Wolf-Spider

The Wolf-Spider was an Elf assassin famous in Cape Hildegard for her escape from Cypruvalu Prison, which made her an anti-hero in Gardie culture.

Summary

Charges and Trial

On 14 November Y1053, all seventeen board members of the Artificer's District Homeowner's Council fell ill after a banquet to celebrate the opening of a block of high-end condominiums in the neighborhood. Twelve of the seventeen died of poisoning over the course of the next week.
Authorities detained and questioned all staff hired for the event. One, a Half-Elf who had given her name to the company as "Shannon Lowell," was unreachable and had disappeared. She was immediately identified as the prime suspect, and the Council of Deans launched an investigation headed by Lady Morgana, the then-newest professor of divination at Hildegard University. She was eventually apprehended in the Harbor District, where she was disguised as an adolescent Dwarf boy.
The Wolf-Spider was searched and jailed, at which point authorities discovered that all of her disguises were nonmagical and created via practical makeup effects. She was revealed to be a small female Wood Elf, likely in her late 100s to early 200s, with heavy, distinctive scarring on her limbs and the left side of her face (allegedly from a dire-wolf attack). She refused to give her name or any other information under a Zone of Truth in front of the Council of Deans. They found her guilty of twelve counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder and sentenced her to life in prison.

Imprisonment and Escape

The Wolf-Spider was put in a high-security cell in the infamous Cypruvalu Prison. The morning after a fierce winter storm in early Y1056, guards noticed snow falling into her windowless cell. There was no trace of the Wolf-Spider, except for a broken skylight frame and the rusted-out remains of the manacles she had been locked in for 22 hours per day. By the time the diviners were assembled again, she had been cloaked from divination magic. The search for the Wolf-Spider continued for six months before the city closed the case. She has, to this day, not been apprehended, nor has her true name been discovered.

Historical Basis

One of the Heroes of Brightwater, also a small female wood elf, went by the alias "The Wolf-Spider" in most bardic retellings of the slaying of the Lich King of the Black Keep. This is largely believed to be Gepopo, the current Spymaster of Cantonova. Sources disagree on whether or not this could be the same person.
The Son of the Wolf-Spider is a gladiator heel in the League of Might. He is an elfdwarf who fights primarily with daggers and martial arts training, and he wears signature face-paint that mimics the Wolf-Spider's distinctive "wolf-slash" scar. His actual relationship to the Wolf-Spider is unconfirmed and unknown, but largely assumed to be fictional.

Spread

The story of the Wolf-Spider became famous through a series of newspaper features by journalist Shelba San Lucas of The Hildegardian, the first to coin the criminal's nickname. San Lucas said of the nickname:

"It was easy, really. She climbed out the skylight, straight upward, like a spider. But 'The Spider' seemed pretty boring, so I wondered: what kind? A poisonous one, of course. Black Widow's been done, obviously, and there's nothing too menacing about Brown Recluse... I was looking at the etchings of her on the wanted poster, with that claw-mark on her face, and it came to me. Wolf spiders are hunters. They don't spin webs, they don't stay in one place. It looked gorgeous in the headline. And so it stuck."

The popularity of San Lucas's sensationalized newspaper articles drew criticism from many, with some comparing them to copper-novels and lamenting their influence on the youth of Cape Hildegard. However, they became iconic, and the story of the Wolf-Spider exploded in the public imagination. They also sparked renewed interest in the treatment of prisoners at Cypruvalu Prison, leading to widespread reforms in the 70s.

Date of Setting

Y1053-56 CPX