Skull Spider

[DnDChick]

SKULL SPIDER
Tiny Vermin
Hit Dice: 1d8 (4 hp)
Initiative: +5 (Dex)
Speed: 50 ft., climb 20 ft.
AC: 20 (+2 size, +5 Dex, +3 natural)
Attacks: Sting +0 melee
Damage: Sting 1 plus poison
Face/Reach: 1 ft. by 1 ft./1 ft.
Special Attacks: Poison
Special Qualities: Darkvision, vermin
Saves: Fort +0, Ref +5, Will +0
Abilities: Str 6, Dex 20, Con 10, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 2
Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground
Organization: Swarm (2d10)
Challenge Rating: 1/4
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 2-3HD (Tiny)

Skull spiders are large, tarantula-like creatures that reside in the skulls of their victims. The two front legs of a skull spider contain poisoned barbs used to sting their victims. The body of a skull spider is about the size of a grapefruit, and its eyes grow on the end of long, slender stalks. The body is weak and fleshy, easily damaged. Skull spiders have developed a solution by taking up residence within skulls as a means of protecting themselves in a manner similar to hermit crabs.

Their eyestalks protrude through the empty eye sockets of their skull, and their legs have a backwards curve in the first joint which enables them to extend out of the bottom of the skull to allow rapid locomotion. Skull spiders can also fold their legs under their skull so they cannot be seen; a skull spider hiding its legs requires a Spot check (DC 15) or be indiscernible from a normal skull. Many an adventurer has been unnerved by the sight of dozens of skulls seemingly sprouting long, spidery legs and skittering towards them.

COMBAT
Skull spiders always attack en masse, swarming over their victim in great numbers, stinging them repeatedly.

Poison (Ex): Fortitude save (DC 10), initial damage 1 point of temporary Constitution, secondary damage 2 points of temporary Constitution. Each skull spider can store 2 doses of poison in its pedipalps.

SKULL SPIDER SOCIETY
A colony of skull spiders is lead by a king and queen, which are the only two members of the colony that are capable of reproducing. Queen skull spiders are always 3HD.

After a victim is subdued, the queen deposits an egg in the skull and the colony feeds on the flesh of the fresh corpse. In 1d3 days the egg hatches a single larva about the size of a man's finger. The worm consumes the brain over a period of 1d4 weeks, and then enters a pupae stage. After 1d3 months, or when the corpse is sufficiently deteriorated, the new skull spider emerges from the cocoon. It uses its strong legs to detach the skull from the rest of the body, and goes to join its colony.

[Krishnath]

Very nice, I'm sure I can find a use for them even against a high level party, in sufficient numbers of course...

[Gish Makai]

These are wicked neat!

[DnDChick]

BUMP! I edited the description, poison, and society.

[Richards]

I direct your attention to Dragon Magazine #198 (October 1993). Specifically, the "Dragon's Bestiary" article entitled "The False Undead." Look at the first monster described therein: the skullrider, an arachnid with a body easily mistaken for a human skull when it tucks in its eight spidery legs. Sound familiar?

Is this merely a coincidence, or should I take it as "the highest form of flattery?" "The False Undead" was my first published work, and thus the skullrider my first published monster (well, along with the goop ghoul from the same article).

Regardless, I like what you've done with your skull spider. The "hermit crab approach" was a nice touch.

[Gish Makai]

Wow....now you've peaked my interest. I'll have to go through my Dragon archives and look it up.

Well I looked your creature over and I must say it's interesting. But, the 2 creatures aren't the same as Erica's creature IS a spider hiding among skulls and yours resembles a spiderlike creature.

Don't get me wrong, if it were me, I'd mix the two together in any dungeon and let the adventurers try to pick out the real Slim Shady

[DnDChick]

Originally posted by Richards
I direct your attention to Dragon Magazine #198 (October 1993). Specifically, the "Dragon's Bestiary" article entitled "The False Undead." Look at the first monster described therein: the skullrider, an arachnid with a body easily mistaken for a human skull when it tucks in its eight spidery legs. Sound familiar?

Is this merely a coincidence, or should I take it as "the highest form of flattery?" "The False Undead" was my first published work, and thus the skullrider my first published monster (well, along with the goop ghoul from the same article).

Regardless, I like what you've done with your skull spider. The "hermit crab approach" was a nice touch.

First, let me say this:

"Any resemblance to any previously published monster, living or dead (or false undead ) is purely coincidental."

Sorry Richards! I didnt know about the skullrider. A few weeks ago I watched a Discovery Channel special about crabs, and the segment on hermit crabs got me thinking about monsters that might use some kind of cast-off shells to protect themselves. Key that in with the scene from John Carpenter's The Thing in which a severed head grows spider legs and skitters away and you have the origin for my idea.

The skullrider and skull spider, despite having very similar names and appearance, are two different animals. Yours is a spider that looks like a skull, mine is a spider-like creature that protects its soft body by using a skull as a shell.

If you are uncomfortable with the skull spider, I will delete this thread and ask that you accept my apologies.

[Richards]

True, true - I never said they were the same creature, just that they were remarkable similar in shape, and I was just wondering if this was just a case of "brilliant minds thinking alike" or if Erica's might have been patterned after mine.

Kind of like I wonder if the "sea drake" that Scott and/or Erica designed for Mongoose's "Seas of Blood" was a case of spontaneous independent creativity, or if it was possibly patterned after the silislithus, or sea drake, that appeared in the first "Greater Drakes" article in Dragon Magazine #260. (The fact that the sea drake in "Seas of Blood" has an attack form based on a throat bladder of all things, really makes me wonder, as throat bladder-based "breath weapons" were a major part of what makes greater drakes different from the standard dragon. Sure, their sea drake's got a slightly different throat bladder attack than mine, and their sea drake doesn't have wings, but it still makes me wonder.)

Note that I'm not necessarily upset over this; just more curious than anything. (Hey, I've got access to several frowny face icons if I felt I needed them!)

Johnathan M. Richards

[Richards]

Erica - By no means! I really like your skull spiders, and I'll probably end up using them in my own campaign! (Especially since my players are already used to skullriders...heh heh heh). In fact, I'll actually go so far as to say that your skull spiders are actually more "feasible" than my skullriders, especially in 3E where vermin are nonintelligent. Obviously, my 2E skullriders were made under different rules - if I were to convert them to 3E, I'd probably have to make them Magical Beasts or something.

I am still kind of curious about the sea drakes, though.

[BOZ]

Originally posted by DnDChick
Key that in with the scene from John Carpenter's The Thing in which a severed head grows spider legs and skitters away and you have the origin for my idea.

that was one seriously weird movie.

[DnDChick]

Originally posted by Richards
True, true - I never said they were the same creature, just that they were remarkable similar in shape, and I was just wondering if this was just a case of "brilliant minds thinking alike" or if Erica's might have been patterned after mine.

Maybe a little of both! A skull scooting around in jointed spider legs is a chilling thought! And in the 27 year history of DnD, its only naturaly that some overlap of ideas would happen eventually.

Kind of like I wonder if the "sea drake" that Scott and/or Erica designed for Mongoose's "Seas of Blood" was a case of spontaneous independent creativity, or if it was possibly patterned after the silislithus, or sea drake, that appeared in the first "Greater Drakes" article in Dragon Magazine #260. (The fact that the sea drake in "Seas of Blood" has an attack form based on a throat bladder of all things, really makes me wonder, as throat bladder-based "breath weapons" were a major part of what makes greater drakes different from the standard dragon. Sure, their sea drake's got a slightly different throat bladder attack than mine, and their sea drake doesn't have wings, but it still makes me wonder.)

Note that I'm not necessarily upset over this; just more curious than anything. (Hey, I've got access to several frowny face icons if I felt I needed them!)

Johnathan M. Richards

The story behind the Sea Drake is kinda funny. Scott did that one. It is based on what he called the Salt Drake, which he made up long before Mongoose contacted us to do monsters for SoB. We were working on making up the critters for the book, and I was looking thru my files and saw "salt drake" and thought...hey...salt...ocean...salt water! So I shot it off to Mongoose without really looking at it.

Turns out that Scotts original Salt Drake was a desert creature, that stored alkili salts in its throat for its breath weapon. I didnt read the monster and wound up sending something to Mongoose that was way out of its element (literally!) for an ocean-based supplement. Matt Sprange sent back a kindly-worded letter saying that although the salt drake was a great monster, it didnt really suit the purpose of the book. LOL

So I told Scott what I had done and he re-worked the salt drake into the SEA drake, and we sent it back. We still have the salt drake on file, and you never know when or where it might turn up! Since it was sent to Mongoose, they might decide to use it anyway in a future book.

[Grazzt]

Any resemblance between the Sea Drake, the Sea Drake of said article, and the Salt Drake is well.......magical.

Erica nailed the story of our Salt/Sea drake on the head. It was actually a desert monster from my campaign world that I shot her to look at. Somehow it ended up going to Mongoose

Anyway- I reworked it as the Sea Drake and *poof*, there ya go.


Actually- great minds apparently do think alike.

[Richards]

(Using my best Paul Harvey voice): "And now you know...the rest of the story!"

Seriously, thanks for indulging my curiosity. And my mind asked me to thank you for including it in the same category as yours and Erica's.