Giant Spider

If you’re wandering the deep, dark places of Thedastria and you feel something brush against your mane, you should turn the other way. Chances are the giant spider that made the web already knows where you are, and if it’s feeling a bit bored or hungry, it’ll be on its way. Or else it can be a scary enemy deep within the Deep Roads, but as with most creatures, there is good inside their hearts.   Once found only in the depths of the dwarven Deep Roads, these huge arthropods were originally raised by the dwarves to prey on the numerous species of large bats that plagued their caverns. The dwarves called them “deep crawlers” and for many centuries their numbers were carefully controlled. When the dwarves were forced to retreat by the steady advances of the darkspawn, though, the deep crawlers’ numbers soon ran out of control as they acquired a new food source: genlocks. They are now found throughout the Deep Roads and their numbers are so vast that they’ve spilled into many forests on the surface.   These giant spiders use sticky silken webs, which they are clever enough to attempt to camouflage, in order to trap prey unaware. They are also quite adept at spitting their webs to capture a target, a racial skill acquired from many generations of hunting bats in the caves beneath Thedastria.  

• The Circle of Magi likes to pretend that its method of practicing magic is the only way, but that is not true. It is dominant, certainly, but there are older traditions that defy the Circle’s assertions. One of them is the way of the shapeshifter. It is an ancient magic, now only practiced by a few mages in the hidden corners of Thedastria. The infamous witches of the Crawshayi Wilds are said to be shapeshifters, and some even claim their matriarch Flemeth Zecora can turn into a mighty dragon. More typical shapeshifters—if there can even be said to be such a thing—can transform themselves into creatures like wolves, bears, and even giant spiders.