Also known as “creepers of the Abyss” and “barbed horrors;’ bebiliths are foul arachnids that roam the Abyss, exacting punishment on the tanar’ri there. Bebiliths are cruel, unwavering harbingers of death and torture, apparently without remorse or pity for their victims.
They are hideous, like huge, misshapen spiders with cruel faces and hard, chitinous outer shells. Their two forelegs each end in a huge, brutal barb and their mouths are filled with great fangs that drip a foul liquid.
Bebiliths can apparently speak to each other through a kind of mind contact. They cannot communicate otherwise.
Bebiliths are truly evil creatures. They will viciously attack anything they see, without mercy. Their primary means of physical attack is their sharp forelegs that will cause 1-6 points of damage per hit. In addition, each hit with a foreleg attack may also ruin any armor nor shield used by the target. For each hit, roll ld6: on a 1-2 the shield (if any) may be ruined, and on a 3-6 the armor (if any) may be ruined. Nonmagical armor or shields will be ruined 40% of the time.
Magical armor and shields modify this by -10% per plus of the magical enchantment. Ruined armor or shields are no longer considered when figuring the target’s armor class. The armor or shields themselves are so destroyed that they cannot be re paired for less than their purchase prices. Magical enchantments are lost, regardless of repair. If the target wears neither armor nor shields, foreleg attacks from a bebilith simply do normal damage.
A bebilith can also attack with a horrid bite that causes 1-12 points of damage per hit and injects its victim with a powerful poison. Anyone so bitten must save vs. poison with a -2 penalty or die in 1-4 rounds. Also, if a bless spell is not cast on the body within one tum of death, the corpse will burst into flames and disintegrate.
Four times per day, a bebilith can shoot a powerful web like substance from its spinner. This web covers a total of 8,000 cubic feet (a 20-foot cube, or any other shape the bebilith desires); when shot the webs must begin adjacent to the creature and their fur thest point may be no more than 60 feet distant. The webs act just like a web spell except that those cast by a bebilith are permanent. Also, even if flame is introduced to the strands, they are only 25% likely (per round of flame contact) to bum.
These spiderlike creatures are never surprised and are immune to attacks from nonmagical weapons and magical weapons of + 2 or less enchantment. They are always surrounded by a protection from good spell that they can reverse at will.
If a bebilith is sorely pressed in combat (which is unlikely, considering its powers) it can plane shift to the Astral plane at will. If it so chooses, the bebilith may attempt to magically pull one opponent into the Astral plane with it-the bebilith need only be in melee with the opponent. In order for the creature to pull an opponent into the Astral plane, the opponent must fail a saving throw vs. wand. Of course, if the opponent has the ability to leave the Astral plane, the bebilith has no power to stop him.
The purpose of a bebilith is quite clear, but the e motivation behind that purpose seems incomprehensible. Bebiliths act as punishers for the tanar’ri of the Abyss. They seem to select certain groups of the major tanar’ri and exterminate them completely, in brief but horrible wars of annihilation. How they select their targets remains unknown. Of equal mystery is what exactly a tanar’ri-perhaps one of the cruelest and most chaotic creatures in existence-can do to incur the wrath of these lower planar assassins.
Although there are certainly creatures roaming the Abyss that could destroy a bebilith as a matter of course, such an act is considered out of the question. The bebiliths have developed an uncanny mystique about them. Among the denizens of the Abyss, it is taboo to destroy one.
The information that has surfaced about the bebilith has no doubt done so at the cost of many lives-few who see a “creeper of the Abyss” live to tell the tale. However, it is of interest to some great mages and scholars, and some information has been pieced together. Anyone bold enough and of sufficient power to kill a bebilith and remove its spinneret would hold great wealth. Mages would pay highly to get their hands on one. Powerful spells and magical items of binding can be created from a bebilith’s spinner, or so alchemists believe.
