Arachnophobes: how creepy is an undead spider?

[The_Warlock]

Remember, an Undead Spider is hollow...this means that:

1) Whenever it moves, especially fast jumps, there should be an atonal whistling sound as air passes through the various joints and spiracles. Once you've met the Whistling Brood, you are forever traumatized by it haunting wail.

2) Because it's hollow, but mobile, with passages to allow other things inside...an undead spider usually has a symbiotic relationship with other creatures in the habitat it roams. You know, like, dozens of tiny spiders that swarm out whenever it strikes big prey.


And yes, it would be horrible if you did this to a truly phobic person. Someone who's just midly "Eww! Ahh! Away away away!" this would probably make them jump behind the couch, denounce you, then tell somebody to give them a d20 (possibly to roll to kill the horrible beastie, possibly to throw at you).

 

[Andor]

Your poll was incomplete. You failed to include "I want to punch you through the internet just for putting that idea in my head."

That being said I say go for it unless your player is truely screamingly arachniphobic.

As far as playing up it's undeadness I say have it filled with/animated by the creepy glowing mist of undeath that shows through it's joints as it moves and trails behind as it leaps and can been seen swirling within it's hollow shell through the shattered lenses of some of it's eyes.

 

[JustKim]

I love spiders, so I'm going to help make this idea more authentic. I think authentic spiders are better, whether you love them or you're terrified of them.

So the spider jumps rather far, it should belong to the family salticidae, jumping spiders. A few things are distinctive about salticidae spiders. While most spiders have small, crude eyes suitable for detecting movement, salticidae have 6 crude eyes and one very large pair of eyes in the front of their head that are able to focus images and distinguish color. When most spiders detect a hand reaching for them, what they see is some vaguely large thing coming toward them. When a salticidae spider detects you reaching out for it, it sees your hand, it sees the arm behind it, it sees your face and it may pick out your entire body from your surroundings.

So a jumping spider's visual awareness is absolutely incredible. Because of their ability to discern what's going on, jumping spiders are famous for their tendency to raise their front legs as a warning. They see exactly what you're doing and they're not having any of it.

Jumping spiders also use their webs to drag a tether behind them when they jump. If they don't like where they end up, they can climb back along the tether very rapidly.

So if a giant undead jumping spider leaps at someone's face and misses, it can zip back from where it came. A failure to catch face doesn't expose the spider.

Another interesting fact you could play up in a giant spider is that a salticidae's eyes seem to change color depending on where it's looking. When a salticidae's eyes are completely black, it is looking straight into your eyes.

Visually, jumping spiders are very "hairy" and camouflaged to their surroundings, whether grass or flowers or gravel. They don't weave sheet webs but they do make coccoons and leave a lot of abandoned tethers.

When it comes to undeath and decay, here's a quick run through of spider anatomy. Their brains are basically two pancakes under the surface of the cephalothorax (the front segment) connected by nerves- like a flattened, lobotomized human brain. A spider's stomach is actually in its cephalothorax, behind its mouth, and intestine runs through the narrow waist connecting the two segments into much of their abdomen (back segment). All along the top of the abdomen is the spider's heart, which pumps copper-based blood that oxidizes green instead of red. A spider's respiratory system typically include "book lungs"- imagine a book with hollow pages, and that each of the pages fill with air and fan out from the spine, then fold back down like an accordian. These lungs are at the front and bottom of the abdomen where you're not likely to see them, unless the spider is on your face. Finally, the back and bottom quarter of the abdomen is made up of the sexual organs and silk glands.

Hooray for spiders!

 

[blargney the second]

The player in question is my girlfriend - she's not a full-on arachnophobe, she just gets really creeped out by them. I leave my various spider minis around the apartment from time to time to get a jump out of her.

She seems to get particularly creeped out by the deathjump spider mini, so for this encounter I upgraded it to a livingdeathjump spider by making it a ghoul. I'm hoping the combination of huge jumps onto the head for double damage and Fort saves against paralysis and ghoul fever will make it extra scary.
-blarg

 

[N0Man]

I find undead spiders less creepy than normal spiders, because I know normal spiders exist in real life, undead spiders don't.

 

[blargney the second]

It went well. She didn't run away screaming; she hit it until it was dead screaming.
-blarg

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

*snip fascinating details*

Jumping spiders also use their webs to drag a tether behind them when they jump. If they don't like where they end up, they can climb back along the tether very rapidly.

So if a giant undead jumping spider leaps at someone's face and misses, it can zip back from where it came. A failure to catch face doesn't expose the spider.
*snip fascinating details*

Awesome amount of information. It does absolutely nothing to make Spiders less creepy then they already are!

The part I didn't snap could be translated into a game mechanic representation, a special charge power. If the spider charges and misses, it shifts back to its original starting position. That would be pretty nasty, depending on the terrain. It's "Spider Spring Attack" power...

And the rest must be narrated during the encounter to exemplify the creepiness.

I think when I get home, I'm gonna have to stat some new spider monsters for 4E.

 

[CharlesRyan]

See, I'm going to have to disagree. The speed and sudden unexpected proximity (read: ON MY FACE!! GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF!) would freak me out more. Heck, I've known grown men to panic for a few seconds after being assaulted by a grasshopper.

The size and unholy abomination aspects are just gravy.

I certainly agree that the size and speed is scary in a separate way. I think the undeadness and the fastness are two separate forms of scary that, to my mind, don't particularly support one another.

Undead spiders = bizarre and skin-crawlingly creepy
Things that jump 30 feet at your head = tactically challenging and overtly frightening

If it was me, I'd use these two schticks separately, in separate creatures.

 

[Wombat]

Undead is cool.

Spiders are so-so at best, not really that scary to me.

So I average about a 4 on the scale