Skull Hermit Spider

The Skull Hermit Spider; an odd species of arachnid with an even odder means of protecting itself. On their own, they are nothing special. Eight legs, venom that will subdue creatures up to 1 1/2 their size, and a rather squishy abdomen, albeit rather big for spiders; growing up to the size of an orc's torso (legs included). Nothing out of the ordinary. No, the curious part of these animals is their means of protecting their squishy abdomen...skulls.

As a hatchling, these odd spiders are observed using their own, hard eggs as protection, trudging around with but a hole for their eyes to peer out of, and gaps for their spindly legs. When they grow out of these eggs, they need something bigger, of course...so the skulls come into play. Killing a little animal or finding a nice, dry skull to live in, these spiderlings begin their life as a hermit, forever hiding away in their skulls. As they grow, so must their skulls, and they search for bigger and bigger ones, from a large variety of sources. Never seen on a web, the only application for their spider silk seems to hold the skulls onto their bodies.

Quite a rare species, and often found dead within the skulls if they are ever found, they have managed to stay out of the radar of the new inhabitants of the realm, keeping their odd means of survival a secret simply by not being seen. Not known for being overly intelligent, they are, however, slightly brighter than the majority of spiders, and shall not bite the hand that feeds, as tempting as it is to gain a new skull to live in.

This is quite simple. These are spiders that grow big enough to fit inside an orc's skull, with their legs sticking out. There are cases where they grow bigger, but this is only when they are given a skull large enough to transfer into. An example could be an Olog's skull, or maybe a giant bear skull. They are poisonous enough to incapacitate small prey easily, but can not do anything major to things larger than themselves (i.e. the descendant races) over a short period of time. This is often why Skull Hermit Spiders are seen around a battlefield, several days or a month after the battle, searching for a skull to pick from the dry skeletons of the fallen.

Able to retract into the skulls, they appear to be a simple skull until their legs spew out of it's mouth. They don't make webs, and instead use their silk for three main uses: Keeping their skull attached to themselves Travelling (hanging down from a high point) Storing or snaring prey, and keeping it in the empty eye sockets of their skull

Able to be tamed by an individual who either finds them as an egg and hatches them, or one that feeds them constantly and does not seem like a good candidate for a new home and has provided them with a skull to live in. Simple as that. They eat anything that moves, is not poisonous and is smaller than them (occasionally things 1 1/2 their size), so feeding them isn't fussy.

Red Lines

No webs from these spiders; they hunt prey similar to an ambusher (pretending to be a skull and then striking)

Not useful in combat /at all/.

They aren't clever. Their intelligence is limited to "He/She feeds me, I will be stay with them". The most intelligent they will get is like a cat.

They can't speak.