Spiders in Drow of the Underdark

[DMH]

This reminds me of a piece of art in one of the Alternity books. The Alien Compendium showed one of the aliens, the gardhyi, with facial features they don't have. This was specifically mentioned in the text. I complained on the mailing list and Jim Butler said it was an issue they were working, blah, blah, blah. Then in one of the later books, a second artist used the first artist's work as a model.

But I still think that the author who has no idea what metric is takes the cake. There is a fish in the AC II that is 25-35 cm and weights 11 Kg. Dense fish.

 

[hagor]

WotC needs to hire more Spanish Zoologists.

WotC should hire more Drow Zoologists. Notion of the Spanish language is a bonus.

Hagor

 

[thalmin]

http://wizards.com/dnd/images/DrowUnderdark_Gallery/104442.jpg

OK, the OP should not complain about the spider shoes. Horses don't wear shoes. Oh, wait, they do. This is a spider mount. In the underdark sounds echo a lot, so the passages are all carpeted. As they don't want the carpeting to get all messed up and snagging on the spiders feet, they shoe their spiders!

 

[HandofMystra]

Actually, when Tolkien describes Sam and Shelob fighting, he says that Sam is "out of reach or her sting and her claws" pg 337 The Two Towers

I know I am a dork, but that is probably why the movies gave Shelob a stinger.

Also Ungoliant, the ancestor of Shelob, is described as "spider-like" in the Silmarillion. Ungoilian also sucked light, unlike most spiders. OTOH when the art director on a book about a race that worships spiders clearly does not care that spiders are correct, it seems like an attitude problem. How many people who worked on that book know that spiders have a cephalothorax (as Wizzbang pointed out, I remember learning this when I was seven years old)
What would people say if there were a sourcebook about the Egyptians and the illustrations of Egyptian artwork of cats had sideways knees (like a lizard)?

 

[painandgreed]

As an arachnophobe, just reading this thread gives me creeeps. However, I must side with the orginal poster that verisimilitude is desirable on such a simple topic. While I could accept liberties on such things as Aberations or outsiders, I suspect most of these are supposed to either be Vermin or Magical Beasts, which I would expect to be somewhat resembling the real thing.

Cats with sideways knees indeed.

 

[Jdvn1]

http://wizards.com/dnd/images/DrowUnderdark_Gallery/104442.jpg

Those just don't look like shoes to me.

 

[jgbrowning]

Cats with sideways knees indeed.

Not everyone knows how marsupials look. Most of us are more familiar with mammals.

joe b.

 

[sniffles]

ROTFLMAO!!

This thread just made my day.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Those just don't look like shoes to me.

Those are obviously socks, the shoes must be lying by the front door.

Drow teach their spiders manners.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

More disturbing to me is the image of Miss Moffit being sacrificed. What would Mother Goose say?