Dracoracnids

Because spiders weren't bad enough, now we have one that can breathe fire.

Crawling out of the nightmares left in the wake of the End of All Things, Dracoracnid merges dragon and spider into a terrible new form. They are children of the new world, spawned by the energies surging through the world and mutating those who were careless, dazed, or just unfortunate. None are sure how they came to be, but the experiments to reproduce such phenomena have already begun.
Now, decades later, the Dracoracnid are creatures entirely their own, capable of spawning children and carrying on their tainted legacy... Much to the dismay of everyone else.

Description

Dracoracnids have long, elongated bodies like a serpent supported by jet-black legs of a spider. They terminate in a bloated, bulbous lump of flesh that mixes a spider's abdomen with reptilian flesh, covered in coarse barbed hair and punctured with a cloaca-spinnerette. The Dracoracnid heads' rests at the end of a long neck, with mandibles tucked inside a large, fanged maw and crowned by one or several horns. These horns are often chipped and broken by the Dracoracnid cutting them by bashing its head into walls - or prey. When they move in haste, they keep their heads low and weaving like a snake while the legs skitter along, often at speed deceptive for their bulk. At other times, they stand with their heads upright and coiled back to strike.
Even a small Dracoracnid tower over an ogre, while their larger kin matches their draconic ancestors in size. They are covered in thick scales, tough as iron, only occasionally parted away by a large spider-like hair in uneven patches across their body. The exact color of a Dracoracnid ranges from frosty white to blood red, with most tending towards a mottled greenish-black pattern through generations. Fresh brood of Dracoracnid sometimes sports additional eyes, haphazardly placed around a head growing less dragon-like every decade.
Aggressive and hungry predators, Dracoracnid show little of the intellect and cunning of true dragons. They are content to hunt, kill, eat, and lair, sharing only a fondness for shiny treasure and long periods of inactive slumber. For the latter, Dracoracnid wraps themselves in cocoons of web and treasure, just waiting to be disturbed by greedy adventurers.
Dracoracnids hunt by biting with their powerful maws and are capable of injecting victims with a powerful necrotizing through their hidden mandibles. When pressed, they breathe a vomit-like stream of poison that ignites shortly after contact with air. Dracoracnids save this weapon for defense, as it reduces most prey to charred sludge, unsuitable for eating.

As a Dracoracnid outgrows its scales and legs, they molt by cracking their old bodies open - these are sometimes harvested for magical components or rare material.

by http://www.tribalartasia.com/

Two Heads Are Better Than One!

Some Dracoracnid have multiple heads, with one dominant and fully grown head. The others range from vestigal to nearly normal size, sometimes moving with a seeming mind of their own but always united in hunger.

Children Of The New World

Early Dracoracnid carried whatever appearance and temprament their dragonic-half had before their genesis. With every generation, less and less of their origin remains, and the Dracoracnid are becoming something else. They are growing into their own place in the world, shedding their origins with every brood that emerges into the world.

Exactly what that final form will be can only be one thing - trouble.

In the World

Nightmares of scales, fangs, and bristling hair, Dracoracnids lurk across Ithekshem. Though their numbers are not great, their hunger and sheer vicious nature make them a dire threat to any community unfortunate to be near one. Entire villages can over the years disappear down into the gullet of one of these monsters, only for them to fade into legend as the beast falls into hibernation. Even worse, adventurers aren't usually that eager to go fight one, as they always have much less treasure around than the typical dragon.
Mages and warlords sometimes enslave the Dracoracnids to act as living weapons - throwing them into enemy lines with terrifying results. Though their lack of cunning makes them easier to deal with than a dragon, it is of little comfort to the conscripts at the receiving end of a breath of burning acid. Even though they seem like animals, they are creatures of magic and must be bound by spell, or broken by the most forceful martial personalities. Others are attempting to experiment with the Dracoracnids to reproduce whatever created them, hoping to make other, more pliable servant creatures.

Sloq the Slaughterer was famed for riding a Dracoracnid into battle, winning countless brutal victories until his favorite pet one day ate him.