Werespider [Lycanthrope]

True spider lycanthropes are very rare, since the curse of lycanthropy spell calls up only mammal forms. Whatever their origin, some humans can become a huge spider or a monstrous blend of person and arachnid. As humans they usually look normal, though some have long, thin fingers suited to gripping and climbing.

The full spider has an 8-foot body, a swollen dark sac of coarse black fur, slung 6 feet off the ground on eight menacing legs. Three to eight dull black eyes cluster above fanged, meat-eating mandibles. Hybrids vary: a few look human yet show spider abilities, but most sprout three or more spider eyes on a human head while their mouths turn into dripping mandibles.

Attacks depend on the form. Human-shaped werespiders use ordinary weapons, often smeared with their own poison (Type A or Type F).

A hybrid bites with Type A venom (on a failed save vs. poison, 15 damage within 15 minutes), clings to walls and ceilings, and spins web at 1 foot per round. A trapped victim needs 1 round per point of Strength below 19 to break loose; 19 Strength ignores it. Hybrid strength is huge: unarmed blows or bites deal 1d4, and with weapons it gains +2 to hit and +4 damage.

Fully transformed, it races across its own webs at movement 18. These webs are tougher, so escape takes a bend bars/lift gates success whatever one's Strength; monsters without Strength scores save vs. paralysis instead, at -2 if they are man-sized or smaller. The bite deals 1d12 and injects Type F venom: save vs. poison or die on the spot. Anyone who saves against a hybrid or spider bite still risks receiving an egg.

It is immune to everything except silver and magic of +1 or more. Wounds from anything else close as fast as they open, briefly stitched with visible threads like web.

Werespiders hunt alone, in forests or cities. Forest dwellers lash their homes high in the trunk of a big tree with heavy strands and make nightly rounds of huge snare webs strung in chosen spots. Mostly animals get caught; a trapped human is kept or let go as the creature's whim decides. City werespiders hunt the same way but target people, and intruders in their lairs find web-draped corridors with cocooned humans hung up to cure.

Survivors of the venom have a 30% chance of receiving a tiny egg from glands in the werespider's mouth, impossible to find without probing the wound. If it gestates for two weeks, the egg bursts inside the flesh and a thick ichor floods the blood, creating a new werespider. The host may not realize it, but has a cumulative 1% chance each day of transforming spontaneously. After that often traumatic first change, the new werespider can switch between human and spider form at will.