adventures and, thus, players — which is what I've mostly been as a player and what most people I know play — and I feel great about that. Still, it was missing something, maybe a few things, so I took several more shots by amplifying a few facets and eventually got here:
Medium beast, unaligned
AC 12 (natural armor), HP 18 (3d8 + 5), Bloodied 9, Speed 35 ft
STR 12 (+1), DEX 15 (+2), CON 13 (+1), INT 10 (+0), WIS 13 (+1), CHA 9 (-1)
Skills: Intimidation +5, Perception +3, Stealth +4 (+7 in lair or Web Trap)
Senses: Blindsight 15 ft, Darkvision 60 ft, Passive Perception 13
Languages: --
Challenge Rating: 1 (200 XP)
Abilities
Spider Climb. The spider can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Web Sense. While in contact with a web, the spider knows the exact location of any other creature in contact with the same web.
Web Walker. The spider ignores movement restrictions caused by webbing.
Actions
Bite. +2 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 4 (1d8) piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 11 CON save, taking 6 (1d8 + 2) poison damage or half as much on a success. If the poison damage would reduce the target to 0 HP, the target is reduced to 1 HP instead, becomes Poisoned for 1 hour, and is Paralyzed while poisoned in this way.
Triggered Actions
Ambush, on Web Trap trigger. The spider lunges forward, moving up to 10 ft to the target and making a bite attack with advantage. If it hits, the attack deals an additional 4 poison damage, then the spider and target make opposed STR checks. If the target wins, it can move 5 ft away. Otherwise, the target is dragged 10 ft away to a nearby wall or ceiling and webbed to it. They are Restrained and must make a DC 13 Athletics (STR) check or spend a turn burning the webs to escape.
Bloodied, 9 HP. The spider makes a spittling hiss, backs away up to 10 ft, and stops attacking. If it is attacked again, it will resume attacking as normal.
Menacing Spider, FemaleMuch better. It has slightly lower HP compared to other CR 2 monsters I've seen but can dish out a lot more damage. Its bloodied action feels strong and scary to play against, especially if there is a male and female spider with that ability or if it makes all creatures within 20 ft of each of the two spiders Frightened. One thing I'm still not sure about are the "if the target wins, if they lose..." and "on a success, on a failure..." which can make the encounter snowball into being very hard or very easy much harder than if it were designed around just "if the target wins..." or "on a failure..."
Medium beast, unaligned
AC 13 (natural armor), HP 36 (7d8 + 5), Bloodied 18, Speed 35 ft
STR 14 (+2), DEX 15 (+2), CON 15 (+2), INT 10 (+0), WIS 13 (+1), CHA 9 (-1)
Skills: Intimidation +6, Perception +3, Stealth +4 (+7 in lair or Web Trap)
Senses: Blindsight 15 ft, Darkvision 60 ft, Passive Perception 13
Languages: --
Challenge Rating: 2 (450 XP)
Abilities
Spider Climb. The spider can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Web Sense. While in contact with a web, the spider knows the exact location of any other creature in contact with the same web.
Web Walker. The spider ignores movement restrictions caused by webbing.
Actions
Bite. +3 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 4 (1d8) piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 11 CON save, taking 6 (1d8 + 2) poison damage or half as much on a success. If the poison damage would reduce the target to 0 HP, the target is reduced to 1 HP instead, becomes Poisoned for 1 hour, and is Paralyzed while poisoned in this way.
Triggered Actions
Ambush, on Web Trap trigger. The spider lunges forward, moving up to 10 ft to the target and making a bite attack with advantage. If it hits, the attack deals an additional 4 poison damage, then the spider and target make opposed STR checks. If the target wins, it can move 5 ft away. Otherwise, the target is dragged 10 ft away to a nearby wall or ceiling and webbed to it. They are Restrained and must make a DC 13 Athletics (STR) check or spend a turn burning the webs to escape.
Bloodied, 18 HP. The spider makes a spittling hiss and immediately leaps up to 15 ft, making a bite attack at the creature that hit it last or another nearby creature. Then it forces all creatures within 20 ft to make a DC 15 WIS save. On a success, a creature stands their ground and gains 1d10 Temporary HP for 1 hour. On a failure, a creature becomes Frightened of the spider for 2 rounds and has one less action on their next turn.
But I do like it a lot. It leaves a lot of room for DMs to play around with tactics and environments, from spiders that hide in trapdoors in grassy plains or savannas, to oasis and wasteland lurkers, to groups that stalk prey in pairs or larger groups with spiderlings in cave systems.
And there is a ton of room for Missulena occatoria's appearance to be used for other kinds of monstrous spiders, here are two templates that came out of a dozen more scrapped ideas:
Weaver
AC 10 (natural armor)
STR 10 (+0), DEX 16 (+3)
Skills: Perception +3, Stealth +5 (+7 in lair or Web Trap)
Languages: Understands Common (but can't speak)
Actions
Bite. +3 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 4 (1d8) piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 11 CON save, taking 6 (1d8 + 2) poison damage or half as much on a success. If the target fails the save, they become Poisoned for 1 hour and are Blinded while poisoned in this way.
Web Spray (Recharge 5-6). +5 to hit, 20 ft, two adjacent targets. The creatures are Restrained by webbing and make a DC 15 DEX save. On a success, a creature can take an action on their turn and make a DC 11 Athletics (STR) check to break the webbing; on a failure, DC 15 instead. The webbing cannot be burned away by fire, attempting to do so deals 1d4 fire damage to the restrained creature.
One version of the web spray looked like this: "15 ft radius, 5 ft range. The spider creates a sticky web around them, creating difficult terrain. Creatures in the area must make a DC 12 DEX check or become entangled by webbing. As an action, the entangled target can make a DC 12 STR check to break the webbing, but it cannot be burned away fire..."
Another version had the spray in a 20 ft line and it leashed creatures together. I seemed cool, but the ways I kept writing and editing the ability that I was playing out in my mind was always messy and clogged up with so many words to cover all of the movement restrictions I kept thinking of. Good idea, I couldn't find a reasonably concise way to write it, so I scrapped it. The "two adjacent targets" version above is so much simpler to me and fits that lower level monster league.
The language it knows not only means that it can understand commands given by a handler, it also means it can understand when hostile creatures make plans out loud speaking that language and that it can react to those plans. To me, this spider is also begging to be turned into a complete NPC with the ability to communicate telepathically and their own goals and plans, or to be hired by the party or recruited as a follower. It could be added onto drider creatures or, if it were the companion to a raider, rogue, or barbarian (PC or NPC) it could be an insectoid assassin with psionic abilities and relay information it hears to its handler.
Bulwark
AC 15 (natural chitin armor)
STR 14 (+2), CON 15 (+2), INT 4 (-3), WIS 6 (-2)
Skills: Athletics +5, Perception +3, Stealth +3 (+5 in lair)
Abilities
Wall of Legs. The spider has an additional +3 AC against attacks from the front and +3 to attacks against enemies directly in front of it. The first creature that attacks the spider or that it attacks becomes its focus, and the spider will face and attack its focus whenever possible. If its focus moves 15 ft away, it loses its focus until the next time it is attacked or that it attacks a creature.
Triggered Actions
Stomp, Bloodied. The spider's armor breaks off and it angrily flails its legs at each creature adjacent to it. +2 to hit, reach 5 ft, 8 targets (max). 4 (1d8) bludgeoning damage. The spider's AC is reduced to 12.
I don't know anything about my audience for this blog so far, so in case all of you have never played Gears of War, the "Wall of Legs" ability was shamelessly taken from the Corpsers in the Gears of War series. They could be burrowing arachnids or, like any of the spiders, mystically trained as pets for hunters or barbarians or what-have-you, with extra layers of padded, bone, or metal armor or weapons added to their legs to make them even more menacing. Making this type of spider Large instead of Medium — increasing its stats appropriately — would also make it much more terrifying when it stomps on players, I'm sure.
Creepy Confrontations
"Since morning they've been tailed by a pack of hell hounds, at midday they spotted a dust storm heading in their direction. At the first chance they had, they decided to take shelter in a cave where they won't be hit by the storm and could easily fend off the hounds. It just so happens that it's home to various critters..."
When a character enters this cave (or for each of the encounters inside, if you prefer), roll on the table below to determine which creatures are living in it. One of that type of creature will hastily move past the character and leave the cave, giving someone the heebie-jeebies.
1d4
|
Creature
|
# per Encounter
|
1
|
Swarm of Bats
|
1d2
|
2
|
Stirges
|
1d4
|
3
|
Giant Centipedes
|
1d2
|
4
|
Scorpions
|
1d6
|
Minor Cave Encounters
Each room in the cave is significantly cooler during the day and will stay comfortably cool at night (or comfortably warm with multiple creatures in the room).
If a character decides to sleep in any of the rooms or the entrance, the menacing spider will find them and attack at some point unless the path is blocked or the spider is killed. Roll for the spider's Stealth (1d20 + 4), characters must make Perception checks against it or be ambushed.
Every room (except the front of the tunnel entrance) is extremely dark, so a light source is needed for most characters to see. Standard torches shed bright light in a 20-ft radius and dim light up to 40 ft, but I don't find that to be extremely useful for theater of the mind play. For me, each room has a number given for the torches needed to fill the room with dim light, double that for the number needed for vibrant light. Keep in mind for nighttime and cave encounters that most characters only have two arms and hands to light and hold torches with, limiting them not only as far as being able to see their surroundings but also use weapons, tools, and other items in combat. Additionally, if characters have obscured vision (such as in poorly lit areas), they make Perception checks at disadvantage. Small things like that can make a little cave much more dangerous than the combat encounters might imply. Granted, a lot of non-human characters have some form of darkvision which can negate the effect, adding unnatural darkness to rooms three and four below is a simple way to keep the cave interesting and isn't unreasonable considering at least one of the creatures there.
Onto the cave design:
- Entrance. A narrow gap in the rock is a tunnel with a very low ceiling 3-ish ft high (most characters need to crouch). It is small enough that only 3 Medium size creatures can fit at a time, or 1 Large creature if they are prone. At the back of the tunnel is another gap similar to the entrance which leads to Room One.
- Room One. 1 torch. The ceiling is 6 ft high with a few stalactites and the room can comfortably fit 6 people. At the back of this room is a slight decline and the room narrows to a 2 ft wide tunnel that leads to Room Two.
Minor Encounters: 10 ft left of the entrance in the corner of the room is a gap in the rock. If someone makes a loud noise or puts anything in front of or inside the gap, the creatures will start skittering out and attacking. - Room Two. 2 torches. The ceiling is much higher and has stalactites completely covering it. This room is much larger overall, able to fit a large family, but has an uneven floor and rough, winding and narrow walls. Taking a short rest here is possible, taking a long rest will not relieve Exhaustion. Something can be seen glimmering in the path to the left.
The first character that walks more than 10 ft in the room must make a DC 14 Perception check (DC 11 if using a light source). On a success, they scrape against the walls but manage to avoid hurting themselves or snagging equipment on a rock. On a failure, they feel something scratch at them and take 1d4 slashing damage (from scraping against the walls, but don't tell them that unless they're already on to you).
There is one violet fungus in the middle of the room.
To the left: The path widens and the space transitions into Room Three.
To the right: The path narrows slightly and leads to Room Four. - Room Three. 3 torches. Roughly 40 ft wide and 65 ft long. It has a similar ceiling to Room Two and the walls are smooth and wavy or rippled except for a tall crack to the right and a dozen circular holes scattered around. The far wall is a dead end with a wide, natural shelf jutting out about 4 ft up that a character could sleep on. There is water dripping from the ceiling, running down several parts of the walls and pooling under the shelf (2 in deep).
To the right of the shelf is a section of wall covered in white crystals with a few large red crystal chunks: 4 red garnets worth 50 coin each, 1/2 lb each.
Minor Encounters in some of the holes: 5 ft right of the entrance near the floor, 10 ft left of the entrance and halfway up the wall, and another in the far wall overhead the shelf.
A Dune Reaper Lair is in the crack in the wall 15 ft to the right of the entrance. See below.
- Room Four, Menacing Spider Lair. 2 torches. Circular, roughly 30 ft diameter. A few stalagmites dot the floor, stalactites and strands of silk hang from the ceiling, thick webs are strung between walls and stalagmites. The cave boss and 1d6 spiders wait silently and patiently beneath the floor in a trap door web near the center of the room which goes down 20 ft. In the room, roll for the spider's Stealth (+7). The first character that enters must make a Perception check against its Stealth or be ambushed.
The room is covered in webbing and counts as Difficult Terrain. Webs can be burned away, or can be slashed at for one round to clear the space around a character.
Wrapped in webs around a stalagmite is a dead humanoid with assorted equipment (random starting equipment for a random class). Two torches are tangled in webs at their feet.
(Note again that if the spider is not killed or trapped, it will search for the characters in the cave and attack them while they rest. If the party stays in the cave and doesn't enter the last room, they don't avoid the boss fight, the fight just happens outside the spider's lair.)
Dune Reaper Hatchling LairOptional rules that can add realism or just a little extra to the encounter:
Simple trap (level 1-4, dangerous threat, 150 XP)
The former nest of an adult dune reaper who preyed on the other cave denizens before dying. Now there is only the stench of rot and a weak dune reaper hatchling — weak compared to adult warriors, that is.
Inspecting the hatchling reveals that it is very young and wounded: one leg is broken, the other leg has two deep slashes and damaged muscle can easily be seen. Inspecting the lair reveals some of the debris is the corpse of a half-eaten adult dune reaper. In the very back is one broken egg and two whole eggs (2 HP).
Trigger. A Tiny to Medium size creature moves in front the lair.
Effect. The hatchling attacks the creature. The creature makes a DC 15 DEX save, taking 9 (1d10 + 4) piercing damage or half as much on a success. If this causes the creature to fall to 0 HP, the hatchling drags them 5 ft into the lair and starts eating them, dealing 9 (1d10 + 4) damage at the end of each round. Otherwise, the hatchling retreats deeper into the lair until another creature triggers this effect.
Countermeasures. DC 13 Perception (WIS) check to notice a rotten smell and quiet chewing sound coming from the crack in the wall. On a critical success, a disturbing, alien presence can be felt tickling the character's mind when they focus on the lair.
The dune reaper has 14 AC and 16 HP. It will retreat deeper into the lair and stop attacking when it reaches 8 HP or fewer unless provoked (by being attacked) or threatened (such as by a large fire in their lair).
- The dune reaper becomes sated for 24 hours after eating 4 Tiny, 2 Small, or 1 Medium sized creature. While it is sated, it retreats deeper into its lair and will not attack unless provoked or threatened.
- If the dune reaper is killed by fire, acid, or asphyxiation, its dying screams can be felt by any creatures with psionic capabilities (or the ability to sense telepathic communications) within 100 ft. It deals 1 psychic damage to affected creatures within 20 ft and they are effectively Deafened for one round.
- If the dune reaper or spider dies and its body was not burned, its carcass will attract one of the Small sized creatures in the area (the same creature determined earlier). At sunrise the next day, the attracted creature's population in the immediate area will be doubled; if all of the Small creatures in the area were destroyed, one of the encounters will refresh instead (roll again on the table above).
Another ball of notes finally out there. As I said on Twitter and have mentioned before, I'm busy with more family and personal business this month and can't write these posts a quarter as often as I would like, hopefully they're still enjoyable when I can get them out here. If you have any cool spiders that would fit Dark Sun or any kind of fantasy setting, share them! I'd love to check them out. Thanks again for reading, cheers.
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