Ortho: Races Of Ortho – The Spider Clans

So we’ve lost elves, half-elves, gnomes, and Halflings as PC races and major cultural groups on Ortho… Yes we’ve gained beholders but we still have the room to populate this world with more unusual races, especially those that are normally pushed into dungeons and the deep wilderness on other worlds. A strong part of my mental image of the Harmonium is as a racially diverse society – especially one where ‘monsters’ are responsible citizens.

After a browse through the Monstrous Manual, I’ve had out a few ideas. They’re certainly not all PC race material, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t included in the Harmonium.

They’re all pretty embryonic at present.

The Spider Clans

Among the mad edicts of the emperors of Pan Thaera was the breeding of ever more grotesque and dangerous animals for use in the arena. Among the more insane ideas (of an empire famed for its insanity) was the work of Prince Sortho, who thought it would be a grand idea to crossbreed the demons known as bebilith with giant monstrous spiders.

The result was a colossal creature, empowered with fiendish energies and malicious intellect. Sortho called her Lehabwah, which meant [i]She Who Speaks in the royal tongue of Pan Thaera, for this abomination had a voice and the mind to use it. Too prized for the arena, Prince Sortho raised her from birth to be his personal bodyguard and assassin.

Lehabwah had other ideas.

As soon as she was large enough, she killed her creator and fled the royal dungeons. She ran deep into the wilderness of Thaera, and spun thick webs about all about her, like a silken palace. There she swelled to even greater size, controlling a vast territory of web-hung jungle.

When the empire fell to the Harmonium, Lehabwah’s existence was an affront that could not be allowed to continue. Armies sallied forth against her but were unsuccessful, for in the years between escape and invasion she had learned the magic arts, and lured many monstrous spiders into her palace of webs. Eventually a small band of the Free Folk crept in slew her. Beside her bloated corpse they found a great egg-sack, large as a house, fresh but empty. The Harmonium armies moved in swiftly with fire and sword to slay her children. The stench of the burning could be smelled for miles, the smoke seen for leagues, and on and on it went, until the palace and all its inhabitants were ash. They say however, that eight of her offspring survived and scuttled off to the far corners of the world. Who or what their father was, no man can say.

So take heed traveller, in the far and remote wilds. Listen out for tales of spiders with the bodies of men, of giant eight-legged monsters that hunt like packs of wolves, and arachnid shape-shifters who wear the skins of men. And if you should come across a forest glade or mountain path obscured by spiders’ webs, then stay quiet, and find another road.

For the children of Lehabwah have settled in that place.[/i]

- a tale of the Free folk

The Spider Clans are a reclusive people - if people they truly are - and it is said that there are only eight such colonies in all of Ortho. Only four are known for certain: one remains in the deep jungles of mainland Thaera, one occupies the Spider Heights of Iironda, one has been recently discovered in the jungles of Hazhkan, and the last (of which most is known) lies almost on top of Harmony’s Glory, in a mountain valley so high it is perpetually fogged by clouds.

Relations with the rest of Ortho are minimal, but the spider creatures that live there insist that they are peaceful and that the children of Lehabwah do not share their ancestor’s fiendish heart. The colonies on Thaera and near Harmony’s Glory have both been inspected by the Harmonium and have become part of Ortho’s provinces, albeit reclusive ones. The newly-discovered Hazhkan colony is still in negotiations over such matters however, and who knows what allegiance the unknown colonies (if there are any) may harbour?

Society

What little is known of the Spider Clans comes from the work of a handful of exigency squads who initiated diplomatic contact and solved the problems that occasionally flared up between these colonies and the rest of Ortho. Of these, most is known about the colony known as the Duchy of Arane:

This colony lies high amidst the summits of the Spires of Perfection. It is only a few days travel from Harmony’s Glory, yet the terrain is so inhospitable that it was not discovered for many years, until discovered by a soldiers fighting the elven undead that still lurk in that part of the Spires. The ‘duchy’ occupies several interconnected valleys at cloud level, isolated from the rest of Ortho save by a perilous climb. Within the valleys, the air is forever damp with cloudmist, making it hard to see the endless webs that hang from shrouded trees. Its humanoid population numbers only in the hundreds, but the arachnid population number in their hundreds of thousands - perhaps even millions.

The valley is ruled by Arane, who calls herself the Duchess of Webs. Her demonic blood may be somewhat diluted, but she has lost none of the size and intelligence for which her monstrous mother was famed. Aside from countless spiders of all sides, Arane is served by humanoid spiders known as ettercaps (named after the gulping noise they make; the only sound they can produce that’s not part of the clicking language of spiders), and a breed of spider-human shapeshifters she apparently created to be her eyes and emissaries to the rest of the world. Named after their Duchess, they are known as Aranea. This name has been taken into the common tongue, and is used to describe the shifter-spiders of other colonies as well.

Arane’s people are peaceful and civilised, though their eating habits are of the vilest manner imaginable: They suck the blood of still living prey. Thankfully they eat only animals now, or so they claim - for generations their have been unsubstantiated accusations of lone travellers going astray near their lands.

The valleys provide all that the Spider Clan needs. Vermin of all kinds abound in the area, especially the larger varieties, and these are the Clan’s staple food. Civilised needs are provided for by the ettercaps, who gather the silk of Arane’s many workspiders, weaving it into goods for use and trade. The Spider Clan are also skilled woodworkers, but they do not mine. What hard tools they need are crafted of flint and obsidian, or out sioloc - a light but hard substance formed from hardened saliva and raw fibroin. What metal tools it cannot do without, it gains in yearly trade with the Harmony’s Glory.

The ettercaps’ work is overseen and administered by the Aranea, who describe themselves as the Duchess’ grandchildren, creatures bred to bridge the gap between human and spider. The ettercaps were an earlier attempt the Aranea say, but they do not elaborate on the magic used to accomplish this. If any other experiments bred and nurtured by the Duchess of Webs, they have never been witnessed by the Harmonium.

The Duchess admits that she is in contact with at least some of her sisters in other parts of Ortho, word passed - she claims - from spider to spider and web to web across the continents of the world. Anonymity of her brethren is unfortunately part of her treaty with the state of Ortho, so those colonies not yet found by human hands remain hidden, much to the Harmonium’s chagrin. All we know is that each Spider Clan is rules by a Duchess like Arane – one of the daughters of Lehabwah.

The Spider Clans are well known to hold a racial obsession with the number eight, believing it to be the best number for measurement, quantity, omens, and just about everything else. Personnel in diplomatic and trade delegations (on both sides) must always number eight, as must each consignment of goods in or out, and each group of Spider Clan workers. All their dwellings have eight entrances, eight windows, eight rooms, and so on. In the past failure to venerate this custom while in Spider Clan lands has lead to violence, but even as peaceful members of the great harmony these days, they treat such errors are grave diplomatic incidents.

Civilisation & the Harmonium

In exchange for relative independence and privacy, the Spider Clans scrupulously obey the laws of the Ortho and pay taxes in the form of spider-silk, cloth woven into bolts with a skill no human hand could muster. They travel but rarely, have few needs, and little desire to see the wider world.

It’s not certain if the majority of their inhabitants can even understand civilised religion, but the Spider Clans have formerly adopted the worship of the Lords of Order, though in strange and alien guise. Native ceremonies are unfathomable to most, but enough aranea seek clerical training to convince the temples that heresy is absent from their faith. Small numbers of the shape-shifters also join the Harmonium and travel into Ortho proper, to better understand their neighbours… and report all back to their Duchesses.

Little else is known of the Spider Clans. Reports from Arane’s realm say that all the various breeds seem to live together in harmony, like a single giant family. If there are divisions and politics between the spiders, it is certainly hidden - and most likely incomprehensible - to humanoids. The Clans are obscure because relations with other races are usually formal and brief: The Spider Clans do not often encourage others to visit them. Each colony allows access by Harmonium soldiery or representatives of the state on official business of course, as well as a handful of merchants who exchange the few wares the Clan needs for fine silks. Others rarely chose to disturb the Spider Clans; their grotesque appearance seems to be innately unnerving and disturbing to humanoids. Few can stand to be in their presence for more than a few days, those who must often returned deeply traumatised – even mad. Despite the natural revulsion which we humanoids have for their kind however, the Spider Clans seem nothing but loyal.