A large spider made of translucent crystal.

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The Lore

Dark Sun is still a D&D setting. Therefore it needs giant spiders.

Athasian giant spiders behave much like their kin from other worlds. They prefer locations that afford them plenty of hiding and ambush spots like caves, deep valleys, and so on. While neither of the varieties presented here can spin webs fast enought to do so during combat, they still might cover entire chasms or large passages in them as they wait for more prey to wander by.

Crystal Spider

One of the prettiest monsters in the Tablelands, its carapace is made of actual crystal. Aside from the usual venomous bite and their razor-sharp appendages, crystal spiders also have smome power over light and are capable of radiant attacks.

Crystal Spiders are Large Natural Beasts and Level 4 Lurkers with 39 HP. Their ground and Spider Climb speeds are both 8, and they have Tremorsense 10 to detect people touching their webs. Their carapace makes gives them Resist 5 Radiant, but also Vulnerable 5 Thunder.

It also gives them the Gleaming Carapace trait, which gives them concealment until the end of their next turn any time they move more than 5 squares in the same action. I guess glare is a major problem with fighting crystal spiders on their home turf.

Their basic attack is a decently damaging Razor Leg (melee 2), and they can use a bite (melee 1 vs. Fort) against a target that cannot see them, dealing both immediate and 10 ongoing poison damage (save ends).

Crystal spiders could achieve that unseen state by moving more than 5 squares and hiding, but they have a couple of shortcuts in the form of their light-bending powers. Radiant Agony (close burst 2 vs. Fort) pushes its targets 3 squares and blinds them for a turn, recharging whenever no one is blinded or when the spider hits with its bite. Brilliant Ray (ranged 10 vs. Ref, recharge 5+) does a good chunk of radiant damage and blinds for a turn.

Crystalline Web

Any place where crystal spiders hunt will be filled with these razor sharp traps. They’re statted up as Level 4 Obstacles, each consisting of a patch of webbing 4x4 squares in size, stretched between two surfaces. They’re semi-transparent and require a DC 14 Perception check to notice in bright light, or 19 in dim light.

When a character enters a web square, the web attacks their Reflex, doing immediate and ongoing 5 physical damage on a hit (save ends). Hit or miss, the target’s movement ends and it gets pushed back to the last square it occupied.

A character can use Acrobatics (DC 14) to move through a webbed square, or they can attack the web and deplete its 25 HP to destroy it.

An elite version of this trap has 50 HP instead, and deals increased damage when it catches someone. In either case, good luck dodging these in dim light or while blinded by the crystal spiders who made them!

The book doesn’t explicily state it, but I would say crystal spiders should be immune to the effects of their own webs.

White Widow

White Widows are a bigger, stronger, and stealthier relative of the crystal spider. While they lack the ability to fire lasers, they still have some control over light and like to blind their prey. They’re Huge Natural Beasts and Level 15 Lurkers with 110 HP, resist 10 poison and radiant, and Vulnerable 10 thunder. Their speed and senses are the same as a crystal spider.

The reason white widows like to blind their prey is that they deal 15 ongoing “poison and radiant” damage (save ends) when they hit blinded targets with any attack. Yes, this means their venom is deadly even to things that are normally resistant or immune to poison. This trait is named Combat Advantage but that name is misleading, as it only grants its benefit against blinded targets.

The spider’s bite is a basic attack that also deals “poison and radiant” damage, but it’s not going to be used on its own unless conditions are right.

Instead of biting it can turtle up and use its Reflective Defense, which gives it a +5 bonus to all defenses for a turn and blinds anyone who misses them with an attack during that time. The Scuttling Attack maneuver (recharge 5+) lets it shift half its speed, bite someone, and shift the other half.

When hit by a fire, radiant or lightning attack (in other words, anything shiny) the spider can react with the Venomous Dawn attack, enhancing and reflecting that light back at its attackers. This is a Close Burst 5 vs. Reflex, deals radiant damage, and blinds (save ends).

Widow’s Web

Any battle against white widows will happen in a place filled with these. They’re not sharp like a crystal spider’s, but they’re still quite dangerous as Level 15 Obstacle traps.

White widow web patches are 10x10 squares in size and require a DC 22 Perception check to notice in dim light, but are automatically visible in bright light. The web attacks the Reflex of anyone who enters one of its squares, and restrains on a hit (save ends). Webbed squares are also difficult terrain to anyone without the Spider Climb ability.

Characters can avoid the trap by leaping over webbed terrain, or destroy the web by dealing 40 HP of damage to it. An elite version has double the HP and can take two opportunity attacks per turn, which is useful in case two or more targets get pushed into it in the same action.

Encounters and Final Impressions

You’ll mostly commonly be meeting these spiders singly or in pairs, with the rest of the encounter balance being made up of web patches. They can appear anywhere you would expect to find the standard varieties of D&D giant spider, which also exist in Athas because why wouldn’t they?