When I'm thinking up encounters in adventures, I often delve into natural history books for ideas. Ocassionally, I have the good fortune to come across something inspiring first-hand. This morning, that happened when I came very close to stepping on this beast. He might be just a common house spider, but when you close up to him, you can clearly see he is a beautiful killing machine. He sits just outside his lair, wating for a small insect to wander by, and then he strikes in a flash and drags his prey back into his cave.
I've got some notes on giant spiders that I keep toying with for the magazine, but just haven't got them quite right yet. Seeing this fellow has given me the inspiration I needed to go back to them with rekindled interest.
I don't think many players realize how freakin' creeped and freaked one would be if you saw a giant spider jump down upon a friend and you only had a short sword to deal with it.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. Normal-sized insects and animals can easily give most people a fright even if they're harmless. If you imagine giant-sized deadly versions in dark, unfamiliar surroundings it's terrifying.
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