Encyclopaedia Elysia | Creatures / Kumo

Name: Kumo

Category: Monsters, Useful

Type: Insectoids

Size: Medium

Region: Forest, Mountains, and even sewers in Elysian cities.

Rarity: Common

Lifespan: 25-30 years

Appearance

Kumo are giant spiders almost 1 metre (3.2 feet) in diameter with bright green eyes, sharp teeth and long legs that curve under it to double its size when extended. They often look like innocent heaps of cloth in the darkness.

Art by Joy

Behaviour

Inhabiting dark, cold, damp places like caves and ruins, they can often look like innocent cloth heaps in the darkness, luring the unwary into a false sense of security as they lay down to sleep. By morning, the victim wakes to find themselves imprisoned by spider webs so thick, sticky and tough they're impossible to break without help.

Diet: Mostly small animals and insects but they can externally digest anything they can capture.

Habitat: Dark, cold and damp places like caves, sewers and the darker reaches of the Chandric Forest.

Breeding: Unknown. Females eat males after mating.

Special Information

Strengths/Abilities:

Like any spider, kumo can spin beautiful webs and produce silk threads that are perfect for weaving fabrics and nets but are the spider's deadliest weapon.
They move fast.
They can "see" in the dark by sensing the vibrations of movement.
They can paralyse their prey by wrapping them tightly in webbing.

Weaknesses:

They're essentially blind in the light.

Uses:

Kumo web silk is tough enough that, after proper refinement, it can be used to create nets of all kinds for trapping, fishing, baiting and so on.
With dyes added and the silk weaved, it can be sewn into pretty bags and clothes and is a popular choice for formal gowns and accessories.

Creator: Joy