#jurogumo

“I wonder what clothes you wear to school… I wonder how you decorate your room…”

🌹Our precious Jurogumo returns! - "The Hopeless Romantic"🕷️

(And Inuyasha's a bit fed up with her LMAO)

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Jorōgumo

This month’s creature feature, which my Ko-Fi members helped me decide on. A Japanese spider yokai taking on the visage of a beautiful woman to lure unsuspecting men in for breeding and feasting, it’s about time I added her to my little spooky gallery.

Art by  Killingsquash45 Child of Anansi (18-Point Quality)

In West Africa, there is a well-known legend of a half-god who became a spider, who then became a true god. His name was Anansi, and he was beloved for his weaving of stories. Once, they were the domain of Nyame, the sky god. Anansi asked for him to release the stories for the rest of the world to enjoy. His price was high. He had to capture powerful spiritual creatures: Onini the Python; Osebo the Leopard; Mmboro the Hornet and Mmoatia Who Must Not Be Seen.

None of these tribes have forgiven Anansi for this sacrifice, but the world gained imagination as a result (or so the story says).

Anansi himself eventually ascended into godhood, but not before fathering many children. These children in turn had many children and soon a new race of people was born: The Children of Anansi.

These people are semi-humanoid spiders. They freely shift between a human form and that of a similarly massive spider, or abominations in between depending on their mood.

These beings are innately magical, and regenerate their constitution in life points every hour, beyond this, and the ability to shift between human and spider form at will. They can call upon their spider abilities as needed despite their form.

The abilities of a spider include venomous fangs (3 x Strength slash/stab) as front limbs tipped with small claws (strength damage). The strength of their venom is based on their constitution score and attacks dexterity three times. The effects last only 24 hours. They can scale walls and half of their limbs are used to support themselves in any multi-limbed form (always forming in pairs). This quadrupedal stance allows them to carry half again as much as their strength would allow (though lifting/throwing remains unchanged) and provides a +2 resistance to being knocked over. Their second set of arms is also handy in multi-limbed forms.

Finally, and most importantly, they can generate silk. This requires a lot of meat in their diet to produce. It is silk and quite durable material.

By rolling Constitution (doubled) + Innate Magic, Children of Anansi (and any other spider-monster) can generate magic threads of silk equal in length to 2 yards per Success Level, with a thickness equal to twine (it must be spun together to form an effective rope). This twine may then be manipulated with either a Dexterity (Doubled) or Dexterity and Wild Card (Weaving/Sewing), whichever is greater. This silk comes in two forms, strong or sticky. Sometimes it is mixed to make strong lines with anchor points.

Their saliva easily dissolves the silk.

Once the silk is made, it can be weaved into ropes, nets, and the like. When climbing, they usually lay down a safety line to catch themselves in case they fall. There is no mechanic for this, it just happens. Creating ropes does not take very long, one action for every 2 yards of rope required. This is done with a normal weaving roll.

Nets are a bit more complicated, requiring 3 rolls for 5 minutes to make a man-sized net. Normal nets have a -4 all actions to those trapped. The sticky, magic silk of Anansi’s children increased this by -1 per 2 success levels per weaving roll. Normally, it takes (12 - Dexterity) turns to escape from a net. Sticky magic nets add another turn per success level in weaving to the time. By then, the spider usually ties the victim up completely.

The smart guy who wants to make silken armor, let them be informed that it only provides 4 levels of armor value normally, (doubled against Bullets). But it feels really nice.

Finally, the children of Anansi receive a +1 to Dexterity, Constitution, and Perception.

On the negative side, their spider forms are darn ugly (-4 Attractiveness), and they have several dozen enemies in the aforementioned groups due to Anansi’s trickery—not to mention humans just hating spiders in general (Adversary 5).

They have a fairy compulsion to play tricks to get what they want from others (-2) and suffer from a mild anti-social impulse towards greed (-1), and a slightly greater one towards gluttony (-2).

This quality also works for similar spider-beings such as the children of Grandmother Spider in the American Southwest, and the Jurogummo of Japan. 

Spider-Demon (21 Point Quality) There are many species of demon out there, and some of them draw their demonic abilities from earthly animals.  

Spiders being one of them. 

Spider-Demons, as they are called, look mostly human.  However, on their back, between their shoulder blade is a cluster of retracted calcium-covered legs.  These can spring out and allow them to climb or strike out at others.  There are 2 pairs of these limbs, which attack with a +1 bonus to attack, but they cannot grab things, or hold things as they are little better than spikes.  These spears can deal 3 x Strength damage (Slash/Stab).   

The legs let them crawl up walls at their normal speed.  So, when the legs are retracted, they cannot climb up walls.

Spider-Demons have a +2 to Strength, Dexterity, a Constitution.  When their legs come out, they gain a further +2 to Dexterity.  

They also have a venomous bite.  This paralytic venom lowers the target’s dexterity by 1 per Success level and has a strength of 2. The paralytic effect lasts for 1 hour per success level in the resisted test (Constitution doubled against the strength of the poison +1 per additional dose).  The strength of the venom can be increased later on by spending 3 points per level until level 5, where it raises to doubles (and doubles again after every 5 levels are purchased).  

The poison is delivered by a bite (or a kiss if they are feeling devious).  This bite deals 2 x Strength damage. 

Spider-Demons are largely carnivorous, limiting their diets overall.  They also have Anti-Social Impulses (Mild Violence and Cruelty).  Insecticides, even the small doses found in normal spray cans, disrupt their nervous system’s something fierce (-4 to actions or worse).