MONSTER, ignatia weaver

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❇
she is one of many. the spiderling bursts from her egg and skitters about, blind and weak. almost instantly she can feel the presence of her many brothers and sisters around her. they chitter at her and she chitters back. then they start to swing at her and attempt some curious bites. all of them blind, the brood of young arachne fight among themselves like a rioting crowd. some of them die, the others get in some good hits before skittering off to a safe corner. their mother comes home and those still alive are rewarded with bits of flesh. unable to see, the brood already bare sharp teeth and fangs. the spiderling's are covered in blood.

❇
the spiderling learns to see and move about, and even quicker how to fight. life among the arachne is a constant power struggle. mother leaves each day, the only caretaker as father was consumed long before her birth, and returns with scraps for those still alive. each day sees more deaths, and this continues for years as the spiderling and her siblings grow in size and strength. by their adolescence the brood of hundreds is down to only a couple dozen. the fighting slows and they are rewarded with not scrapes, but a feast.

❇
power struggle turns to independent struggle. those left in the brood are released by mother. she offers no parting words or kindness, no tips or tricks. the spiderling and those with her have learned all that mother could offer from hunting and killing one another. that which they haven't learned they'll learn like everything else. through trial, error, and blood.

❇
now a dangerous spider, she goes on her first hunts cautiously. watches humans from a distance and hisses at their smell. after learning the pattern she sets her webs. most offer her fruit before the day is done, and this fruit does more than simply feed her. she keeps her eyes on them for even longer. after learning how they speak to one another amiably she learns how they act when scared. when panicked. how they problem solve. those that escape are snatched up once they're out of sight. those that don't are killed before the sunrise.

❇
more years and the spider has developed a name for herself. the humans don't venture into her territory very often any longer, but that's okay. through her experiences with the humans she's begun understanding their language. through experimenting with herself she's learned to mimic their appearance. cautious as her first hunts, the spider inches her way into human society. at first she is a beggar girl, uneducated and thus uncultured. some humans take her in, raise her for awhile. her manners, speech, and expression become stronger. when she's learned all she needs to the family vanishes, their house covered in webs and stinking of death.

❇
over the years the spider becomes stronger and stronger, and develops a name among monsters as she does among humans. she finds a mate as she first enters her adulthood. they have as much romance as could be expected. he performs his duty, and as they both understood from the start she feasts upon him. a widow, she gives birth to her own brood and raises them like she was raised. the widow doesn't give them names or any great praise, only food for surviving. eventually she sees them go, not even remembering the names they forged for themselves.

❇
now aged, the widow explores the human world with energy. she knows how they speak and how they act, and no longer needs to spend much time in the dark plotting. no, now she plots as she sews their dresses or mends their pants. while they smile and wink at her she imagines how best to isolate them and drag them away. she eats well, and people still speak of a deadly widow in these parts, but she covers her trail well. she lives among the humans by day, but relishes in their unraveling every night. works in their cities, but lives in the forests surrounding.

tl;dr an arachne, ignatia was raised to be vicious and bloodthirsty. she grows up killing her siblings to survive, and is taught to love it through the food it brings and power it gives her. she is among only a comparatively few of her siblings who leave the nest alive, and quickly makes a name for herself hunting humans.

eventually ignatia realizes she can't just sit back and hunt in the shadows forever. the humans fear her territory and make kills hard, and so she learns to blend in with human society. it's slow, but after a few decades she's learned to mimic them well enough so not to arouse suspicion. now she works in their cities and hunts them in the alleys, dragging them off to the forests where she still lives. at one point she also gave birth to her own brood, but cares little for them or what happened to them.



The Arachne. Once human, it's said the first of their kind upset a great goddess and was cursed with the body of a spider. From then on their bodies were deformed. From the waist up they were humanoid. Women with carapace for skin, their only softness on their stomach, breasts, and face. But below their hips they resembled the bodies of spiders. A humongous spider abdomen several times the size of their human "half", supported by six legs and sprouting two sharply-clawed "arms" at the front -- a total of ten limbs when their "human" arms are taken into account.

While hideous in appearance and filled with a dangerous, predatory blood lust; they are capable of great shows of beauty and grace. Their human disguises are slender and beautiful, their only flaw being their legs -- still covered by their exoskeleton from the knees up -- and move with careful and precise steps. In this human form they can make beautiful clothes, blankets, and designs, but all of their work with two arms pales in comparison to that they can do with four. But this beauty is all a distraction. Despite their grace they are still beasts of prey, and all of this beauty is just more bait to draw humans to them.

❇ Like other Arachne, Ignatia has both a human and monstrous form, both of which are described above. While her human form has little but enhanced reflexes and strength to defend itself, her monstrous form is much more fearsome. Her carapace is as strong as any suit of armor and her strength is equal to that of several men. In this form she can climb walls, cling to ceilings, and ensnare her opponents in web. Once trapped, Ignatia's opponents are vulnerable to her attacks. These can be anything from impaling and slashing strikes from her four arms to venomous bites which paralyze the body.

❇ The transformation process from monstrous to human is roughly ten minutes, and equally long in reverse. To go from monstrous to human she must craft a pair of legs within her spider body, and then extract herself from it like shedding a skin. And, like shedding a skin, the spider body she left behind then dies and begins a swift decay. The change back is a bit more graphic.

❇ Within her pelvic region a new spider body begins to grow and shift. It bursts from within new, unarmored, and much smaller than normal. In the space of the next ten minutes it grows both in size and in armor. It swells to its usual massive size while carapace spreads across it. When the lower body is covered the carapace then creeps upwards onto her human parts, replacing skin with hard carapace everywhere but her face, chest, and stomach. This removes the hair from her head and arms, and tips her fingers with sharp talons. The skin, bone, and other bits from her now blown apart lower body decompose like any flesh.

❇ The curse from the Goddess brought some good with the bad. Arachne are blessed with extended life. While not eternal, they can live for as long as 300 years if they remain healthy and unhunted. Ignatia herself is in her adulthood, and thus has many more years of experience in combat and interactions with humans than many humans themselves do. It has made her very good at keeping her origins hidden and blending into human situations, and even better at cleaning up the mess when she makes a mistake. Of course she is still no human, and still views them as little more than a meal.

[attr="class","appname"]IGNATIA WEAVER

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AGE: 113
SEX: F
RACE: ARACHNE
HOMELAND: NRTH WASTES
CONTRACT: Y