Lineage - Attercops

Old fat spider spinning in a tree!
Old fat spider can’t see me!
Attercop! Attercop!
Won’t you stop,
Stop your spinning and look for me!

   - The Hobbit, J R R Tolkien

Attercops are a smaller, typically social species of humanoid arachnids, closely related to the more solitary and feral Ettercap. They drink blood and the internal organs of living creatures. Attercops had historically been subsistence hunters, working in teams to deal with larger prey and hold their own against more voracious predators. However, after the advent of livestock farming, many have adopted a more sedentary lifestyle, becoming eager participants in community life.

Stats below are intended for use with the Ancient Red Wyrm system. But it should be possible to adapt them to other OSR and newer school fantasy role-playing games with little effort.

Ability Score Adjustments:  +2 DEX, +2 WIS, -2 STR, -2 CHA

Cobweb: Each round an attercop may produce about 1 square yard of weak, gauzy webbing, lacking enough integrity to hamper any creature with a strength above 1. These cobwebs can snare extremely small vermin and may have other minor uses, though they tend to degrade over the course of a day or so.

Silken Thread: Each day an Attercop can produce extremely strong silken thread, equivalent of 100 ft. of quality silk rope. This thread becomes weak and unreliable after 24 hours unless treated with mineral salts worth about 15gp.

Web Spinner: Each attercop can produce a sudden burst of webbing once per day. This effect is similar to the result of a Web spell except that:

• The range is only 15 feet.
• The space filled is only a 10 foot cube (though multiple attercops can coordinate to simultaneously fill a larger area).
• The webs are not magical. Although they only maintain their integrity as long as a web spell, they consume no components, mana, or spell slots to produce, cause no fatigue in the spinner, and require no concentration or effort to sustain.

Once this ability has been used, it requires a long rest before it can be used again.