Silk production using giant spiders

[Klaatu B. Nikto]

It may be possible to harvest spider silk without them eating each other or the handlers at least from communal spiders from South America. Here's a link to info about them.

http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc99/5_8_99/bob2.htm

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Kid Charlemagne: If you have any numbers on how spider silk production works in your campaign, I'd love to see them. For purposes of the game, I did not plan to treat spider silk as any different from the ordinary variety (though it should be stronger), though you might be able to advertise the stuff as superior on the basis of the source alone. Kind of how Ricardo Montalban used to advertise the Chrysler Cordoba as being uphostlered with "rich, Corinthian leather" although there's nothing about Corinthian leather that makes it better than any other sort.

I don't have any numbers - I would just assume that it costs much the same as regular silk. The Arms & Equipment Guide gives the cost of various fabrics as:

Fine: 2-10gp/20lb
Unusual: 6-15gp/20lb
Exotic: 15-25+/20lb

I'd figure a bolt of cloth to be around 20 lbs, for those purposes.

Remember that in the Middle Ages, I think China was the only source of silk, and the secret of its production was closely guarded. Perhaps in a D&D world, elves are the only ones who know the secret?

I'm with you on the Corinthian Leather analogy. Spider silk may simply look better to many people than regular - or perhaps it's gained favor in society because the nobles all wear it.

 

[Bloodsparrow]

I believe that spider silk is stronger then silkworm silk.

Also, I think I remember seeing on the History Channel that the military was trying out spiders ilk for something... But it's far too expensive at this point.

From a fantasy standpoint.

... What about... Dryders? (sp?) Am I thinking of the right thing?

If you had a race of intelligent or semi-intelligent spider people, wouldn't they think to do just that for themselves and for trade?

... From an Elvish standpoint, maybe you could make your character's family/community mostly druidical... Then they could just summon in the big spiders, and order them to spin until the spell wears off. Or some such thing as that worked into the back story as to how they domesticated giant spiders.

And while we're at it... Why use spiders at all? When there is such a thing as a Web spell.

 

[Scarbonac]

IIRC, in one of the Dark Sun novels, there was a breed of large peaceful herbivorous ''singing spider'' that might be suitable for animal husbandry.


Can't recall if it was in any of the supplements, though.

 

[Damon Griffin]

It may be possible to harvest spider silk without them eating each other or the handlers at least from communal spiders from South America. Here's a link to info about them.

http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc99/5_8_99/bob2.htm

Woo hoo! Passing this along to my DM. This should be a major step toward making this whole venture a reality...if 'reality' is the right word to use, given that it's being done within a fantasy setting.

Come to think of it, although real-world precedent is welcome, it probably wasn't necessary, though. The Monster Manual lists the Organization for monstrous spiders as Soliarty or Colony for all but the biggest types; the Small size (about 3' diameter including legs) are listed as Colony or Swarm. Those would be very small numbers of spiders, but it's enough to prove that D&D spiders are among the cooperative breeds, and in any case the MM describes how they are found in the wild; it's not unreasonable for domesticated creatures to live in much larger groups on the farm or ranch.

I'd still welcome seeing any numbers that might help me estimate the volume of silk that might be produced per spider and the area of land that might be needed to support the spiders; this will allow me to work out what volume of silk thread can be produced, which may give me an idea of the number of weavers I need to employ and the volume of silk cloth I can expect to sell.

 

[handforged]

IDHMBIFOM, but you could reverse engineer how much silk a spider produces by taking the price of a bolt of silk, and figuring how many days/weeks it would take a craftsman to produce the bolt using the rules for the Craft skill. Then you would have to decide how much of that is harvesting and how much is weaving. Then you could go to a weaving website and find out how much thread it takes to make a square foot of cloth...

I know you said you would rather not reinvent the wheel, but this way at least you know that "reality" has held its own against that horribly ambiguous fantasy.

 

[Umbran]

I'd still welcome seeing any numbers that might help me estimate the volume of silk that might be produced per spider and the area of land that might be needed to support the spiders; this will allow me to work out what volume of silk thread can be produced, which may give me an idea of the number of weavers I need to employ and the volume of silk cloth I can expect to sell.

Hm. Oddly enough, I'd betcha that you might get beter production using non-monstrous spiders. I expect the issue at hand isn't the volume of silk, but the length. If monstrous spiders give fat silk, do you really want to be making cloth out of it, when one of the major selling points is how fine normal silk thread is?

So, even if a monstrous spider can give a greater length of silk, it eats a lot more than a normal spider. The food needs of monstrous spiders are on the order of large rats, those of normal spiders on the order of insects. So, in terms of biomass, you can probably keep hundreds to thousands of normal spiders for the cost of keeping one monstrous spider. So, unless your monstrous spider gives thousands to tens of thousands the length of silk, normal spiders would be the way to go.

That, of course, is avoiding the practical matters of how one actually gets the food.

I'd think a variant of the Summon Swarm spell might be an interesting way to aproach this...

 

[fusangite]

I must agree with Umbran: I think monstrous spider silk would be far too coarse. At least in my games, their webs are proportionately larger in terms of diameter and are also much stronger. I would suggest that it wouldn't be silk for which these webs would be used but more likely the production of very strong netting, perhaps for catching monstrous sea creatures.

 

[Steverooo]

Spider Farming

Well, using non-maimed spiders, you could go with the "captive" (caged) version, or some other "spell" version (Speak with Vermin). In the caged version, you set up cages, say 30x30' square and little taller than the spider. The cages have one door, to which can be attached a feeding/transport cage. When the spider has filled the cage with silk, you fill its feeding/transport cage with insects, attach it to the door, open the door, and let it in to feed. You then shut the transport cage's door, move it out of the way while the spider feeds on the insects, and gather the silk from the main cage.

With normal spiders, you need mesh netting. With tarantula-sized spiders, you need chicken wire. With giant spiders, you need steel-barred cages. The spider-farmers also need to be insect-raisers, to feed them (and giant insects, if giant spiders).

Keeping one spider to a cage is fine, as long as the cages aren't too close together. Assuming the spiders aren't too big, you could stack several cages on top of each other.

In the "Free Range" method, the Elves would promote a natural ecology, keeping conditions optimized for insects, and the spiders who love them... Periodic uses of Repel Vermin could be used when going to collect the silk (and both Rangers and Druids have it... in 3e, anyway).

Sometime back in the 1960s, I recall seeing a comic book (Flash Gordon?) where some guy was asked by a friend to help him gather "tarel". He agreed, even though he didn't know what it was. He asked where they'd find it, beyond the giant spider-webs? His friend replied that the giant spider-webs WERE tarel! Naturally, the friend died in the collection, and our hero slew the giant spider.

If you do decide to use giant spiders, though, "super-rope" could be made from their strands. Silk has other uses besides clothing. Intelligent, communal spiders might be willing to spin extra silk as a "cash crop" to trade for giant insects. Besides giant spiders, however, there are also the intelligent Aranea spider-people (worshippers of Lolth), the already-mentioned Driders, and the nasty little Ettercaps, all of whom also spin silk.

Do you see any methods here that you like?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

And I know about the spider gene being given to certain goats, in order to have them produce a silk enzyme in their milk; that looks promising for future applications in the creation of synthetically produced silk for the textile industry, but in a D&D fantasy world it's a bit harder to apply. I guess I could hypothesize the creation of an abberation, hybridizing the spider and goat in such a way as to replace the goat's normal hair with silk threads. But that would kind of change the image of the Thornwood elves from a group living in harmony with nature, and domesticating unusual creatures, to a bunch of insane, nature-twisting wizards.

If this were my campaign, I would say "So?"

That co-operative spider colony looks like a neat idea. Now you just need to get a drug that inflicts Fortitude save penalties on spiders