We all know about centaurs and mermaids right?  Half person and half horse/fish.  Well this is the same thing…if you were chosen by your god to become a champion but failed to impress her and turned into a half person half spider and ostracized from your society, then yes.  Exactly the same thing.  What I just described to you is known as the drider in drow society.  They are half drow and half giant spider.  How does this happen? Well strap in kids, today we learn why we don’t fail the goddess Lolth.

When a drow showed great promise, they are summoned by Lolth to the Demonweb Pits to test their loyalty and strength.  Those that pass the test are champions of Lolth and receive her blessings. Those that fail are transformed into monstrous drider, a fate nearly worse than death.  The Demonweb Pits are a dead wasteland full of chasms, rocky gorges, pits, craters, and petrified spiders with webbing everywhere. The sky burns red from a distant red sun. As you can imagine, the place is chalk full of creepy crawlies probably nestled comfortably near the River of Souls toward the iron citadel in the infinite web that is located in the Abyss.  A perfect place to test the resolve of a budding champion of Lolth.

Lolth likes those who are loyal and strong to her, and often urges her people to work and fight amongst each other to determine their worth.  Those who stand out are chosen to undergo the Test of Lolth.  As mentioned, Strength and loyalty are prized attributes above all others. In order to test their strength, the Chosen one fight a duel to a death to with a random, slightly stronger opponent.  The test for loyalty would include Lolth summoning someone close to the Chosen one, a friend, family member, ally, lover, etc., and then forced to kill that person. 

There were several outcomes that could arise from this:

If the Chosen one won and killed their enemy and loved one:

The Chosen one could take anything from their foe’s corpse and was empowered for a month, becoming a champion of Lolth.

If the Chosen on dies:

The Chosen one’s soul was drained by Lolth.

If the Chosen one fails to kill their opponent and lives or fails to kill their loved one:

The Chosen one was transformed into a drider.

Once turned into these monstrosities, driders often left their home in shame, forever to be outcasts in drow society.  They were tolerated as they existed as a representation of Lolth’s will and lived as an example to others for what happens if you fuck up royally to live to the high standards of the Spider Queen. 

So there they are, forever to be outsiders, and slowly falling into madness.  They become more and more bloodthirsty for if they fail to drink blood every four days, their bodies begins to deteriorate which sounds incredibly painful.  Therefore, hunting has become the only thing that gives them meaning, and perhaps a reprieve from their intense sense of shame, hatred, and fear which eventually leads to their insanity.  Just like normal spiders, they can spin webs from their butts and can use them like the Rope of Entanglement , and have developed a venom that could sap their victims strength that they could use to drool all over their weapons. Yeah poison!

I LIKE NUMBERS

STR 16 (+3): Giant half spiders are strong.  Who knew?

DEX 16 (+3): Can walk on the ceiling while tip toeing on spider webs.

CON 18 (+4): Their natural armor is surprisingly tough but their will to kill you is tougher.

INT 13 (+1): Just as intelligent as they were before they became eight legged freaks .

WIS 14 (+2): Their spider senses are tingling.

CHA 12 (+1): Spider bois can be quite hot but creepy when you see the other end…

AC: 19

HP: 123 (13d10 + 52)

Speed: 30ft., Climb 30ft.

Cool Shit

So when these failures transform into driders, they get to keep their fey ancestry which gives them advantage on saving throws against being charmed and can’t be put to sleep by any magic.  So that takes away any plan of sneaking by them. They also can use the spells they learned from their previous normal life, so if this drider used to be a wizard, good luck fighting THAT drider, but if your strictly following the stat block, casting dancing lights at will, and darkness/faerie fire once a day ain’t nothing to sneeze at. After, that they can climb like spiders all of the damn place so now you can annoy you players to death by JUST being out of reach. 

So…What can they do?

Multiattack: The drider makes three attacks and can replace one of them with a bite attack.

Bite:  Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 2 (1d4) piercing damage plus 9 (2d8) poison damage.

Longsword: Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) slashing damage, or 8 (1d10 + 3) slashing damage if used with two hands.

Longbow: Ranged Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, range 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) piercing damage plus 4 (1d8) poison damage.

Cool, cool, cool. So there’s a few interesting things you can do with these attacks. The obvious one is to hide on the ceiling, just out of the reach of any melee characters and use their longbow doing 3d8+3 damage PLUS 3d8 poison damage if each attack hits. That’s about an AVERAGE of 33 damage! If you wanna play more upfront with a small army of spiders, their longsword only does 7 average damage per hit, but use that alongside a bite attack that’s increased to 14 + 11=25 damage per round of attacks on average.  Unfortunately, going melee does not pack the same punch as fighting from afar, so if you want to get the most out of them, either use the drider at a distance or use that darkness and faerie fire with your melee attacks.

I have the best ideas

1. The party needs something from the drow, let’s say some kind of leader of someone who knows the drider personally.  They want the drider killed because it has started to impact their trade routes and cannot retaliate for they are used as a symbol of failure.  Fortunately, the party can. Kill the abomination and you get what you want.
2. If the party has a drow in it, have that characters loved one or childhood best friend (some bonded loved one is best) have become the Chosen One to become a champion of Lolth.  The player’s character has been chosen to fight their bonded NPC Chosen One by Lolth.  You can go several directions with this, either have the bonded NPC still try to kill your player character, or it could become a great roleplay moment to convince them it isn’t worth it but in the end, that beloved NPC becomes a drider and eventually goes insane with what they have become so now everyone loses.  But goddamn is it memorable!
3. Role Play Moment.  Have the players encounter a drider sobbing with little pet spiders all around them in a reassuring manner.  The drider is the child of a high ranking drow in the city and after failing to kill their little sister, has now transformed into this symbol of failure and ostracized from the world they knew and into the wild caverns of the underdark.  There’s a few ideas branching from this: 1. The drider wants you to tell the high ranking drow that is their father, what has happened to them and to send him a letter that they wrote to apologize and blah blah blah. 2. Find a way to “cure” the curse that Lolth as set upon the drider.  Perhaps making a deal with a hag, or with Lolth herself? 3. The drider wants you to end their life.  “Make it quick, I don’t want to live my life like this!” Give theme exposition on their life, their trial with Lolth, and what their daily life is now like.  Make it real emotional.