Snow spider

Snow spider was a species of hunting arachnid-looking animals adapted to cold climate of the arctic. Often sharing habitat with ice spiders, they were good swimmers and were led by a queen.

Description
Upon a casual glance, snow spiders appeared to be hairy, muscled, arachnids with eight legs. In reality, they were warm-blooded mammals. These creatures adjusted to living in freezing temperatures with their metabolism generating enough internal heat to keep them alive and functioning in the north. Snow spiders were covered in hard and thick white hairs on the head and back, while their legs were striped with pale grays and browns.

They had eight eyes of pale blue color and a pair of menacing chelicerae protruding from under their horrific heads. Snow spiders varied in size, depending on their age. The heads were connected to flexible necks, similar to those of owls, further distinguishing snow spiders from true arachnids. Their feet had three clawed and webbed toes facing forward and one back. The webbed feet aided them in both swimming and crossing snow drifts.

Abilities
Unlike ice spiders, snow spiders were not web-spinners. Thanks to their tremorsense, snow spiders could feel any creature within from them that touched the ground, and they had keen eyesight. However, their senses of smell and hearing were average. They were capable swimmers and climbers, and their white tufts of fur made them quite proficient at camouflaging.

Snow spiders were immune to such mind-affecting spells and abilities as compulsion, charm, hypnotic pattern, and phantasms. Even though their fur was flammable and vulnerable to natural fire, it was resistant to magical flames, and they were unaffected by non-magical cold.

Behavior
Snow spiders were known for their aggression. They hunted, wandering through subarctic bogs rivers, and everfrost. These arachnids relied on their paralyzing venom.

They hunted in packs between five and fifteen individuals. Snow spiders' preferred hunting time was just before dawn and after sunset. A pack of snow spiders worked together, scouting, ambushing, and attacking in synch with each-other.

Combat
Like many of their kin, snow spiders attacked pouncing from ambush, lading a quick venom injection and dragging the paralyzed prey into a snow bank, a cave, or a tunnel. If the attacking spider missed or failed to paralyze its target, it darted back into safety, before the prey could retaliate. If the victim was not paralyzed, snow spiders could choose to bite prey instead, damaging them with their acidic corrosive saliva, or impaling them with the clawed appendages.

Ecology
Snow spiders, along with ice spiders, were known to inhabit the banks of the Iceflow river in northwest Faerûn.

They often preyed on herd animals, scattering them apart by emitting a deep resonant chining sound. Driving the scared animals into the traps set by the spiders' hunting pack.