13. Temple Of The Spider God

This large, weirdly-shaped room is dimly illuminated by some magic; the light seems to come from above but has no particular visible source. The altar and wall hangings indicate that this is some sort of temple; the wall hangings are dark red, figured with golden embroidered spiderwebs. If the altar is approached, or examined from a distance: Standing in the center of the altar is a golden statuette of a huge spider; the spider's legs would almost hang over the sides of a large platter. The statuette is magic, of course. Touching or disturbing it in any way will cause it to transform into a giant tarantula with golden- colored hairs, and it will attack anyone within the room, always choosing whoever is closest to the altar. It will try to stay between its current target and the altar, and will ignore any character who has succumbed to its poison and begun to dance. The giant spider will not leave this room; if all potential targets leave the room, in 2d4 rounds it will return to the altar and resume its statuette form. If slain, it remains in giant spider form as a corpse, and will regenerate 1 hit point per day thereafter. Regardless of its condition, on the sixth day it arises with 1 hit point, returns to the altar and resumes statuette form. Once this happens, it is fully healed and will have all hit points if activated again. In such a case, if the character who slew it (delivered the final blow) is in the room the spider will attack that character in preference to any others, though it will still ignore them once they begin to dance. The wall hangings actually conceal a 30 foot wide, 10 foot deep area behind the altar: Pushing through the wall hangings, you find yourself in a concealed space behind the altar. A small table with some papers on it and two comfortable-looking chairs stand in the corner to the right, while an armoire and a dressing table with a mirror stand to the left. The oval mirror is cracked diagonally from upper left to lower right. The papers are religious in nature, detailing rites for the worship of the spider god; they are written in Common but include many odd words borrowed from an older language, and other words used in unusual ways, such that anyone who is not already familiar with the cult of the spider god will not understand it. The armoire contains four robes, dark red with golden spiderwebs, including an embroidered spider design in the center of the chest. These robes are old and in poor condition but still usable, and are sized for a smaller adult human (an average woman or a small man) but would also fit most elves adequately. The dressing table has a single shallow drawer holding several small glass jars of dried-out cosmetics in odd colors, particularly including gold and dark green, and a comb made of tin with a few long dark hairs tangled in its teeth. Giant Tarantula: AC 15, HD 4*, #At 1 bite, Dam 1d8 + poison (special), Mv 50', Sv F4, ML 8, XP 280 If bitten, save vs. Poison or begin "dancing" for 2d10 rounds, -4 to attack rolls and saves; onlookers save vs. Spells or join the dance for 2d4 rounds. Poisoned dancers save vs. Poison each round or take 1d4 points of damage.