Ettercap
GM's Eyes Only
Spoilers. This page is written for the GM, and players who read on will learn things their characters don't know.
Spider-folk who live and work in the hag hamlets, and some who don't. Made for Tir Hathar; see The Northern Reaches.
What it is. A gangly, hunched biped with long clawed arms, a spider's mandibles, and a body covered in coarse dark hair. An ettercap spins silk like a spider, makes venom like one, and understands spiders better than anyone else alive.
In the hamlets. Most ettercaps in the Reaches live alongside the hags and help with everything: farm work, herding ice-sheep, raising children, and above all tending the spider broods. A hag keeps them through a mix of a lesser charm and genuine care. They're fed, housed, and treated well. It's a soft, complicated bond, not slavery and not an alliance of equals.
The wild bands. Not every ettercap answers to a hamlet. Some bands keep their own wild broods well away from any hag. That gives the Reaches a faction or two of its own, beyond the Ice-Trolls and everyone else.
Stats¶
First draft, built from WWN's baseline stat lines.
| HD | AC | Atk | Dmg | Shock | Move | ML | Inst | Skill | Save | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ettercap | 3 | 13 | +4 x2 | 1d6 | 1/13 | 30' climb | 8 | 4 | +2 | 14+ |
| Brood-keeper | 4 | 13 | +5 x2 | 1d6 | 1/13 | 30' climb | 9 | 3 | +2 | 13+ |
- Venom. One of its attacks each round can be a bite. A creature damaged by it makes a Physical save or takes 1d6 more damage and loses its next Move action.
- Silk. Given a few minutes, it strings tripwires and snares across a path or a room. Anyone moving through makes an Evasion save or is held until they spend a Main Action and make a Str/Exert check against difficulty 9.
- Spider-speaker. It can calm, command, or set loose any ordinary or giant spider, as if it were the spider's handler. A brood-keeper fights alongside one or two spiders from its brood, usually fuzzy giant spiders or ice spiders.
- Climber. It climbs trees, walls, and cliffs at its full speed.
- Cold-adapted. It takes no harm from ordinary cold.
Still open: playtesting the numbers; whether ettercaps speak, and how much; how many wild bands there are and what they want; and whether a hag's charm ever wears off, and what the ettercap does then.