#tinyflyingbees

i will gladly talk about our calendar system!!

we decided that it would be helpful to have an in-world one, for tracking the time that’s passed in-game and marking important dates like character birthdays and holidays, but wanted it to feel a little bit different than the standard earth one – despite sticking with a 365-day year and 7-day week, because the former meant we didn’t have to entirely re-learn our conception of seasons and a precedent for the latter had been set already in game. this calendar was intended to be a broad, common one – individual fantasy races often have their own (i know the elves do), but in the same way a common language was created to facilitate trade and education (and foster communication between races), a common calendar was agreed on and constructed to do the same

hence, our DM and i developed a 365 day, 10-month calendar that has two month lengths: 36 and 37 days. they’re generally paired (two 36-day months followed by two 37-day ones), with the middle of the year housing the single 36 and 37 day ones needed to keep it at five of each (that single 36-day one is also the month that gains a leap day when necessary, because we also kept that feature of earth calendars). the naming system for the months reflects their length – months with 36 days end in “-més” (which is dwarvish for month) and ones with 37 days end in “-hath” (which is orcish). the name of the leap month changes accordingly when it has an extra day

Okay! So! I fucked up and wrote most of this and then forgot to save it as a draft when closing Chrome! Let’s write it all again!

Yes, you absolutely can have lore for Mr. Spider, he’s my spooky son and I love him. 

For reference, this is him when I first came up with him years ago;

And this him more recently;

So, Mr. Spider was born an entirely normal human child, in a world full of minor magic and major adventures. He had a name that wasn’t Mr. Spider, but no one remembers that. Anyway, he grew up, and he wanted to have adventures of his own, to be brave and kill monsters and get treasure. Well, mostly the treasure part, but to get it you had to be brave and kill monsters. So Mr. Spider went out on a hunt for bravery.

What Mr. Spider did, however, was colossally stupid. You see, he tracked down and kidnapped a goddess, in order to steal her favour. Now, most goddesses aren’t into that, and this one was very much not pleased, but was bound to give him what he asked. So she gave him everything he wanted; strength, fearlessness, even immortality. But he became bound to her, protecting the cave she lives in for eternity from anyone “impure of heart”.

Essentially, Mr. Spider should have been the perfect guard dog, but he found a loophole as the goddess had done to him. She never defined “impure”, so he assigned his own definition, and he made it fear. If anyone could pass him, entirely unafraid, they could reach the goddess and maybe he could finally be freed. Of course, that has yet to happen, and no one even knows what he’s guarding any more. They all think it’s riches, and half of them probably wouldn’t even think to make a demand of the strange girl in the heart of the cave.

Mr. Spider doesn’t regenerate or heal, per se, which means that his eyes are effectively just for show. He sense the world around him entirely based on touch and empathy. His empathic vision is an extension of viewing the purity of someone’s heart, and contrary to popular belief, he can see you even if you aren’t afraid, he just doesn’t kill people who aren’t afraid.

Because he’s only bound to kill people who are afraid, Mr. Spider is actually perfectly safe around babies and most children, which is how he got his name. One night, a young girl from the local village - a village full of smart, non-adventurous folks who are perfectly happy not to pursue the treasure he guards and instead earn money from those who end up falling to him - wandered into his cave. She spent a very lovely night riding around on his back like a horse, and in the morning he protected her as far as he could from the mouth of the cave. She still comes back for tea parties sometimes.

Mr. Spider grows by eating people, specifically converting their bones into his own. However, he’s still actually, technically, human, so it takes him a very long time to eat enough bone to grow a new vertebra or set of legs. If Mr. Spider gets injured - which can happen, however rare it is - he’s likely to gorge himself until the injury is repaired. He can’t feel pain, but he doesn’t like feeling incomplete.

On days when it rains, he sometimes sits at the mouth of the cave and tries to remember what it was like to be human, or even if he ever was actually human. Most days, however, he avoids to outside world. For centuries, he’s lived deep in that cave, and he couldn’t leave it now even if the goddess would let him.