Giant Spiders

Giant spiders are abnormally large arachnids which inhabit the dungeons and wastelands of Sosaria, Britannia, and the Serpent Isle. These creatures have exhibited numerous predatory behaviors exhibited by their smaller cousins, including jump attacks and the projection of silk and venomous spittle.

Description
The giant spiders of Sosaria and later Britannia are almost universally poisonous to mankind, although it is unclear if any of these creatures actively hunt humans as their prey of choice. While such arachnids have certainly killed numerous unfortunate adventurers, it seems that such beasts largely attack defensively, when their nests are disturbed or that men are simply victims of happenstance, used as food or hatching fodder in lieu of more common prey.

The giant Britannian spider is also a source, along with its smaller cousins, is a source of the valuable reagent, spider silk, a commodity prized among mages. While the webbing of the albino ghoul spider (which appears in both gargantuan and miniaturized forms) was once particularly held in esteem, the silk of any spider is sufficient to create the binding property needed for magical work. To this end, some entrepreneurial magicians have taken to domesticating giant spiders, harvesting their silk on farms.

Common Giant Spiders
Most giant spiders encountered on the Britannian surface are blackish to gray in coloration, and are sized somewhere between a large dog and a small horse. These beasts attack their prey through a combination of leaping attacks, and spittle-hurling similar to that seen within the scytodidae family of Terran arachnids. Over the centuries, these spiders further adapted their projectile techniques to include the casting of webs from a distance, and could be seen exhibiting this "spray" tactic during the later Age of Armageddon, during the events of Ultima IX.

While almost all giant spiders are poisonous, it should be noted that there are some subterranean species whose venom is not sufficiently toxic to cause much ill effect within human beings.

Wolf Spiders
Smaller than the common giants, the wolf spiders of the Britannian underworlds are covered in a thick "fur" and are a ruddy brown in color. It is not known if these large predators bear any relation to the lycosidae of Earth, who are characterized primarily by their child-rearing habits. The wolf spiders of Britannia are universally venomous to humans, and their poison has been tentatively identified as a "red bile" by observers. While not characterized as aggressive animals, the wolf spider can be a significant threat when its ire is roused.

Dread Spiders
Monsters living within the deepest bowels of the realm's underground, dread spiders are often spoken of in fabled terms, as many believe that these beasts do not exist. Easily as strong as three of it's less violent cousins, the pale dread spider injects its prey with one of the deadliest poisons known to man, causing death in a majority of cases. Its bite is said to be strong enough to penetrate even metal armor.

Phase Spiders
A bizarre aberration of the late Age of Armageddon, phase spiders are creature which is capable of magical teleportation between the material and ethereal planes. It is not known if such creatures are native to Britannia, although the one isolated appearance of them near Trinsic during the events of Ultima IX does little to suggest that their origins are of that world.

Giant Spiders on Earth
Current scientific research does not recognize any prehistoric species of spiders comparable to the giant spiders of Britannia, although in recent years, fossils of the sea scorpion megarachne servinei were mistaken for a large archaic spider, similar in stature to a dog. Despite this, large spiders - with leg spans approaching six feet - feature amongst the fauna of the mysterious Eodon valley, perhaps having originated in this mystic location through means similar to those in other lands.

Giant Spiders on Serpent Isle
The majority of giant spiders on Serpent Isle are identical to species found in old Sosaria and Britannia. However, scant evidence implies that spiders may have had different significance to the natives of the region, with a strange temple-like structure featuring spiders appearing in the wilds of the Isle of Beyond.

Furthermore, in the archaic Ophidian-dominated Serpent Isle of old, it is known that the lich Aram-Dol fused the bodies of spiders with those of men, creating a horrific hybrid race known as the arachnians.

Lore








Notable Examples

 * Navrey Night-Eyes: A wolf spider of considerable ferocity, who terrorized the gray goblins of the abyssal colony founded by Sir Cabirus.

Trivia

 * In Ultima VI spiders' bodies would occasionally yield meat, implying that some species of giant spider may be edible (even if not exactly palatable) to humans.
 * Phase spiders are likely derived from creatures of the same name within the table-top role playing game,  Dungeons & Dragons. These spiders, who use their inter-planar travel abilities to gain an upper hand in hunting, first appeared in the Greyhawk supplement for the game in 1975.
 * Creatures known as "frost spiders" were to be included in the canceled Ultima X. See Planned Monsters for Ultima X for further details.