D&D Ideas — Arachnids
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is arachnids, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of arachnids in Down on the Farm an enterprising ettercap runs a tidy business breeding and selling exotic spiders and a carefully hidden ledger points to a web of intrigue. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.
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Open a third eye for a peek at the week that was! Discover new psionic spells and whimsical character options plus a new live chats and live game play rounds out this week’s Nerdy News. Check it out here.
Delving Dave’s Dungeon
There are three orders of arachnids — acari, scorpiones and opiliones — and they include familiar creatures like mites, ticks, scorpions and daddy longlegs. Scorpions and spiders have been a staple of the fantasy genre for as long as I can remember. Fables, folklore and mythology surround them. Spiders or spiderlike monsters make an appearance in both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings from JRR Tolkien. One of the earliest movies I remember watching as a kid was Clash of the Titans. One of my favorite scenes was when they have to fight giant scorpions.
As for 5E D&D you need look no further than the Monster Manual to find tons of spiders and spider inspired monsters. Lolth the Spider Goddess and the drow have been a huge part of D&D and the Forgotten Realms for most of their existence. Now with Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything we got a new Ranger Archetype called the Swarmkeeper that could be given a spider flavor. For a fully spider-themed character you could play a dark elven Swarmkeeper ranger. Throw in three levels of rogue with the Assassin subclass and the poisoner feat into the mix and you could have a very thematic spider character.
Now some ways to use spiders in your 5E D&D game:
- Dark Forest is infested with spiders and spider-like creatures. The adventuring party needs to go through it or acquire something from within
- A village, town or city is suddenly infested by spiders. The infestation starts with mundane spiders but begins to escalate as more powerful and monstrous spider creatures appear. Will the adventuring party be able to discover the cause of the arachnid advance?
- Victims begin showing up having been drained of their blood. Is the sign of vampire attacks? Nope, it’s totally a red herring. It would fun to build a mystery around a were-spider creature hunting the local community.
- Spider Macguffin adventure where the characters need to acquire a rare spider for it’s venom either as a way to create an antitoxin or for the venom itself.
If you want more spidery goodness we’ve done a few videos over on Nerdarchy the YouTube Channel:
- Ettercap the Spider Assassin of D&D | Dungeons and Dragons Monsters
- Ettercap and Phase Spider Monster BFF Dungeons and Dragons Monsters
- The Hobgoblin Phase Spider Cavalry Monster BFF | Dungeons and Dragons Monsters
- Abizder — Bat, Lizard, and Spider Monster Mash-Up | Fast and Dirty Dungeons and Dragons Monsters
- Fast & Dirty Monsters: How to Customize Creatures | A Dragon🐉 Becomes A Giant SPIDER!
From Ted’s Head
The conversation on the live chat about this was loaded with ideas to take in a lot of directions with content creation. We brought up characters past, things I created as a Dungeon Master in campaigns gone by as well as things I made for the LARP I helped run many years ago. All of that is possible because arachnids are something almost alien to us. They drink blood for nutrients, they have way too many limbs and elicit a sense of unparalleled fear for a great number of people.
Given all of this information it is no wonder that as we get ready to celebrate Halloween these feared creatures come up. I thought long and hard about what to make for this editorial. Sometimes when inspiration strikes we make content over advice and here I am at a dilemma. Not only can I make something, but what to make? Do I make a race of evil humanoids who are large, powerful and poisonous? Do I mix a troll and a spider together and make another troll mutation? Do I go endgame and make an Aragog or Shelob level sentient spider with a large horde of spiders at their side?
The troll mutation has to win out. Imagine a group of trolls wandering into the dark forest. There, devoid of sunlight, the main source of food are monstrous spiders. After a time the trolls begin a metamorphosis. Trolls bound in webbing but not to be fed upon and instead to become something incredibly new.
The emergent creatures walk upright equally on two or four legs but have no problem using all or a portion of their new limbs to walk on six or eight as well. The trolder is a massive 600 pound creature with green and black skin, heavily coated in black chitin with long fangs and greasy black shaggy hair sprouting all over this nasty creature.
Trolder
Large monstrosity, chaotic evil
Armor Class 17 (Natural Armor)
Hit Points 95 (10d10 + 50)
Speed 45 ft., climb 45ft.
- STR: 18 (+4)
- DEX: 14 (+2)
- CON: 20 (+5)
- INT: 8 (-1)
- WIS: 12 (+1)
- CHA: 7 (-2)
Skills Perception +4
Damage Immunities Poison
Condition Immunities Poisoned
Senses Darkvision 60 ft., Passive Perception 14
Languages Giant
Challenge 7 (2,900 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +3
Keen Smell. The trolder has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.
Regeneration. The trolder regains 10 hit points at the start of its turn. If the trolder takes acid or fire damage, this trait doesn’t function at the start of the trolder’s next turn. The trolder dies only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn’t regenerate.
Web Walker. The trolder is immune to any web or web based effects. It can walk on webbing as if it were solid ground, so long as it can support its weight and can escape any webbing that is restraining in with 5 feet of movement.
Spider Climb. The trolder 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 trolder knows the exact location of any other creature in contact with the same web.
Actions
Multiattack. The trolder makes five attacks: one with its bite and four times with its claws. If two or more claws hit the same target, the trolder rends the target, dealing an extra 2d6 slashing damage.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6 + 4) piercing damage plus 4 (1d8) poison damage, and the creature is poisoned until the start of the trolder’s next turn.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) slashing damage.
Webbing Cone (Recharge 5-6). The trolder releases a 30 ft. cone of webbing in an attempt to restrain any creature. Any creature in the area must make a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw or be restrained by a web. As an action a restrained creature can make a DC 16 Strength saving throw to escape. Another creature can use an action to cut through the webbing provided they have a weapon that does slashing damage. Creatures restrained by the webbing have their speed reduced to 0 and the area of the cone becomes difficult terrain for the next 10 minutes.
From the Nerditor’s Desk
During the live chat when Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discussed arachnids in 5E D&D I thought of a twist to incorporate with the monthly one shot we run for the Nerdarchy community. For the past three years the October game falls on me and of course it’s a Halloween themed adventure. By now it’s something of a tradition for me because I run our Hag’s Apprentice module with a few twists each time to shake things up and keep it interesting.
This year I’m taking inspiration from the Itsy Bitsy Spider nursery rhyme. The idea crossed my mind while listening to the live chat and stuck with me. In Hag’s Apprentice a very strange group of friends get together deep within the Wyrd Wood for a monster mashup of frightening proportions as they try to recreate a hag coven with dangerous results.
“The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout.
Down came the rain, and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun, and dried up all the rain,
and the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.”
Since Itsy Bitsy Spider is so short and snappy it ought to be pretty easy to squeeze some 5E D&D out of the lyrics. The very first line gives me some ideas for an challenging exploration scenario. How will the adventurers navigate forward when faced with a confined vertical tunnel? I’m thinking they’ll discover the passage to the climactic encounter within the lair of a spider rancher (see how I incorporated our Down on the Farm encounter from this newsletter intro?).
The climb up the tunnel becomes much more dangerous when a deluge threatens to wash the adventuring party out, ruin their progress and potentially drown them! Perhaps I’ll sneak a packet of dust of dryness into the scenario somewhere. Something’s got to dry up all this rain after all.
One of the things I like the most about Hag’s Apprentice is the variety of strange effects going on for the big finale. The eponymous apprentice and her witchy friends cook up some bizarre magic and this is a great place to change things up. This year Hagatha’s Cauldron can adopt an arachnid theme and produce effects drawn from our own Arachnomancer spells. Spider bite, pack of spiders, nest of spiders, rampage of spiders, spectral spider servant, spider plague and hail of crystal spiders offer a wide range of effects all with creepy arachnid vibes.
How’s that for efficiency? I got the arachnid editorial done and prepared for the upcoming one shot at the same time. There’s inspiration for 5E D&D to be found literally anywhere and for me personally I take a lot from music whether it’s a nursery rhyme or an experimental pop song like Beck’s Up All Night.
*Featured image — Spiders bred to great size at a spider farm terrorize a nearby area and heroes come to end the danger along with 54 other dynamic Out of the Box encounters ready to drop right into your Fifth Edition games. Learn more here.
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