Monkey Spider

The monkey spider is an old species but so small and harmless that it went unrecognized for ages. Only an inch long from snub nose to curling tail, it was routinely swatted as a spider until a sage in the south crushed one, counted its legs and realized what it was. Apart from its size it is a perfect monkey: lean and furry, with long, skinny limbs, a grasping tail and startlingly human faces and hands. From more than two feet away it really does look like a spider.

Monkey spiders fight wasps and bees ferociously but avoid anything larger than themselves. Cornered by a bigger foe, one jumps for the eyes and bites. This does not blind, but its stinging saliva forces the target to stop everything for a round to rub his eyes while the creature escapes. If it cannot reach the eyes, it bites whatever is handy for 1 point of damage, leaving a small welt from its caustic spit.

It can jump five feet up or 10 feet down and climbs anything an ordinary gray spider can.

Wild monkey spiders travel the jungle in close bands of about 40, made of five families of eight. The oldest male and oldest female, the male prime and female prime, make decisions for the band and pass them on in a rich language of hisses, chirps, hoots and gestures that scholars rate as sophisticated as Common.

When a band enters new ground, the male prime gives a 'long call' that carries 20 yards to announce the arrival. Rival male primes steer clear of each other, but if forced to meet they must fight to the death. Being the oldest and frailest of their bands, they usually make a feeble show of it and collapse from exhaustion, whereupon the female primes prop them up and lead the bands off in opposite directions. They build no nests, sleeping on any broad leaf with another leaf over them against the rain.

They eat fruit, foraging all day for berries, dates and bananas and sometimes raiding honeycombs. Their chief enemies are insect-eating birds, rain-forest ants that compete for food, and jungle tribes who roast them crunchy as a treat.

Since their discovery they have spread to southern cities as wizards' familiars and companions for rangers and druids. They are bright, good-natured and loyal, and can learn Common, though they must use the long call to be heard any distance away. Their popularity has a grim side: in several southern lands, sordid auctions of the tiny creatures are held in back alleys and even open markets. Some bought monkey spiders slip away, and rumor claims these escapees have built a hidden underworld of small but powerful despots. Their spies supposedly listen at every important council and court and report to monkey spider kings, who use human and demihuman sympathizers to sway even the highest courts in the land.