Spider Horse

This uncanny crossbreed has the head and body of a horse and four horse legs, but also four spider legs, a cluster of spider eyes, and fangs in place of teeth. It runs on the ground like any horse and climbs webs as easily as a spider. Priestesses of Veshyra, the exiled drow princess of the Abyss, bred the first ones long ago, and drow of the Gloomdeep value them highly. Each stays loyal to its rider until death.

A spider horse kicks with its hooves and bites with its fangs. Its bite paralyzes for 2d4 hours unless the victim saves vs. poison, and even then leaves the target slowed for 1d4 turns, as the slow spell.

When its master expects trouble, the steed can be posted above a doorway, dangling on a web line, and dropped onto enemies as they pass, with surprise on 1-5 on 1d6.

Their home is the Gloomdeep, the cavernous demiplane to which Veshyra, queen of the drow there, was banished. Centuries of spider silk have built up into broad web pastures in its caverns, and the herds roam across them. Herd structure is the same as among ordinary horses, and a skilled animal trainer can break one to the saddle.

Spider horses are predators that usually hunt the small plant-eaters of the caverns. When food runs short, they eat the weak and the young of their own herd.