Weapon Size Cost Damage Critical Range
Inc. Weight Type
Fanged Web M 50 gp 1d6*** -- 10 ft. 10 lb P
* The Blood Spigot inflicts 1d4 hit points of damage on a successful strike. If it scores maximum damage or a critical hit, it is stuck in the body of the victim and begins siphoning his blood out at the rate of 1d4 hit points of additional damage per round. Note that this ability does not work on undead, plants, constructs, or other creatures without a circulatory system.
**Any type of poison can be placed in the envenomator and injected upon a successful, damaging strike with the weapon.
***The fanged web causes no damage until it has entangled a target. Entangled targets suffer 1d6 hit points of damage each round they remain entangled in the web, including rounds in which they attempt to escape. This weapon is otherwise treated as a normal net.
****The shard thrower fills a 20-ft. long cone with deadly shards. One attack roll is applied to all targets in the area of effect.
*****Any creature hit by a spiderhair blade must immediately make a Fortitude save (DC 15). Those who succeed at the save suffer no additional ill effects, those who fail suffer 1d3 hit points of extra damage from the weapon. If the target fails its first Fortitude save, it must make an additional Fortitude save each round or suffer 1d3 hit points of damage. Once a target succeeds at the Fortitude save, no additional damage is caused by that particular injury, though the target could suffer a subsequent injury from a Spiderhair Blade and begin taking aggravated damage again.
Ripper Chains: Similar to spiked chains, these weapons are lighter and more flexible. In use, they are built to wrap around a limb or other body part and then are yanked back to the wielder. This causes horrific wounds as the jaggedly barbed chain rips furrows through the flesh of the target.
Serrated Bone Cutlass: Fashioned from the leg bones of a fallen foe, the serrated bone cutlass is treated with various alchemical mixtures to give it a ragged, terribly sharp edge. Though not as deadly as a keen blade, the serrated bone cutlass is a fast, dangerous weapon that tears through flesh more than it cuts.
Shard Throwers: These weapons do not cause a significant amount of damage, but their ability to pepper a cone with shards of envenomed crystal is used often in drow combat tactics. The weapon looks like little more than a 3-foot-long rod of steel mounted on a complex tangle of springs and canisters.
When fired, the weapon uses a spring-driven piston to hurl dozens of tiny crystal shards, each steeped in poison, into a cone-shaped area. It requires one full round to reload a shard thrower after it has been fired.
Spiderhair Blades: While these short swords look much like any other small, bladed weapon, they create horribly painful injuries.
While being forged, the swords are repeatedly dusted with crystalline fibres (see below).
This makes the blade weaker, overall, but also causes the weapon to shed these irritating fibres into any injury they inflict. As the fibres worm their way down into the injury, they cause terrible pain and copious bleeding, making these weapons much feared by the enemies of the drow.
Spine Hammers: These massive weapons are favoured by the priestesses of the drow and find much use in their hands.
Constructed much like a standard warhammer, the striking surface of the weapon is lined with row after row of pyramidal spikes and is capable of ripping through skin as well as crushing bone.
TOOLS OF THE DROW
Tools
The existence of the drow is owed not only to the patronage of their spidery gods, but also their ability to conquer and control their environment. This mastery over their territory was made possible through drow ingenuity and inventiveness, which spawned a number of tools to make their lives easier. A selection of these tools can be found below, along with information on how the tools are used.
Breeding Rings: The drow view of the impregnation process is, at best, brutal. It is based around the subjugation of the partner and only one of the involved parties ever experiences any real pleasure with the experience. Pain and suffering, from the moment of their conception, is built into the drow psyche.
The drow priestesses designed the breeding rings to keep their male partners in line and to make sure any struggles were met with the maximum pain. The hooks are jagged rings of steel, their inner surfaces lined with dozens of barbs, attached to lengths of steel chain. The barbs on the rings are angled forward, allowing a hand to slide into them easily, but preventing it from sliding back out without suffering grievous injury. When the chains are affixed to wall posts, the breeding hooks hold the victim’s body immobile and spread-eagled, so that any motion causes intense pain as the flesh of the hands and wrist are torn.
These hooks are also used to control slaves while they are moved. While a slave might escape if he is truly determined, his hands would be destroyed in the process. The breeding hooks come in small, medium, and large sizes, for restraining creatures of the appropriate size. When a creature who is wearing the rings wishes to move, he must make a successful Will save (DC 15) in order to overcome his fear of pain to do so. Any movement made while wearing the rings inflicts 1 hit point of damage to the wearer and causes excruciating pain.
Crystalshroud Cloak: There are times when the drow wish to travel inconspicuously, either through hostile territory or simply to avoid notice when doing something they would rather not be caught doing. The cloak is a deep black in colour and has a voluminous hood capable of completely covering the face of its wearer. Crafted from polished crystalline fibres, the cloak acts as a one-way window – the wearer can see through the hood covering his face, but others cannot see in. The cloak also contains two dozen tiny, hidden pockets, each of which can hold a tiny object. The pockets seal almost invisibly thanks to the interlocking
weave of the crystalline fibres and require a successful Search check (DC 20) to find.
Dreamspittle Poison: Derived from a variety of fungi and distilled along with a healthy dose of spider venom, this poison is useful for relaxing a subject and is fatal only in very large doses. When injected, the poison immediately disrupts the ability of the target to control his muscles with any accuracy. The subject is allowed a Fortitude save (DC 15) to avoid the effects of this poison. If the save is failed, the subject instantly loses his Dexterity bonus against any attacks directed against him. The secondary effects of the poison kick in 1d4 rounds later, at which time the subject suffers vivid hallucinations and collapses to the ground, unable to move. This effect lasts for 1d6 hours. A successful Healing check (DC 15) can be used to maintain this state in a subject indefinitely, keeping them in a paralyzed stupor for as long as the medic wishes. This requires an additional dose of poison every 1d6 hours, but only one Healing check per day.
The poison builds up quickly in subjects if additional doses are given within a few minutes of one another.
Each additional dose injected into a target within a 10 minute time frame increases the DC of the Fortitude save to resist the poison by one. Thus, if a subject is struck twice by weapons coated with dreamspittle, the DC of the first Fortitude save is 15 and the second is 16.
Dreamspittle is a favoured recreational poison for the drow, who use the poison during their mating rituals and in a bar game involving self-inflicted injuries and injections.
Essence Injectors: These flat metal vials are generally positioned between the shoulder blades of a drow and fastened into place with a pair of leather straps that wrap around the shoulders. A thin needle runs from the vial and under the skin of the drow, while a thinner wire runs up and over the drow’s shoulder to dangle over his chest. When the wire is pulled, as a free action, the contents of the essence injector are forced into the body of the drow. The essence injector is normally worn as a way for a drow to quickly consume an emergency potion.
Instrument Gloves: The drow are quite skilled in the creation of delicate tools and the instrument gloves are the height of their expertise. Instrument gloves contain tiny lenses, screw drivers, cutting blades, scissors, and even small hammers, all integrated into the design of
the glove. The wearer can then use any of the tools without needing to switch hands and each tool can be very finely controlled due to their placement on the glove. A single instrument glove provides its bonus to a single type of trade skill only, as the tools must be customized for not only the wearer, but the Craft skill he chooses to practice. These gloves can be used with the Craft (flesh) skill and typically contain scissors, skinning blades, pliers, and other tools used to rip the skin up to make it easier to refashion with magic.
Gloves come in +1, +2, and +3 circumstance bonus varieties.
Locking Collars: The locking collar is a jointed device constructed from woven steel wires. A complex locking mechanism is used to put the collar in place and it is this device which makes the collar so lethal. When snapped around the neck of the target and locked, the collar is snug but not painful or dangerous. If the target attempts to remove the collar, in any way, a set of intricate gears within the locking mechanism begin tightening the collar. A key can be used to unlock the collar, which can be broken with a successful Strength check (DC 40), or opened with a knock spell, but will otherwise continue tightening until the target is choked to death.
A locking collar can be used as a weapon, provided the target is grappled or otherwise immobilized. If a drow wants to attach a collar to a target he is grappling, he can do so with a successful grappling check, but suffers a –4 penalty to the check as he struggles to hold his victim immobile and get the collar on.
Swing Lines: A specialized variant of the construction webbing used to build drow structures, swing
lines allow drow to make their way around or over