1211 The Webs of Old Aunt Spindel

Sticky, silken cobwebs clot the woods, hung with decaying animals. A rank carrion fetor fills the air.

• Terrain: Open forest (2), Aldweald
• Lost/encounters: 1-in-6. Encounters are 4-in-6 likely to be with 1d3 giant spinning spiders (DMB).

Perilous Travel

The hex is a cat’s cradle of rope-like spiders’ webs. Gloom is perpetual, and travel slow.

Webs: Characters may navigate around the webs, but doing so increases all Travel Point costs (e.g. to search or leave the hex) by 1. Otherwise, each character must Save Versus Hold or become entangled in the rope-like webs (effects listed under Old Aunt Spindel). When a character is trapped, there is a 3-in-6 chance that 1d3 giant spinning spiders (DMB) arrive in 1d3 Rounds.

Macabre Marionettes

In a web-swathed glade that reeks of carrion, the PCs come upon a bizarre, macabre tableau: a group of people, some moving stiffly and talking loudly and awkwardly, others sitting and watching. Their clothes are threadbare, their expressions blank and vacant, their skin of an almost moribund pallor. They are actually 12 marionettes of the hex’s arachnid mistress, Old Aunt Spindel.

The play: The humans are acting out some sort of play (comedy, tragedy, history, etc.)

The puppeteer: Concealed in a tree, Old Aunt Spindel uses her little hands to twist and pull at strands of webs connected to the marionettes. She takes great delight in the rigid cavorting of these putrid servitors, and frequently forces them to put on plays of her own devising, ventriloquising every part.

Interrupting the show: The marionettes attack the PCs, while Spindel attempts to remain hidden. Should they be defeated, she herself attacks.

Treasure horde: Stuffed in a sack in Spindel’s tree are 1,436cp, 802sp, 303gp, a fairy-silver necklace studded with jet (1,400gp), a platinum ring bearing the Pollard family crest (800gp—see hex 1209), and a Ring of Control (Fungi, p410).

Marionettes

Hollowed corpses, their delectable organs consumed, body-cavities stuffed with eggs, limbs lashed with webs to make them cadaverous puppets. Most are luckless staff of Bogwitt Manor (hex 1210) who mistakenly wandered this way.

Combat stats: Treat as manikins (DMB).

If Old Aunt Spindel is killed: Marionettes perish.

Old Aunt Spindel

Resembling a gigantic spider, Old Aunt Spindel has the twisted face of a human woman, but in place of a lower jaw, a pair of slender, childish arms extend, chelicerae-like. Her swollen bulk belies the predatory grace of her movements.

Demeanour (Chaotic): At turns gleeful and morose. Clearly mad.

Speech: Compulsively varying voices and tones. Can throw her voice up to 60′. Woldish, Sylvan.

Desires: To feed. To enact and re-enact her sick performances. To become human once more (see Curse).

Curse: Old Aunt Spindel was once a travelling puppeteer, cursed to take this form by the capricious Prince Mallowheart (p34) after one of her shows offended the fairy lord. As part of her curse, she spontaneously produces eggs, some of which hatch into giant spiders that roam the hex.

Reward: If the characters are sufficiently silver- tongued, she might spare their lives if they promise to seek a way to reverse the curse.

Large Monstrosity—Sentient—Chaotic

Level 8 AC 14 HP 45 Saves D8 R9 H10 B11 S12 Att Bite (+7, 1d8+2 + poison) Speed 20 Webs 40 Morale 9 XP 1,040

Poison: Save Versus Doom or die in 1 Turn.

Webs: Creatures caught in webs become entangled and unable to move or act. An entangled victim who forgoes other actions may make a Strength Check each Round to escape.

Burning webs: Webs can be destroyed by fire in 1 Round. All creatures in a flaming web suffer 1d6 damage.