The Baby-Headed Spider

What a beautiful baby!

Stumbling across an abandoned hold in the mountains north of Crown’s Hold, the party hears the plaintive cry of a baby, echoing from the shattered entrance. Cautiously investigating the darkened foyer, they find it covered in spider webs. Knowing the evil machinations of the GM, they start sprinkling lamp oil when something large and horrifying drops among them. A couple of failed Cool tests along with a couple of hits that just bounce harmlessly off the thing’s chitin, the party barely escapes a TPK by withdrawing out into the bright morning sun of the courtyard. Luckily, it doesn’t follow them outside, merely disappearing up into the darkness of the foyer’s ceiling. Finding discretion to be the better part of valor, the party uses one of their precious explosives they were able to wrangle from the Monk Technologists in town.
              Now the party shudders at the sound of a baby’s cry.

Revisiting my previous post on reskinning, this is perhaps one of my favorites. Meet one Giant Scorpion, but with the Fear effect caused not by size, but by the head and cry of a baby. I added an additional rule for color, as Baby-headed Spiders do not go out in direct sunlight. Nothing supernatural here, it’s just that the ultra-violet rays causes the baby head to rot. Plus, it gave the first-career players a tactics advantage if they could figure it out (and they did). As my campaign is a nominally a hex-crawl (except in town, where it’s a back-stabbing, every-faction for itself, politico-drama), sometimes my players find encounters that are quite a bit out of their league. I had assumed the path of least resistance would be going down the eastern road, especially following the rumors offered by one of the first factions they came across, the Legion. Alas, they never even talked to the Legionnaires except to find the tavern in town (the Slut & Brew), ending up sending them north into much 'hotter' regions far earlier than I had expected.