Synopsis
A creature of darkness for whom everything is life is motivated by the next meal.
Description
The main body of the creature is human enough, with six slender human limbs (four arms, two legs), with stranger markings on pale blue skin. She dons a headdress that obscures half her face and emits a strange, red glow. Sprouting from her back are eight spider limbs, their length and strength holding her well above the ground. Silk webbing stretches across the various limbs. Where the joints of the spider limbs connect there are strange glowing patches, including where the limbs connect to the main body.
Personality
The focus of her life is the next meal. It drives her, causing her to kill and act rather indisciminately; no life means more than another. The exception to this is the malnoursihed or children, for by leaving them she believes she is allowing them to feed some other creature she might later hunt and reap the benefits from, or allowing them to gain nourishment she would reap if she happened to come across them again. Her typical way of killing is skewering her victims with her arachnid limbs, the witnessing of the event leading to her name 'Murderous Spider'. Her human-like appearance usually catches her victims off guard, as well as her ability to speak. Despite these traits, her main body moves with a sort of lethargy, her voice rather dull and void of emotion.
Despite her rather base intentions, there are many she lets live, for if she thinks her stores are full enough she will not kill again, for such a waste would be unnecessary. She consumes creatures other than humans, but when larger game is scarce, her typical hunt consist of people. When her stores are full, she will continue to stalk potential prey, but more for something to do than for need. In this state, she becomes more predisposed to listening to words, to conversing. In fact, when speaking she can be quite helpful, if her strange way of speaking can be tolerated. As a hunter with a territory she is aware of all creatures that pass through, and can traverse terrain rather swifty, vertically or horizontally. Indeed, she could even be motivated to leave her territory in aide of someone, so long as they could provide her with the guarentee of a supper. Even so, she is capable of bringing cocoons of pre-captured food with her, to stave off the need to hunt.
She will often express, intentionally or no, a relative fear of things that fly, and a rivalry with things of eight legs with stingers. These 'things' are guessed to be scorpions.
Equipment / Abilities
With her strong spider limbs she is capable of moving very quickly and doing so over almost any incline, the webs all over her body enabling her to increase traction on surfaces where gravity might work against her. These limbs are able to detect minute movements above ground or underground, the fine hairs on the limbs also allowing her to sense distrubances in the air and, to an extent, creatures in the air.
From her headdress she appears to be able to pull out meters of webs, which she can in turn use to snare or bind creatures or objects. She is capable of embewing a minor petrification spell into her webs, effectively paralyze the creature she places the web on. This petrification also slows down the body's cell cycle and heart rate, while increasing the clotting factor in the blood. In this way, she ensures her prey do no bleed out or die before she is to consume them, but the web can also be used to stave off mortal death in allies, at the cost of movement.
Aranea is able to lift rather heavy objects, both with her human-like limbs and her spindly limbs. She is capable of combat, though shies away from it. She also appears to have a superb memory, in which she retains the knowledge of certain herbs, sme of them with dark properties.
History
While Aranea herself does not know for sure whence she came, she feels that she is not the only one of her kind, while also being certain that she did not come about naturally, likely being the result of some dark magic. Since she was small she has dwelt in caves and underground tunnels, while also living in the occasional dark forest. She is drawn by places where dark magic is present, and so usually finds herself in the dens of old practitioners, hidden from the surface.
She remembers always having been able to speak, and used this ability to lure victims into the shadows, as well as to intimidate those she felt she could not take on. She knows nothing of the history of humans besides what potential victims sputter out, but knows the history of the fauna well enough; what creatures have gone extinct, what ones have come into existence, how they fit into the ecosystem, and so forth.
Extra
Image courtesy of fangogogo@deviantART.com
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/195/8/1/spider_by_fangogogo.jpg
Post samples (I'm Wiccacow)
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/invitation-only-rp/c-c-private/t.71265469/
