Plague
wheels spider Init +1; Atk bite +1 (1d6); AC 16, HD 2d10; MV 25’; Act
1d20; SP Mucous injection (see below) takes no damage from blunt weapons or
poison; SV Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +0, AL C.
A large
(16 inches across) jeweled spider, seeming wrought of metal and gemstones,
surprisingly light as it scuttles up your body and onto your face.
The
spider rides your face at night, filling your head with a lightly paralytic
gooey substance (that is nearly indistinguishable from snot) that over the next
d7 saps you (daily) of d2 Sta, d2 Str and d3 Pers; if caught early in many
societies this will likely go unnoticed as just another bout of illness.
Anyone
else will find that they die in their sleep on the relevant night.
Their consciousness however does not wander far afield. The
sixteen glass ‘slats’ mounted (eight to a side) along the ‘spider’s’ thorax are
galvanic-orichalcum treated glasstel soul storage crystals. The
deceased’s consciousness and soul remain within, sleeping though dreaming of
life as a predatory spider.
D3 nights
after the deceased died, unless measures have been taken with the body, it is
possible the spider will suggest the remnants shift up into their next form.
At that
point a mysterious and bizarre ‘clockwork infection’ sets in. Over the
next day period, the body slowly grows an assortment of gears, springs, and
pulleys within the body, wrought largely of the deceased’ own tissues, until by
nightfall the body is such that the spider can puppet.
Owing to
its extraplanar origin (somewhere between the Clockwork Doom and the land of
Nightmares likely) it takes absolutely no damage from blunt or piercing
weapons. Only slashing and energy attacks will inflict normal damage upon one
of these creatures. Further the spiders are immune to poison, including
gas attacks. They require neither air nor food.
Note
also, the mucousy proboscis is AC 8 when exposed and must be exposed for a
round before and a round after penetrating the head of a sleeping person.
Inflicting so much as four points of damage directly to it will render it
useless; double that will remove the proboscis and assembly completely.
Plague
wheels spider-zombie Init as spider; Atk +1 by weapon or +1 fists (1d3 plus
1d4 from metal spikes that extrude on a hit); AC 12 (as deceased), HD 2d8
(never more than host organism however); MV 25’; Act 1d20; SP immune to
mind control, sleep, or mind influencing attacks and effects; SV Fort +0, Ref
+0, Will +0, AL N.
Unless
freed from their ‘glass’ housing, the souls will remain perpetually trapped
within the spider’s corpse, even after it’s destruction. Any magic,
super-science, psychic or psionic attempt to move that soul may be successful
however anyone so returned to their somewhat rotted, gear infected corpse would
likely (DC 22 and higher! Will save to avoid) go mad with the constant sound of
their own, constant and grinding mechanical processes while attempting to
inhabit a fever heated but nonetheless rotting organic brain……...
