Sky-Raider Spiders

The sky-raider drow honor spiders as children of the spider goddess, and four breeds sail aboard their web-sailed windships. A usual crew has a doomspider that the captain keeps as a pet, a single rigger spider to tend the lines, and then 1d6+4 drop spiders or else 1d4+1 leaping sword spiders, never both: for reasons no one understands, those two breeds poison and hack each other apart if they share a deck. Every ship with spiders also needs a trained spidermaiden to keep the often cranky creatures in line.

Foes call this large, furry black spider the Vengeance of the Spider Goddess. Its bite is venomless and deals 1 hp, yet it is perhaps the deadliest spider aboard. It carries two internal sacs of stable resin, roughly a gallon apiece, and can let them mix at will. The next round it erupts like a delayed blast fireball, 8d6+8 hp to all within 20 feet, destroying itself; once begun this cannot be stopped, giving a captain just time to escape by magic. Slaying one triggers the same blast a round after death.

It grasps simple commands but answers to one mistress alone, normally the captain, and waits for her word, though at least one captain has died in her own pet's fireball, possibly for some offense against the goddess. Otherwise it is docile, biting only someone who harms it or its owner. If its mistress dies it usually explodes 1d4 rounds later, so throw it overboard fast.

These huge web-spinners are trained to jump from the deck and descend on silk onto ships, ground targets or anything passing below. If its line is cut, one within 30 feet of the ship can usually (80%) shoot another and reattach that same round. Cartilage in its legs lets it survive any fall, though it needs a round per 100 feet fallen to steady itself, unable to attack and at -4 AC. Webbing between its legs lets it spiral down and glide to a chosen landing. Its bite injects Type D venom altered by the breeders; a failed save vs. poison also leaves the victim instantly disoriented at -2 to attacks and saves (not cumulative). Its silk serves as a climbing line or as a single 30-foot entangling strand that otherwise works like a large spider's web.

This giant spider maintains the windship's rigging as tirelessly as its wild cousins hunt. Smarter and more responsive than they are, it takes pride in its work and savagely attacks anyone who cuts lines or hampers the ship's handling. It ranks just below the captain in importance and is closely guarded. It has normal giant spider venom and webbing, ignores the dizzying effect of uhl vapor, and gains +4 on saves against other gases and gas spells.

A smaller sword spider bred for cramped decks. It springs up to 60 feet sideways and impales with one attack roll; a hit strikes with three legs against size S, four against M, five against L, six against H and all eight against G, 1-10 hp per leg, and attacks aimed up at it suffer -4. Its bite is not venomous but can be made in the same round as the leg strike. It is the hardest breed to train, and mistreated ones vent their anger on crew and ship; unless the spidermaiden regains control with a spider handling proficiency check, they must be destroyed. Even so they move with great care and never slice the rigging, and the rigger usually kills any that runs amok.

The spiders bolster the ships in battle and wait in the crew quarters until sent out. All are raised to revere the rigger and will never attack it, even if it attacks them, and the others mostly ignore the doomspider. As sacred creatures they are guarded, well treated and never spent carelessly. A ship that loses every spider, or never had any, is thought disgraced in the goddess's eyes, and crews feel cursed aboard it. If the goddess decides a captain is abusing her spiders, she may have the doomspider explode in a way that kills the captain but spares most of the crew, as a lesson.

The goddess made these breeds for all drow, so they also live in drow cities and enclaves, often serving powerful priestesses. A paralyzed or held doomspider's sacs can be cut out, killing it, to make a potent portable explosive, safe to carry with the two chemicals kept apart. Spinnerets and foot pads of the web-spinners go into slippers of spider climbing and climbing potions, and sword spider legs become ornate, nonmagical long swords.

Sky-raiders who forsake the spider goddess for the drow goddess of song and moonlight, as privateers or player characters, cannot control any of her children and are attacked by every spider on sight. They cannot use riggers or web rigging and must make do with rope, sinew and ordinary glues to patch their ships' membranes.