Demonfeed spider

Demonfeed spider
Official art of a demonfeed spider, by Elisa Serio from Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, p. 236.
Biological Information
Type	Fiend
Parent race	Giant spider
Alignment	Chaotic evil
Diet	Demonic fluids (preferably)
Physical Characteristics
Size	Large (adult) Medium (spiderling)
Distinctions	Toothy maw
Sociocultural Information
Planes	Exandria (originally) Abyss (occasionally)
Locations	Stilben Bramblewood Forest King's Cage[presumed]
Language	None

Demonfeed spiders are monstrous spiders of great size, fed and transformed by the remains of demons.

Description

They look like giant spiders with many red eyes, toothy maws instead of arachnid pincers, eight barbed legs, and a swollen abdomen with a chitinous and spiny orange hide. Their blood and poison are extremely toxic.

History

Demonfeed spiders originated as common giant spiders created by Lolth the Spider Queen during or before the Age of Arcanum, and they lived mostly underground although they could also be found in caverns and forests, being particularly common in Tal'Dorei. At the beginning of the Calamity, many demon soldiers perished and their ichor flooded the habitats of these spiders, who fed on this fluid, mutating into fiends and growing in power and intelligence, becoming proper demonfeed spiders that saw demonic remains as their favorite diet, although without disdaining the fluids of other creatures.

Since the immense majority of them were born or transformed in Exandria, they died permanently without regenerating on another plane, unlike other fiends, but despite this the Spider Queen saw them as valuable tools, sending them on missions as powerful agents second only to her champions.

After the Calamity the species survived with specimens reproducing by themselves or being created whenever a demon died near giant spiders. In 809 PD, in Stilben, a marilith called Iselda was killed by Vox Machina and her ichor spawned a brood of demonfeed spiders. According to the adventure hook Demonblood Vengeance, when the demon returned to the Material Plane and discovered these creatures that saw her as their mother, she stayed in the area for decades, creating a cult with the aid of some dark elf fanatics with which she plans to conquer Stilben one day for herself and her new goddess, the Spider Queen.

In the adventure hook Blood of the Ruiner, set in 836 PD, a cell of Ravagers, after using demonic ichor in a ritual to empower Kalydria Darkeye and turn her into a Slaughter Lord, used the same ritual to transform some of the giant spiders of the forest into demonfeed spiders.

In 843 PD, after the apogee solstice began and Ludinus Da'leth initiated his plan to release Predathos and destroy the gods, many of the deities started getting nervous and Lolth decided she wanted to claim the full attention and loyalty of her current champion, Opal. To do so she took control of her actions and forced her to attack her friends, the Crown Keepers, at the same time as she summoned spiders to destroy gemstones that acted as physical representations of the warlock's memories and bonds. Since Opal and her team were resisting her will too much, the Betrayer God summoned a big demonfeed spider as well. However, Dorian Storm cast a powerful Geas on the creature (something Lolth wasn't able to stop, being too focused on her battle of wills against Opal), making its only mission for the following year to find its creator and try to kill her. As the battle drew to a close, Lolth spoke in the bard's mind, admitting that her favored creature was no longer under her control because of him.

Abilities

The following is taken from Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, p. 237.

Demonfeed spiders are resistant to cold, fire, and lightning, and completely immune to poison and its effects. They have 120 feet of Darkvision, and as spiders, they can climb difficult surfaces (including ceilings) with ease, and their movements aren't restricted by webbing.

When they are young, demonfeed spiderlings have the following abilities:

• Bite (action): melee, piercing and poison damage.

When these fiends grow up they become stronger and their bite attack improves, being able to poison creatures and keep them stable but poisoned for 1 hour after they fall unconscious. Moreover, the demonfeed spiders gain the following abilities:

• Multiattack (action): One bite attack and one stinger attack, or one web spinner attack followed by a melee attack.
• Stinger (action): melee, piercing damage and the paralyzed condition for 1 minute if the creature fails a Constitution saving throw.
• Web Spinner (action): ranged, the creature is grappled and can be pulled towards the spider. If the spider reaches it, it can cocoon it, ending the grappled condition and leaving the creature restrained instead.
• Arterial Spray (reaction): If the spider is below half its hit point maximum, whenever it takes damage it can spray poisonous blood in a cone dealing poison damage and the poisoned condition if the creatures fail their Constitution saving throws. This poison has the same properties as the bite poison.

Trivia

• Demonfeed spiders are intelligent enough to recognize the demon whose ichor created them, and are loyal to them.
• As fiends that naturally roam Exandria, these spiders are similar to udaaks, although these behemoths were originally from the Abyss.
  • Since a few exceptions aren't born in the Material Plane, it is possible that a small percentage of demonfeed spiders do regenerate in the Abyss (presumably in the Demonweb) when they are destroyed.
• In 836 PD, while the Mighty Nein were accessing the King's Cage near Bazzoxan, they fought several spiders led by a bigger, more monstrous one that was likely the mother of the smaller ones. While the description of the bigger creature doesn't match a demonfeed spider entirely, there are enough similarities (including the fact that it wasn't a beast) to suspect the spiders of that encounter could be an early version of the monster that would be published in Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn.

References

Art: