Skitter

Skitter is an ettercap mage living in the sewers and underground passageways in the Northwest of the North City. Skitter was captured in the eastern mountains but used her unique ability of commanding spiders to escape en route to the Lux Menagerie. Skitter has been breeding massive quantities of spiders in preparation for making her escape from the city and potentially taking revenge on her remaining captors, a group of hunters calling themselves The Brass Knot. She plans to make her escape within the month but until then she intends to hide in the lair she has created for herself. Her work in the sewers has caused damage to the underground water pipes, causing malfunctions in the water supply and spiders crawling up to the surface without her control. This has attracted the attention of plumbers, many of which were than captured and fed to spiders, causing the Piper's Guild to seek more adventurous souls to investigate the problem.

Although skitter's lair and the surrounding sections of the maintenance tunnels are filled with spiders almost to the point of saturation, they pose less of a threat than one might expect, as many of the spiders are non-hostile and non-venomous and a well-prepared adventurer could easily procure antivenom for the occasional oddity. The lair becomes much more dangerous, however, once Skitter has noticed the intruder, as she will command the spiders to go against their nature and attack. In addition to a normal ettercap's abilities, Skitter has several spells and lair actions as described below.

### Spells

Cantrips

* Eldritch Blast
* Poison Spray

1st level(4/day)

* Expeditious Retreat
* Hex
* Arms of Hadar

2nd level(2/day)

* Hold Person
* Misty Step(While under the effect of her Spider Armor lair action, Skitter may leave behind a rough form, while using spiders to hide her appearance elsewhere perception DC 13 to notice. The armor left behind disintegrates upon taking damage.)

Lair actions(1 per round)

* Spider Armor: Spiders form a protective shell around skitter, giving her resistance to all non-psychic damage until a total of 20 points of damage would have been dealt to her
* Spider Strike: Skitter commands one of the larger spiders to attack an enemy standing near her swarm. make an attack at +5, dealing 1d4 physical damage and 1d4 poison damage on a failed DC 9 constitution save
* Obstructing swarm: Skitter commands her lesser spiders to cover an enemy, halving their speed. On a failed DC 13 dexterity save, the target's vision is obscured and they have disadvantage on attacks. The target can clear their vision with a DC 8 dexterity save as a bonus action.

Skitter was born deep in the mountains and lived as the pet of a wealthy drow matron. She entered a pact with a spirit and escaped with her newfound abilities. She lived in solitude in a surface cavern before being caught unaware and captured. She speaks undercommon and is willing to treat with anyone who can understand her, bargaining for a safe escape from Nostris Lux and revenge on her captors. Skitter is willing to let adventurers pass unharmed through her lair if they aid her in escaping but will offer them a boon if they offer to aid in her revenge. This boon could be Skitter's staff, which would allow control of the vermin of the adventurer's choice, a piece of armor or raw material woven out of the strongest silk skitter could find(+1 armor with resistance to poison damage and +2 to saves vs poison, alternatively gloves and boots allowing spider climb) or a magical boon transmitted via Skitter's venom, giving the receiver a venomous bite attack with damage and DC scaling according to dragonborn breath weapon rules, damage dealt regardless, save vs poisoned effect.

If Skitter is slain, the majority of the spiders in her lair will die instantly. The rest will disperse and continue to cause issues for Nostris Lux residents for several weeks. Skitter's staff will lose it's power and instead become a focus giving +1d6 damage to all poison-related spells. Adventurers will find several patches of extra-strong silk weave hanging from the ceiling of the lair and the bones and valuables of Skitters victims, adding up to a modest sum of money.