Story Spinner

Story Spinner are sentient spiders capable of speech the size of large dogs. They are covered in course grey or brown fur that is striped through with dull red, green, or yellow. Their drab colors are contrasted sharply with the fact that all story spinners have light powder blue tips on each leg. Each story spinner also bears a unique mark on the top of its head that resembles a strange character from a bizarre language. Though research has been done into determining what language the marks could represent, the truth is that these marks do not make up some form of strange cryptic language and are merely the equivalent of the spiders finger print and though they can not see it all story spinners can instinctively recognize their own mark and use it as a sort of signature.
Story spinners are naturally curious creatures and are often excited to learn new things or observe new creatures however paradoxically they seldom travel very far after settling in an area they have found to their liking. Story spinners are voracious readers and all of them have eidetic memories making them a wellspring of written knowledge and excellent record keepers. Above all story spinners enjoy creating their own literary works to varying degrees of success spinning rough drafts and loose collections of ideas into their webs. Usually these drafts are written over or discarded by the meticulous creature but rarely one will be deemed good enough to be transcribed onto paper. During the process of transcribing a literary work from silk to ink is one of the few times a story spinner will muster the determination to leave its home area. It does this in order to find the appropriate materials for the transcription as while the spiders venom is a natural form of ink and they often use it as such they find themselves lacking other important materials such as quills, paper, and binding materials for book covers. Aware that acquiring these materials may bring them into contact with other sentient species and that some of them are often scared of or hostile towards spiders they go out of their way to travel with stealth and disguise themselves as other animals or objects. As with all spiders stealth comes naturally to them they are all universally bad at disguises. These disguises rarely hold up to anything but a passing glance and some are almost comically bad. Some examples of this are loose piles of leaves or branches in open meadows with no trees nearby, piles of oak and maple leaves in forests composed only pine, eight legged dogs or sheep with fur made of shaggy grey moss, or a broken down cart moving uphill under its own power.
Once the appropriate materials are collected the spider will then transcribe its magnum opus sign it and carefully store it away. In extremely rare cases one a particularly bold story spinner may even create a duplicate of their work and deposit it at a printers for publication.
Should one find the lair of a story spinner and prove themselves non-hostile the reclusive recluses may reveal themselves to convers with the visitors. If attacked a story spinner will fight back though rarely to the death often preferring to run and hide should the fight swing to far in the attackers favor. Story spinners ink like venom permanently stains creatures it comes in contact with except other spiders. If this venom is injected it causes numbness and exhaustion. Another bizarre effect of this venom is that it also causes victims capable of writing to begin to write autonomous of the creatures will. These writings are inevitably word salad stream of consciousness ramblings scattered haphazardly over every nearby surface. Victims that are rendered nonfunctional by the spiders venom are often consumed once the fighting has died down.
Story spinners are distantly related to jumping spiders having good eyesight and being quite agile. They also hunt in a similar manner. They eat in the same manner as normal spiders however being naturally fastidious and cleanly they dispose of remains in a hidden midden heap away from their lair often near the edge of their territory.

Basic Information

Genetics and Reproduction

None

Ecology and Habitats

Any wilderness

Dietary Needs and Habits

Dietary needs are the same as that of a normal spider.

Scientific Name

Arachnid

Origin/Ancestry

Unknown