Esoteric Enterprises - Spider Nest

Another custom underworld area for Esoteric Enterprises. Also available as a Google Doc here

Vaguely inspired by the area of the same name from Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, and a little bit by the Deepnest and a couple other areas from Hollow Knight. 

And of course, the classic children's book Trouble in Bugland by Kotzwinkle and Servello.

GENERATING SPIDER NESTS

The Spider Nest was once a stately home, now it’s a buried ecology of rotting wood and earthen tunnels.

Use a handful of D20s to create the chambers in the Spider Nest.

To determine what kind of passages connect the rooms, look at the numbers on the dice.

• If both dice are even, there’s a human scale door and hallway between the two rooms.
• If both dice are odd, there’s a sticky passage 3 feet high. inconvenient for humans but not for giant spiders.
• If one die is even and the other odd, there’s a sticky passage, almost vertical, eight to ten feet. Easy for spiders to climb up and down, less so for humans. The higher numbered die is at the top.

INHABITANTS OF SPIDER NESTS

The chelicerates present in the rules text are reproduced here for your convenience, along with a few new options for arachnid encounters

ARACHNOPHILE
These magicians are, frankly, obsessed with spiders. Their forms are mutated, with chitinous plates beneath their clothing, glossy black chelicerae and pedipalps within their cheeks, ready to unfold. They venerate Anassa Tleetchy Natcha, Weaver of Destiny. Some serve her by carrying out her schemes in the underworld. Others kill for her, dehumanizing themselves in a pantomime of the Mother of Spiders. All hope to be reborn from her egg sacs after death, to weave the weft of fate with her forever.
2 flesh (1 dice), 8 grit (4 dice). AC 12 (chitin). Saves 14+.
Bite (d4 and save vs poison or d6 more poison damage) or Handgun (D8)
+4 bonus to saves vs magic. Intelligence 16.
Has the following spells prepared: Spider Climb, Message, Parasitic Infestation (memorized dangerously), Web.
Spellbook contains all those memorized spells, as well as Speak with Animals and Remote Surveillance.

GIANT SPIDER
A huge spider - perhaps one of the many troglodytic species not properly documented by science, perhaps one of the unnatural spawn of the Spider Queen. Slow, patient and hungry.
6 flesh (2 dice), 3 grit (1 dice). AC 15 (exoskeleton). Saves 16+. Stealth 4-in-6.
Bite (+3, d6) or webs (as grapple at +3).
Animal Intelligence (int 3).

Apply these modifiers to the basic Giant Spider template to produce different species.

1. Black Widow: A poisonous spider with a distinctive red hourglass marking. Attacks that deal damage to Flesh also paralyze the target for rounds equal to the damage dealt.
2. Brown Recluse: A furtive, poisonous spider. Attacks that deal damage to Flesh also deal that same damage to STR and CON through necrosis
3. Camel Spider: A huge arachnid (but not a true spider) with powerful jaws. On a successful bite attack, grapple and automatically deal damage each turn until removed or killed
4. Diving Bell Spider: Can swim and breathe underwater by carrying air bubbles in a silk bag
5. Energy Spider: A psychic spider with no mouth, which feeds on magic. Can “eat” a memorized spell from an Occultist’s mind once per round unless the target passes a Save vs Magic
6. Entropy Weaver: A mystical spider that channels the decay of the cosmos to weaken its prey. Can corrode a single target’s armor into uselessness once per round
7. Funnel Web Spider: A very poisonous spider. Attacks that deal damage to Flesh automatically automatically inflict a Toxic Wound (pg 47)
8. Huntsman Spider: A very fast spider. Always goes first.
9. Jumping Spider: A smart spider with excellent vision and the power to plot complex plans of attack. Perception 4 in 6. Stalks prey and waits for the most inconvenient time before attacking.
10. Trapdoor Spider: An ambush predator that attacks from a burrow. Stealth 5 in 6, but only in its hole

SWARM OF SPIDERS
A large swarm of regular sized spiders. Not poisonous, but with a painful bite.
8 flesh (8 dice), 0 grit (no dice). AC 12. Saves 18+.
Engulf in the Swarm (hits everybody in the swarm’s area, 1 damage per person.)
Takes 1 damage per attack except versus area attacks. Animal intelligence (int 3).
Spiders can spin webs over those caught in their mass: rather than attacking they can make a grapple attack against a single victim.

SWARM THAT WALKS
Hundreds of spiders wearing the shape of a human, skin woven from silk. The body twitches and shambles, and skittering masses of arachnids are visible when it opens its mouth or eyelids, or when it takes damage. It cannot speak or reason like a real person, but often displays surprising levels of mimicry.
14 flesh (2 dice), 3 grit (1 dice). AC 10. Saves 14+.
2 slams (+1, 1 damage). Animal Intelligence (int 3),
A successful slam attack deposits spiders on the victim which will continue to attack. Unless a full round is spent removing them, they will continue to attack for the next d6 rounds, doing 1 damage a round.
Damage from normal attacks against a Walking Swarm is halved, as they can only kill a small number of the individual creatures making up the swarm. Area attacks such as fireballs deal double damage due to the target-rich environment the swarm presents. Smoke from a wood-fire deals 1 point of damage a round as it forces the swarm to disperse.

TARANTULA

An intelligent, hairy, humanoid spider, capable of speech. Friendly, sophisticated, charming. Also a serial killer. Grudgingly entertains plain or ugly visitors and sends them on their way. Fetes beautiful or exotic visitors, then murders them to create intricate taxidermies for its collection.
5 Flesh (1 dice), 10 grit (2 dice). AC 15 (chitin plates). Saves 16+. Stealth and Athletics 4-in-6.

Bite (+4, d8 damage). A successful bite grapples the target, the tarantula can either drag them off or deal another d8 damage without rolling to hit, each turn until the grapple is broken
Urticating Hairs - area attack, everyone must Save vs Stunning or be stunned for a round by painful swelling and rashes

WERE SPIDER
Cold, patient, methodical and detached. The lair of a were-spider is a cunning maze of webs, snares, pitfalls and tripwires, with a larder of poisoned victims, comatose and wrapped in silk for the were-spider to feed on later, at their leisure.
4 flesh (1 dice), 8 grit (2 dice). AC 12 (pretty nimble). Saves 16+. Stealth and Athletics 3-in-6.
Attacks depend on their form.
Double damage from Silver weapons. Strength and Dexterity 16.
Can shift between human and spider form, taking a round.

• In human form, have hands and can talk. Pistol and knife (+2, d8).
• In spider form, they have AC 16. Bite (+2, d4, target paralyzed for a round on hit) and Web (10 foot radius, immobilizes targets until a Vandalism roll is made to tear free)

Anybody taking damage from a bite risks contracting lycanthropy (Save vs Poison to resist). This is a disease with saves every day, dealing d10 damage to Charisma for each failed save. If the victim dies from lycanthropy, the Charisma damage goes away, and they are transformed into a Were-spider themselves; a first level Spook with the Human origin and Animal Form power. Appropriate monstrous powers for a PC were-spider (after Animal Form) include Bite, Achilles Heel (for silver), Webs, Venom and Wall-crawling.

ENCOUNTERS IN SPIDER NESTS

1. A Useless Civilian, terrified and looking for a way out
2. D4 Arachnophiles, and an equal number of Jumping Spiders acting as guard animals
3. A Were Spider pretending to be a lost, friendly explorer
4. An Arachnophile and a Useless Civilian she plans to kill, having a good time
5. A Giant Spider (roll D10 for what kind)
6. D6 Giant Spiders (roll D10 for what kind)
7. A Swarm of Spiders
8. D6 representatives of a random faction, here to receive a prophecy from the Anassa cult
9. D4 Repair Crew with HAZMAT suits and flamethrowers, looking for that damn fuse box
10. A Swarm That Walks, pretending to be a person (badly)
11. A friendly Arachnophile who will happily tell your fortune
12. A Tarantula, looking for a pretty young thing to invite home for dinner

CHAMBERS IN SPIDER NESTS

1: The room was once a kitchen. Now it’s empty. There are lots of large cobwebs, and the desiccated hard parts of long dead creatures, but no spiders. There are 2D4 corpses and each yields a single roll on the I Search the Body Table from pg 136.

2: This chamber used to be a parlor. Now the wood is old and rotten, though dry. Webs irregularly strung across the room form a crude shelter. The cabinets, drawers and other furniture yield valuables from the Treasure in the Undercity table on page 134, but searching them scares the GIANT BROWN RECLUSE that lives in the room into attacking.

3: This chamber was a drawing room. Now it’s a rotting husk. The room has valuables in it as entry 2, but a BLACK WIDOW dangles from the ceiling, concealed by the cluttered furniture, waiting for vibrations to signal that prey is near. If her food fights back she flicks silk at it and runs away to hide, biting only if cornered.

4: This abandoned study is filled with giant spiders! ...Or not. It’s filled with molted exoskeletons, the largest of which is ten feet. There are no live spiders here. The room has a single Occult Treasure from page 135 if searched.

5: The floor has fallen out of this room into a deep chasm below. A bridge of webs is strung across the gap, extending to all the doors. It can support the weight of one person at a time, or two if they have no encumbering items. More than that and it collapses. The room has no spiders in it, but if the players have any spiders stalking them (from other rooms, or random encounters) this is where they attack.

6: An abandoned gymnasium, with a fencing piste and wrestling mat. Old cobwebs. No spiders, no treasure.

7: An old pool, with a tiled floor and mosaics on the walls, drained of water. There’s a huge web in the deep end with a single corpse curled up in it. The victim was well dressed, had eight limbs, and clutches a pocket watch worth $50.

8: An old servant’s quarters, long abandoned. The entrances and exits are webbed up. Tearing through the webs triggers a deadfall trap, dealing 2D6 damage from falling wood on a failed Save vs Hazards.

9: This abandoned game room is now a nursery for spiderlings. The room is full of silk egg sacs, covering the pool tables and shuffleboards, dangling from the dart boards and coating the carpets. There are 2D6 SWARMS OF SPIDERS in total. Touching an egg sac wakes up its occupants and sends them swarming out in search of food. The most valuable object in the room is the lovely crokinole set, whose varnished cedar pieces have resisted the rot and would be worth $300

10: The wooden surfaces and peeling wallpaper of this abandoned bedroom are pitted and oddly melted, as if by some combination of decay and a powerful acid. An ENTROPY WEAVER nests in this room, slowly randomizing its contents. Any useful items here have long been scrambled into uselessness.

11: The room is completely filled with webs, covering all the surfaces. Movement through it is slowed to a quarter speed. There are lots of corpses and containers in the room, loaded with treasure from pages 134 and 135. D4 BLACK WIDOWS, D4 FUNNEL WEB SPIDERS and D4 JUMPING SPIDERS wait patiently in hiding for an opportune moment to attack.

12: This “room” is an old basement workshop and storage area, whose walls have been boarded up and mouseholed to create a warren of corridors and blind corners. (The entrances to the area are trapped with hazards from page 132, as are the D4 comatose victims wrapped in silk, and treasure caches with loot from pages 134 and 135) 3 in 6 chance the WERE SPIDER who nests here is home, lying in wait.

13: A large, flooded gallery. Strange algae float atop the murky water. Getting to the other exits requires swimming, or hopping across the floating leftovers of the furniture. D4 DIVING BELL SPIDERS live beneath the surface. Watch long enough, and one will resurface to fill its air sac. A single portrait mounted above the floodwaters is worth $300

14: A large dining room. The table is set for a banquet and 2D4 guests have already taken their seats. The guests are SWARMS THAT WALK, pretending to be people to lure prey. If gathered and sold, the silverware and paintings on the wall would fetch $500

15: This personal library has decayed into a mess of moldy paper. D4 ENERGY SPIDERS have gathered here to feed on the residual magical energies, and will eagerly feed on the memorized spells of visiting Occultists. There’s a single random grimoire (pg 140) amid the moldering volumes.

16: The floorboards of this disused ballroom are full of holes, several feet in diameter. The room is home to D4 TRAPDOOR SPIDERS, hiding in the holes in the floor.

17: The doors to this room are varnished and well maintained, with doorknockers made from the skulls of enormous dragonflies. They are locked, but anyone who knocks politely will be greeted by the room’s inhabitant: a TARANTULA. The spider invites visitors into his home for a plowman’s lunch of cheese, crackers and pickles, along with a splash of campari or sambuca. His livingroom is completely covered in webs, except for a little island of hardwood in the middle. This oasis is furnished with archaic but incredibly tasteful furniture and rugs. Altogether it would be worth $500 if sold.

There’s a hatch in one of the walls, the seam barely visible between the layers of web. The spider will not let anyone enter it. Behind the hatch is his workshop and gallery, where he prepares and displays the corpses of the beautiful people he kills. The centerpiece of his collection is the skeleton of a humanoid with enormous brightly colored butterfly wings. The collection would be worth $2,000 to a morbid collector, but hauling several taxidermied humans out through the spider infested dungeon would be a serious undertaking.

18: A comfortable boudoir with soft couches, silk curtains around beds, and a full bar. D6 ARACHNOPHILES operate out of here. Their plan is simple: they lure men from the surface by offering them a good time, fuck them, then murder them. Just like a real spider would. At any time, there are D4-2 USELESS CIVILIANS, getting high, making love, and blissfully unaware of what’s about to happen to them.

There are D4-1 unconscious civilians stuffed in cabinets and closets, wrapped in silk, comatose and dreaming blissful dreams. A pit behind a curtain holds the desiccated corpses of the victims after the cult has fed on them. Roll a few times on pages 134 and 135 to see what the Daughters of Anassa have hoarded.

19: The room has couches, beds and other furniture suspended in the weft of silky soft webs strung from the ceiling. This chamber is a nest of ARACHNOPHILES, spinning prophecies from the omens sent to them by the Weaver of Destiny. D6-1 of them are home at any given time. In dangerous situations, they dive out of sight in the mess of webs and furniture, and cast Speak With Animals to summon spiders from other rooms of the nest.

Their corkboards and scrawled notes map the secret plots of the underworld’s factions. If you use the random events tables on pages 118-121, roll now and put the events on the board, to happen in a week, a month, a year, etc.

20: A bridge of glittering silk extends away from this otherwise mundane room, out into a chasm that obeys no known laws of physical space. The sound of clacking chelicerae and stridulating pedipalps echo in the void.

The other side of the chasm between worlds is the realm of Anassa Tleetchy Natcha, the Weaver. She holds the strands of fate in her calamistra, making her invulnerable to all but the most powerful temporal magic.

• Servants of the Goddess who cross the bridge into her realm are rewarded with boons (permanent disfiguring mutations that give them spider powers.
• Everyone else is implanted with a Geas (page 98) to perform a quest that benefits the Weaver and her schemes. While under the influence of the Geas, they are immune to all other magical compulsion and mind controlling effects.

From the Great Weaver’s nest, millions of webs stretch outward in three dimensions. Points of light are visible at the end of these bridges, emanating from other worlds.

Other: This large room is made of metal and concrete, not rotten wood. The room is scorched and the only spiders are charred dead husks. It smells like napalm. It’s got functioning infrastructure in it - a power transformer, water main, sewer pipe or something else that needs ongoing maintenance. There’s a locked hatch that leads into to a building overhead.

A 3 person REPAIR CREW (page 191) occasionally descends into the room to work on the machines. They wear HAZMAT suits and carry flamethrowers when they do.