Mountain Spider

This species of giant spider has a mottled carapace that makes its outlines hard to distinguish against the rock upon which it squats.

Combat
Mountain spiders are cunning foes that will often attempt to outwit their prey before striking with devastating surprise. They will leave lures for their targets (from animal corpses to apparent treasure), set up ambushes or use psionic misdirection to shift the advantage in their own favor.

Description
Mountain spiders are intelligent creatures with a rudimentary tribal society believed to honeycomb many parts of the Athasian underdark. Cunning predators, they use their superior intellects to lay all manner of traps for the unwary. They are carnivorous and seem to consider roc meat a delicacy. Needless to say, such meals are few and far between for the mountain spiders.

Mountain spider venom is sought after by assassins, as it can be used as an ingredient in the creation of potions to remove paralysis – with the involvement of one skilled in such things, of course.

One mountain spider in ten is psionic. Many believe that the species as a whole is on the brink of developing psionic powers en masse, but for the time being these abilities are limited to a handful of exceptional individuals. These psychic arachnids soon rise to positions of power within the loose mountain spider society.

An adult mountain spider stands five feet tall on long, sturdy limbs and weighs as much as 200 pounds.