Pedipalp

Pedipalps, nicknamed whip scorpions, live on many worlds with some variation; the kind described here comes from one prime world. They look like a blend of spider and scorpion, most often brown or tan, with plenty of russet and deep green ones as well. Every pedipalp is immune to poisons and corrosives of all kinds, acids and noxious fumes included. Drow use them much as others use dogs: to guard the house, as pets, and for the hunt.

Roughly every eight months a mated pair disables some creature, typically pinning it under rocks or breaking its joints, and the female implants a batch of 2d20 eggs with soft shells inside it. The young eat their way out when they hatch.

Common in the deep underworld, these small hunters eat rats, worms and similar prey. Despite the name, an adult may be only a foot long. Though armed with a pair of grasping limbs and nasty-looking jaws, they can seize nothing bigger than themselves, and they have none of the long whip feelers seen on bigger kinds.

In this kind, two 8-foot whips have replaced a pair of legs, used to probe cracks, traps and hidden spaces, and the front legs beside the mandibles end in spiny pincers. The mandibles bite for 1d8 and a pincer strikes for 1d6. Any pincer hit becomes a clamping hold at once; only a bend bars/lift gates roll lets the victim twist away. The crushing grip deals 2d6 from the next round onward, every round, until the creature is killed or its captive escapes, which takes a bend bars roll (attempted once each round). The hold ties up both pincers, so turning them on another foe releases it, yet the jaws stay free to bite anyone within reach, and bites against the held victim gain +6.

The biggest variety carries a raised tail that looks like a scorpion's sting but is merely another feeler; its weapons are a bite and two pincers dealing 1d8 apiece. After a pincer hit it may give up its second pincer attack to try for a grip, and the target slips the hold only by passing a bend bars/lift gates roll. If the grip takes hold, every round afterward it bites automatically for 2d4 and crushes for 2d8. This continues until the pedipalp dies, lets go to face another enemy, or has a gripping pincer (each is spined and sheathed in bone) cut off. Other attackers may draw its attention: a 1 in 2 chance for each attack against it, 2 in 12 if the attack lands. A pincer has AC 0 and is severed after 20 points of damage, tracked apart from the creature's own hit points.

It can also, up to thrice daily, release a wet, yellow, acrid gas that fills a 20-foot-radius sphere around it in one round before dispersing. Every non-pedipalp inside must save vs. poison or suffer muscle spasms for 1d6 rounds, fighting at -3 to hit.

Pedipalps are fearless wanderers that roam wherever food leads, holding no territory and paying enemies no mind. They usually hunt alone, the young and weak in pairs, but will band together against larger prey or foes. No pedipalp ever preys on or battles its own kind or any other arachnid.

Their poison sacs, flexible things the size and shape of a walnut in a fist, are prized by poisoners as the source of a strong disabling venom. Many goblinkin use the spined fore-pincers as maces, and for 3d4 days after death a feeler can serve as a whip, dealing 1d2 (1 against large foes), before drying out and crumbling. The rest of the creature is unsafe or unpleasant for most to eat.