It might be my love of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, but I have always been a bit disappointed with the spiders in the Monster Manual. I had visions of Ungoliant (look it up) and Shelob in my mind and the spiders were middling opponents at best.

Thankfully the Rise of the Drow and Vecna : Eve of Ruin campaigns have amped up the spiders. Not a huge surprise given the Drow’s connection to spiders, but the Citadel Spider and Miska the Wolf-Spider in Vecna was a nice surprise.

Finally, we have some spiders that can be a bit more of a challenge and with Miska, there actually is a spider that could be a BBEG.

I find spiders are normally terrifying and gigantic spiders have a knack of being able to build an ominous atmosphere to any environment. I then like to further increase the tension and fear by naming the spiders and having foreboding conversation similar to dragons. They are not mindless bugs but rather entities to be respected and feared.

They are truly one of my favourite creatures to use and enhance. They can be a great plot device to combat your party, chase your party, parley with your party, and poison and wrap your party in a cocoon to eat later. Spiders also lend themselves to multiple encounters with your party in a dark dungeon in a hit-and-run style.

Spiders also provide an opportunity for solo encounters and encounters with a swarm of a hundreds of spiders that are all part of the same cadre. Spiders are not just an opponent, but border on another race to be embellished.

Check out the new spider variants and use them in your next adventure!