Cildabrin

Cildabrins were a species of intelligent, monstrous creatures.

Description
Cildabrins looked like a combination of giant spider and giant scorpion. They had the body of a large, spider, but instead of eight legs, the first pair of legs were the pincers of a scorpion. They had a large tail of a scorpion, with a large, stinger at the tip. As they lacked a spinneret, they were unable to create webs.

Some had bodies covered in black fur, while others lack chitin with tufts of dark brown hair that grew out of their joints. Their eight eyes were of a turquoise hue and seemed to reflect no light.

Abilities
Cildabrins had the innate ability to duplicate the effects of a spider climb spell at all times. In addition, they had the innate ability to duplicate the effects of silence, 15' radius and web of darkness, 15' radius spells three times per day. Cildabrins were immune to the effect of a web and similar spells.

Combat
Cildabrins were ambush hunters. They hid from their target within an area of silence, luring them closer by leaving some treasure on the ground, leaping out and attacking once their target was in range. They used their sharp claws to crush a target, or their stinger to delivering a powerful poison. If their target proved to be stronger than anticipated, cildabrins used their innate ability to create an area of darkness to make a hasty retreat.

Ecology
Cildabrins were solitary creatures and only socialized for mating purposes. A female cildabrin laid up to forty large purple eggs in her lair. This nest was kept in darkness to protect the eggs.

Diet
Cildabrins were obligate carnivores and would eat any creature it could. Since it was unable to digest inorganic material, cildabrin would remove any armor, weapons or any other item from their prey before their meal. These items were collected and later used as a lure. Out of all demihuman races, they preferred the flesh of dwarves most of all.

Habitats
Cildabrins typically made their lairs inside of deep, warm caves.

Languages
These creatures were incapable of speech.

Relationships
Cildabrin were a favored monster of the deity Lolth.

History
Sages speculated that cildabrin were an artificially created species, pointing to the cildabrins' similarities to both hunting spiders and scorpions as evidence. Those sages were not wrong: the cildabrin were first created by the mad wizard/alchemist/cleric Praetorius, who tortured and transmogrified two creatures, a giant relative of a tarantula and a monstrously large scorpion, to create the first cildabrin as living weapons for the long-dead empire he served. However, they were too indiscriminate in their hunting habits, so he considered them failures and consigned them to arenas to die. Some eventually escaped into the Underdark, where they thrived.

Around the, one could occasionally encounter cildabrins within the Dungeon of the Crypt.

Rumors & Legends
Some rumors stated that cildabrin were tools of the drow, but those were false. Unlike other arachnoid creatures, drow feared cildabrin as much as any other humanoid did, and some religious sects among them considered the appearance of one to be a dire omen.