BASH Fantasy: Legends of Steel - Monster File - The Wolf-Spider!
The inspiration for this critter came, like the ant-lion, from the pages of 100 Oddities for a Wizard's Tower - which you should go buy because it is awesome and I am hungry and it is inexpensive and it features art and text by the amazing Will Thrasher [who, I understand, also eats, on occasion]. In case the above left you in doubt, Will did the great art for this post, just as he did for the ant-lion I converted a while back.
The wolf-spider, though not so large as the gigantic spiders rumored to exist in subterranean locales and dangerous ruins throughout temperate Erisa, has two advantages that their larger cousins lack. First, they are far more numerous and t. hus, more readily encountered. Second, they are more intelligent, employing sophisticated pack hunting tactics that allow they to threaten larger or more numerous prey. Their origins are not known, but sorcerers speculate that the same mad genius responsible for the ant-lion and the tarantula-hawk is a likely suspect.
Wolf-spiders are generally encountered in a pack of three to eight individuals. However, when the hunting is good, packs have been known to gather into mega-packs of dozens of individuals. Such terrors rarely last however, since the rapacious creatures usually hunt the area free of prey, eventually turning on one another or leaving for better hunting grounds elsewhere.
A pack of wolf-spider works together to take down prey, with some projecting gouts of sticky spittle to hamper their victims while others bite with their poisoned fangs. Bitten prey are then simply webbed repeatedly from a safe distance, until the venom does its work.
Recently, sages in the north have reported a larger, shaggier creature that has been dubbed the Timber Wolf-Spider. Generally encountered in smaller numbers, the timber wolf-spider is Size: Large, Brawn 4, Soak 20, with 40 Hits, and has a more potent venom [x5 Continual Attack] to match the larger prey it prefers - large ungulates and bears for the most part, though woodsmen and trappers must also be wary. [Total Cost: 30].
