Asteroid Spider

Void sailors named it a spider, but it only resembles one. Ten jointed, hook-tipped legs ring a round body. The upper half wears a hard insect shell and carries stalked eyes along with several organs whose purpose nobody knows. The soft underside holds the spinnerets and a mouth with suction-cup lips and a single hollow, needle-like fang. Pure black all over, it disappears against the starry dark, and it is thoroughly repulsive to look at.

Against the blackness of the void between worlds there is only a 10% chance of noticing the spider, and it attacks only what disturbs its web. Four legs anchor it while up to six strike for 1d3 each. If three or more hit in one round it clamps onto the victim, and on later rounds its free legs keep attacking while its mouth bites for 1d6. A bite calls for a save vs. poison, and failure paralyzes for 2d6 turns. The spider wraps a paralyzed victim in silk in a single round and carries it home to eat at leisure.

Until it bites, only its armored back (AC 2) is exposed, the soft belly pressed against the web. Once the mouth goes into action, that AC 7 underside becomes an easy target.

These creatures live only in asteroid belts and drifting fields of space debris. A colony usually lairs on a larger asteroid holding enough air for all of them and spins webs miles long out to nearby rocks and wreckage. The black strands are just as hard to see as the spiders (90% unlikely) and strong enough to catch any ship under 15 tons not moving at starhelm speeds.

A female leaves hundreds of eggs on the outer face of the lair. Hatching starts a frantic race: adults try to eat the young, and the young try to leap off into space. Most are eaten or drift away to die, but a few reach other rocks or debris and band together into a new colony. Once grown, a colony accepts no newcomers and attacks any spider, young or adult, that enters its territory.

Asteroid spiders can go years between meals, lying in a dormant trance that uses almost no air and waking only when the web trembles. After eating they enlarge the web a little and sink back into stillness.

Air matters to them as much as flesh. Inside a captured ship they spin a big silk bag, seal it full of air and haul it to the lair to empty it, then shuttle back and forth until the vessel holds only a thin film of air. Their venom spoils quickly and is nearly worthless. The web can be cut and treated to remove its stickiness, giving very strong rope that does not catch fire but melts away almost instantly in a flame.