Aranea (Basic Lore)

Aranea (CR 12)
Pure Evil or Neutral - Medium - Magical Beast
Ages ago, Araneas were a species of intelligent shape-shifting spiders, raised up by a group of deities as worshipers. Over aeons of time, many such races came to be, until the Gods decreed a Great Contest, to see which races would be Civilized, and which would not. The Aranea were one of the many, many losers of that contest. Bereft of their Gods, the Aranea have slowly degenerated over the passing millennia, until they are little more than beasts in the wilderness, with an uncanny intelligence and supernatural ability to take the shape of a humanoid. Every Aranea has a humanoid form, each one as unique as a human's face. Araneas have lost much of their limpid, soulful selves in the process of devolution, and Araneas today are merely monsters, practicing robbery, mayhem, slavery, extortion, and even casual murder. Araneas can be a plague to a small settlement, and once a nest of Araneas have begun their depredations upon a settlement, the only way to solve it is to burn them out, root and branch, before they can kill or enslave every member of a local community.