The Weaver in the Deep Dark
Your light does not find a ceiling. It finds cable — silk the thickness of a wrist, running up and away in every direction, and hanging from it, at every height, wrapped bundles the size and shape of people. You stop counting at thirty because thirty is enough.
The floor gives under your boots. It is two feet of shed husk and dropped things, and it goes down further than that.
Something above you shifts its weight, and the whole room moves an inch. Then a voice comes down out of the dark, and it is a voice one of you knows — a voice that should not be in this maze at all — and it says your name, and it says, "Please. I'm up here. Please."
DM summary. A matriarch who never comes down, who speaks in the voices of the people she has wrapped, and whose web all runs to one knot thirty-five feet up. Burn the knot and she has to come down. One of the cocoons is still alive, and burning the knot burns the cocoons.
The Boon
The Taken NameOptional knowledge
The name of the person in the live cocoon, and a shout in the dark that gets answered
What it is. Not an object. The Taken Name is what somebody who watched the daughters carry a person off can tell the party afterwards: what they were called, what their voice sounds like, that they count out loud when they are frightened.
Where it comes from. Plant it early, and plant it in somebody's mouth — a survivor in a rest or resupply room who does not want to talk about the dark and does one thing before they part: gives a name, and asks them to shout it if they go down. Late plant: a dropped satchel in the room before this one, a name inked into the strap. Do not frame any of it as an errand.
What it does here. They can call, and be answered. A shout of the name gets a reply out of the cocoon field — the right voice, second bundle from the west on the middle tier — which replaces the Perception DC 13 to spot the moving bundle, and does it without a light, which here is the whole difference. Told to hold still and take their own weight, the person stops fighting the silk, so cutting them down from the bridge beneath needs no Athletics DC 12 — though the action is still spent and somebody is still up there to spend it. And she has been listening: from the round after the first answer the Weaver has the name too, on the DC 16 Wisdom save.
What it doesn't do. It gets nobody down. The climb is still Athletics DC 14 or Acrobatics DC 13, the thrown blade from the floor is still Dexterity DC 15, and the five rounds run from the moment the bundle is noticed. It buys nothing from the fire clock, and shouting into this dark tells everything on the strands where the shouter is standing. A party who never learned the name runs this finale as written, cruel guess and all.
Card and numbers or jump to the card ↓
Arena
Battle map: custom map. A 60 × 80 ft floor whose fight lives between 15 and 45 ft up in web bridges and cables — run it as a volume off a side-view sketch; a floor plan misleads. Browse the book if a page half fits your table better.
- Dimensions. 60 ft × 80 ft of floor, ceiling 60 ft. The party enters at floor level, at the narrow east end. Treat this room as a volume, not a map: everything interesting is between 15 and 45 ft up.
- Light. None. Absolute dark, and the web carries light: every lamp the party lights is visible to everything on the strands, from anywhere in the room. Fighting here without light is bad. Fighting here with light is worse, and the players should get to make that choice knowingly.
- The litter floor. Two feet of husk, bone, cloth, and drop. Difficult terrain throughout. Anything dropped is gone — Investigation DC 16 and a full minute to find it again.
- The three bridges. Sheets of matted web at 20 ft, spanning the room east to west. Acrobatics DC 13 to run one, no check to walk. They are difficult terrain for anyone who is not a spider and they burn.
- The nexus. Thirty-five feet up in the centre, where every cable in the room converges: a knot of silk the size of a cart. AC 12, 60 hit points, immune to bludgeoning, piercing, poison and psychic damage, vulnerable to fire. Cutting it with blades takes forever. Fire takes three rounds. This is the room.
- The cocoon field. Forty-odd bundles hanging between 15 and 45 ft. Three are recent. One is alive — see the clock. Cutting one down is an action and it falls to the litter, which breaks the fall.
- The vent. A crack at the very top of the shaft with cold air coming down it, and the web is thin there because the draught keeps tearing it. Nobody reaches it while the web stands.
Roster & Budget
Her, and two of her daughters working the strands.
| Count | Creature | XP each |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Weaver in the Deep Dark | 7,200 |
| 2 | Weaver Spider | 700 |
Base 8,600 XP; ×2 for three bodies = 17,200 adjusted, against the APL 9 Deadly budget of 14,400. Nineteen per cent over, and roughly that much comes back the moment the nexus burns: she loses her regeneration, the bridges go, the spiders lose their anchor strands, and everything in the room has to stand on the floor and fight like an animal.
Do not add more spiders. The room's pressure is height, darkness, and the voices. A fourth body doubles nothing useful and turns a vertical fight into a scrum on the litter, which is the one shape this encounter should never take.
Phases / Clock
Phase one — Above. She does not come down and she cannot be made to. She stays at 30 ft or higher, and while she is up there and the room is dark, ranged attacks against her have disadvantage. Her damage comes from what she drops: cocoons, spiders, and characters she has wrapped and hoisted. Her talking comes from whoever she has eaten.
Phase two — Down. Triggered when the nexus is destroyed or when she drops to 92 hit points. She comes down the last cable in one movement and lands in the litter, and the read-aloud is one line: she is much larger on the floor. She loses her regeneration and her drop attacks, gains 10 ft of speed, and attacks three times a round instead of two.
The fire clock. Once anything is properly alight:
| Round | What burns |
|---|---|
| 1 | The strand that was lit, and 10 ft of web either side. Bright light in a 30-ft radius — the first time anyone sees the whole room |
| 2 | The nearest bridge. Anyone on it: Dexterity DC 14 or 11 (2d10) fire damage and a fall |
| 3 | The nexus, if the fire reached it. Everything hanging from a burned cable comes down |
| 4 | The cocoon field, from the bottom up. After this round nothing hanging is recoverable |
The living cocoon. Second bundle from the west on the middle tier, and the DM should decide who it is before play — a member of a party from an earlier room, a Knossian surveyor, the noble child from B07. Perception DC 13 to notice one bundle moving, or free the moment the party looks up with a light. Once noticed, it has five rounds before it stops moving. Cutting it down is one action and an Athletics DC 12 from the bridge below it, or a thrown blade and a Dexterity DC 15 from the floor.
This is the room's decision and you should not resolve it for them: the fastest way to win is to burn the web, and burning the web kills whoever is in it.
Combat Resolution
Six to nine rounds fought straight, and about four once the nexus is gone.
- Round 1. She uses a voice. Not an attack — a voice, from the dark, above and behind, belonging to somebody one of the characters has lost. Make the player make the save. Then a cocoon comes down out of the ceiling onto whoever is standing furthest into the litter.
- Tactics. She wraps and hoists, one character at a time, always to a different height, and she never bites the same person twice running. She wants the party spread vertically and shouting to each other in the dark. The two Weaver Spiders bite and withdraw up their anchor strands exactly as they do everywhere else in the deck; cutting an anchor strand (AC 10, 5 hit points) drops one and takes it out of the fight for two rounds.
- A hoisted character is restrained at height and can cut free with an action and a DC 14 Strength check or 10 slashing damage to the wrapping, then falls, taking 1d6 per 10 ft into the litter, which is soft. Nobody dies of the fall. Everybody hates it.
- The weaknesses, discoverable in one round of looking up. Fire, obviously — and she counts her larder. Any cocoon cut loose makes her use her reaction to catch it, which costs her a legendary action, so the party can buy tempo with something they wanted to do anyway.
- Killing her without the nexus means fighting a regenerating opponent at range in the dark for nine rounds. It is possible and it is a grind. Two rounds of it will make the argument for the torch better than any DM can.
- When she dies, she comes down on the litter in a shape that is much less frightening than it was, and every strand in the room slackens by a foot, all at once, and the whole ceiling sighs.
Alternate Resolution
Skill — burn the nexus instead of the queen. A skill challenge, four successes before three failures, run under the fire clock and the suffocation clock at once.
| Approach | Check | On a success |
|---|---|---|
| Get height | Athletics DC 14 to climb a cable, or Acrobatics DC 13 to reach a bridge. Web-walking creatures and any climb speed skip the check | You are within 20 ft of the nexus |
| Make a fire that will carry | Oil, pitch, a bundled torch, or any fire damage. Survival DC 12 to build a brand that stays lit on a strand | The strand catches and the clock starts |
| Reach the knot | Athletics DC 15 to swing, or a thrown flask at range 20 ft, AC 12 | 25 fire damage at once, or a lit brand held to it for three rounds, destroys the nexus |
| Cut the living cocoon down first | Perception DC 13 to find it, then Athletics DC 12 from the bridge or Dexterity DC 15 from the floor with a thrown blade | One person out of the fire. This counts as a success on the challenge, and it should |
| Keep her off the climber | Any attack that forces a save, Deception DC 15 to answer one of her voices in kind, or a light thrown to the far side of the room | She spends a turn on the wrong target |
If the party knows the Taken Name, the fourth row loses its Perception check and its guesswork: they shout, they are answered, and they know which bundle and what height before anybody strikes a light. It is still a round spent and still only one of the four successes, and the fire clock does not wait while they spend it.
Four successes: the nexus goes. Every cable in the room loses tension at once; the bridges fall; the spiders drop; she comes down whether she wants to or not, on the floor, in the light of her own burning web, and the fight that follows is a fair one that the party will win.
Three failures: no penalty beyond the obvious. The fire did not catch, the climb cost people rounds, and the party is now fighting Combat Resolution with less rope and less oil. There is no version of this room where the party is trapped.
Burning it without cutting the cocoon down works perfectly and is fast and the party gets out and somebody who was alive at the start of the encounter is not at the end of it. Do not editorialise. Describe the bundle going quiet, move on, and let the table sit with it.
Table safety. Wrapped living people, suffocation, burning something with a person in it, and a voice belonging to somebody a character has lost. That is four intense things in one room and the last one aims at a player rather than a character. Ask before you use a named dead NPC in the Voices; a stranger's voice crying for help does the same work. If the burning cocoon is too much, make the live bundle recoverable up to the moment the nexus goes and give the party a clean rescue. Every mechanic above still works.
Scaling — APL 6 / 12 / 15
| APL | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| 6 | 138 hit points, one Weaver Spider, nexus at 40 hit points and 20 ft up. The living cocoon has eight rounds. DCs −2 |
| 9 | As written |
| 12 | 230 hit points, one Web-Fey Spinner in place of a Weaver Spider, nexus at 80 hit points and 45 ft up, and she re-spins one destroyed bridge as an action. DCs +1 |
| 15 | 276 hit points, a Web-Fey Spinner and three Weaver Spiders, two nexus knots that must both burn, and a lair action on initiative 20 — one 20-ft cube of open air becomes webbed, Dexterity DC 16 or restrained. Two living cocoons. DCs +3 |
Exit to the Resolution
Boon Card
The Taken Name
Knowledge · a name, a voice, and what they were wearing · optional, and never on the loot table
Appearance: nothing to carry and nothing to lose · The DM decides before play who is in the live cocoon — an earlier party's survivor, a Knossian surveyor, the child from B07 — and the boon is that somebody told the party first · Usable by anyone who heard it, and it does not run out
Call and Be Answered. A creature that shouts the name into the room is answered from the live cocoon, second bundle from the west on the middle tier. This replaces the DC 13 Wisdom (Perception) check to notice the one bundle that is moving, and it works in complete darkness, which is the version of this room a party wants to be fighting in.
Hold Still. A person who can hear instructions stops struggling and takes their own weight. Cutting that cocoon down from the bridge beneath it needs no Strength (Athletics) check — the action is still spent and somebody is still up there spending it. The thrown blade from the floor is unchanged at DC 15 Dexterity, because it is a blade thrown at a wrapped person.
Five Rounds Regardless. The clock is the clock. The bundle has five rounds from the moment it is noticed and a name adds none. Nothing here touches the fire clock either: on round 4 the field burns from the bottom up, and after that nothing hanging comes down alive.
She Has Been Listening. From the round after the first answer, the Weaver can use that name and that voice herself, through Speaks With Their Voices and the DC 16 Wisdom saving throw it already asks for. Two things never change and the party can work both out: the real one answers from the same bundle every time, and she never answers from where she is.
What It Is Not. It is one name. Forty-odd bundles hang in this room and the rest of them are dead; it says nothing about the nexus, the queen, or the way out; and a party that never learned it makes the DC 13 and the same cruel guess.
Shout It. A character spends its action calling the name up into the dark, loudly, in a room where everything hunts by contact with the web. It is answered that round. Land Speaks With Their Voices on whoever shouted, and do not apologise for it: that round she has forty other voices to pick from and she picks one of them, and from the following round she has this one too.
Creature Cards
The Weaver is this finale's only inline card. Her daughters belong to Arachne's Weave (W12) and their numbers live in the bestiary; the voices are hers alone.
Shared across rooms, so the full cards live in the bestiary: Weaver Spider, Web-Fey Spinner. Every mention above opens the numbers here on this page.
The Weaver in the Deep Dark
Huge monstrosity, neutral evil · CR 11 (7,200 XP)
AC 17 (natural armour) | HP 184 (16d12 + 80) | Speed 40 ft., climb 40 ft.
Saves Dex +8, Con +9, Wis +7 · Details Deception +6, Perception +11, Stealth +12 · Immune to poison damage, poisoned · Blindsight 30 ft. · Darkvision 120 ft. · Passive Perception 21
Legendary Resistance (2/Day). If she fails a saving throw, she can choose to succeed instead.
Legendary Actions (3/Round). She spends 3 legendary actions each round, one at a time at the end of another creature's turn, and regains them at the start of her own.
Will Not Come Down. In her first phase she stays at least 30 ft above the floor and cannot be compelled, grappled, or pulled lower. While she is aloft and the room is unlit, ranged attack rolls against her have disadvantage.
The Nexus. While the knot of cable at the centre of the room is intact she regains 15 hit points at the start of each of her turns and may re-spin one destroyed web bridge as an action. When the nexus is destroyed she loses this trait permanently and enters her second phase.
Spider Climb and Web Walker. She climbs any surface including ceilings without a check, ignores movement restrictions from webbing, and knows the exact location of every creature in contact with any web in the room.
Speaks With Their Voices. She reproduces exactly the voice of any creature she has wrapped, and she has wrapped a great many. Once on each of her turns she speaks as someone the hearer has lost, from a direction that is not where she is. One creature that can hear her makes a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw; on a failure it must spend its next turn's movement going toward the voice.
Counts the Larder. When a cocoon is cut loose within 40 ft, she uses her reaction to catch it if she can, and forfeits one legendary action at the start of her next turn. She does this even when it is plainly a trick.
Will Not Cross Burning Silk. She will not enter or pass through a space containing burning web, even to escape. On the floor, with the room alight above her, she has nowhere to go and she knows it.
Multiattack. Two bites, or one bite and one Wrap. In her second phase she makes three attacks.
Bite. Melee, +8 to hit, reach 10 ft, one target. Hit: 15 (2d10 + 4) piercing damage, and the target makes a DC 17 Constitution saving throw, taking 18 (4d8) poison damage on a failure or half as much on a success.
Wrap. Melee, +8 to hit, reach 15 ft, one Large or smaller creature. Hit: the target is restrained in silk and hoisted 20 ft straight up on her turn. It can free itself with an action and a DC 14 Strength check or 10 slashing damage to the wrapping, and then falls, taking 1d6 bludgeoning damage per 10 ft into the litter.
Drop the Dead (recharge 5–6). She cuts a cluster of cocoons loose over a 20-ft radius on the floor. Each creature in the area makes a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw, taking 27 (6d8) bludgeoning damage on a failure or half as much on a success, and the area becomes difficult terrain.
Up the Cable. She climbs up to 30 ft along a strand without provoking opportunity attacks.
Give Way. When she is hit by a melee attack, she cuts her own footing and drops up to 20 ft to a lower strand, halving the damage. She cannot use this in her second phase.
Another Voice (costs 1). She uses Speaks With Their Voices, out of turn, from a new direction.
Cut a Strand (costs 1). One anchor within 60 ft parts. Anything hanging from it falls: a bridge, a cocoon, a Weaver Spider, or a climber, who makes a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw to catch a neighbouring line.
Bite (costs 2). She makes one bite attack.