The araneas are a race of sentient, shape-changing spiders.
Description
Aranea are a race of shape-shifting magical beasts that can transform between the appearance of a human and a giant spider. In their natural form, these creatures appear to be giant spiders with a pair of long arms ending in many-jointed fingers and double-jointed thumbs. Despite their terrifying appearance, the aranea are a peaceful race of beings. They feed on animals and do not prey upon sapient creatures to live. These beings live far from civilized society, as they are hunted by those who do not understand them. They tend to dwell in deep forests, jungles, and isolated islands.
Society
Aranea society is matriarchal, usually ruled by the queen who gave birth to the community. They will occasionally go into other communities disguised as healers or barbarians to trade or – when the situation warrants doing so – take a new mate to prevent inbreeding.
All aranea are capable of using magical spells. They tend to prefer magic that creates illusions and enchantment effects. They dislike magical that is fire-based.
History
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.