dragon spiders
Dragon spiders were a race of sapient spiders created by the goddess Greymoria druing the First Age to hunt and kill dragons. One of many creatures she created to punish dragons who failed to worship her properly.
Dragon spiders have prodigious size and strength and poison strong enough to impair dragons. They also have innate talent for sorcery which grows as they age.
Their webbing is what is truly exceptional. They can weave two types of spiderweb with magical properties. The first is like regular spider web only much bigger, and also fire proof, the better to keep stuck dragons from burning their way out. The webbing is cut and abrasion resistant but not enough to prevent a dragon from chewing or cutting its way free eventually.
Essentially if a dragon is caught in the webbing, it's a race to see what will happen first, the dragon chews its way out or the dragon spider poisons the dragon into unconsciousness.
The second type of webbing is very thin and sticky and easily breakable, but the dragon spider can weave illusions into the webbing to make it invisible or to take on the appearance of any false image the spider wishes to project. They use the illusory webbing to both hide and bait their entrapment webbing.
Additional Information
Uses, Products & Exploitation
In the Second Age there was an attempt to monetize a dragon spider's webbing as ultra strong near uncuttable fireproof rope.
Historical records are unclear on whether the spider or spiders involved were willing partners or captured slaves. Unfortunately, while their webbing is very durable and fireproof, it is not immune to ravages of time. None of the industrial spider silk rope created for elvenkind survived into the Third Age and none of the surviving dragon spiders seem willing to sell or barter their webbing for rope with lesser mortals now.
Civilization and Culture
Major Language Groups and Dialects
Dragon spiders mother tongue is Grauen, but almost all the current members of the species have learned a wide variety of languages. Despite their anatomy that can speak and pronounce almost any mortal language more or less correctly.
History
dragons spiders are one of many creatures she created to punish dragons who failed to worship her properly.
While dragon spiders' webbing is fireproof, the dragon spiders themselves are not. Despite their great strength, dragon spiders cannot fly and they will lose most one-on-one fights with all but the youngest dragons if they cannot constrict the dragons with webbing.
Initially, the dragon spiders were able to trap and kill several dragons but relatively quickly dragonkind as a whole grew wise to the methods of the dragon spiders and got better at avoiding their webs. Generally dragon spiders only caught those who were young, foolish, unlucky, and/or previously injured. The dragons turned the tables on their would-be hunters and organized spider hunting parties drove the dragon spiders figuratively and literally underground.
With dragons actively hunting them, the dragon spiders were scattered to the far corners of Scarterra and Scarnoctis. Isolated on the run, they were not able to develop much in the way of a society or civilization of their own.
Like many of Greymoria's cannon fodder races, the dragon spiders began questioning why they should indiscriminately attack dragons. They stopped actively hunting dragons but this didn't mend race relations between the dragons and spiders. The dragon spiders just focused on survival and generally only attack dragons that violated their territory or otherwise threatened them.
The dragon spiders were brought to the brink of extinction after the First Unmaking but their population rebound in the Second Age. A few of them went back to their roots trapping and eating mortals who forsook Greymoria, in this case eating elves, goblins, and the like.
They were generally more successful at fighting elves than dragons, but eventually the elves wised up to their methods and organized hunting parties managed to once again turn the hunters into the hunted though this fighting was not especially common as the Second elves generally avoided traveling to Scarnoctis with the end result of the dragon spiders being driven further underground.
The Second Unmaking once again brought the dragon spider race to the brink of extinction.
Exposed to the magical energies permeating Scarnoctis for millennia and driven half-mad by being at war with nearly every other mortal race, in the aftermath of the Second Unmaking, the surviving dragons spiders have devolved into creatures barely recognizable as the elegant hunters they once were.
In the current era of the Third Age, most of the dragon spiders are unique entities sitting at the center of literal and figurative webs underground directing minions in mad schemes. While their sanity is eroded, their magical power has increased allowing them to infuse their webbing with all sorts of enchantments.
Lifespan
1200 years
Geographic Distribution
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