Aranea

The araneas are a race of sentient, shapechanging spiders.

According to legend, the araneas were created by a Calishite wizard during the Night Wars to infiltrate the ranks of the drow armies. When the wars ended, they were hunted down and killed or driven into the Spider Swamp. They became a neutral, pacifistic people. Originally, they were only able to change into drow, but after a while, some gained the ability to change into a Calishite human or a half-elf and return to the human cities incognito as well as spread out from Calimshan into the wider world. This allowed them to trade silks, herbs and poisons with the coastal city of Volothamp.

Over 800 years after their banishment, in 290 DR, Qysara Shoon V blamed them for a plague that was ravaging Almraiven. As a result, they were nearly wiped out by Volothamp's military. They adopted the worship of Zanassu, a demon lord of spiders, for protection and came to inhabit a city that was once called Ajhuutal somewhere in the swamp. The Qysara banished their god back to the Abyss two years later, which led to a gradual degradation of their society while the priests of Zanassu desperately awaited their god's return for the next 1000 years.

When Zanassu did return (or at least a powerful tanar'ri who claimed to be him, since Selvetarm had since defeated Zanassu & stolen his divine essence), his reign of tyranny lasted for 66 years, during which time his agents completely took over Volothamp's government and the araneas became its secret rulers. But when the Time of Troubles came, the demon disappeared without a trace somewhere in the Forest of Mir, combined with the advent of the Darkstalker wars, this ended the araneas' reign as if it had never happened. His priests went back to desperately awaiting his return, still not knowing that they were actually worshipping Selvetarm while the rest of the araneas became relatively peaceful, though they have been violently expanding their territory into the southern reaches of the Forest of Mir.

Physiology
The humpbacked body of an aranea is a little bigger than a human torso; unusually, this hump is where the creature's brain is located. It has two fanged mandibles, eight legs and can spin webs, just like a normal spider. It also has two arms located underneath it's mandibles that are roughly two feet long, ending in hands with 4 multiple jointed fingers and a double jointed thumb. Most weigh about 150 pounds.