Ettercap

An ettercap stands about six feet tall even with its stoop and hunched shoulders. Short, spindly legs carry a big potbelly, and its long arms nearly reach its ankles. Each hand has a thumb and three long fingers tipped with razor claws. Tufts of coarse black hair sprout from thick, dark skin. The head is almost horselike, but with large reptilian eyes, usually blood red, a wide mouth full of sharp teeth, and a large fang jutting down at each corner. Ettercaps have no real language; they communicate through high chittering, shrieks, and violence.

These dim but cunning, deeply cruel creatures would rather lure travelers into a trap than meet them face to face, and many adventurers die without ever drawing a weapon. Silk glands in the abdomen spin thin, strong, silvery strands that the ettercap shapes into nets, trip lines, garrotes, and whatever else it can devise. Every ettercap has its own favorite designs, so each one should surprise the party with new traps. Anyone left helpless by a trap becomes the first target, attacked before he can escape.

When cornered, it rakes with both claws for 1d3 each and then bites for 1d8. Glands above the fangs pump a venom much like giant spider poison into any bitten creature, which must save vs. poison at once or die within 1d4 turns as its heart is paralyzed.

Ettercaps live deep in forests beside trails used by game or travelers. Their nests are frames of silk packed with rotting leaves and moss, built on the ground or high in a sturdy tree. They keep no treasure, though gear dropped by trapped victims sometimes litters the area.

Most are solitary. Occasionally a mated pair is found; male and female look identical. Young are abandoned at birth, so adults are never seen with offspring.

Ettercaps eat any meat at all. A captured victim is poisoned so it cannot flee, and once it dies the ettercap gorges on as much as it can hold, enough to finish a deer or a large humanoid at one sitting, leaving scraps for scavengers.

There is a 40% chance that 2d4 monstrous spiders live alongside one. The ettercap folds their webs into its traps, and prey caught in a spider's web is shared with the spider rather than eaten whole. Its venom is prized for its potency and scarcity: the glands hold just one ounce at a time, but a single ounce sells for as much as 1,000 gp.