Chelarac

Chelarac

(Creature)

Type

Aberration

CR

8

Environment

Any underground

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Source: Midwives to Death, pg(s). 80

Chelarac broodling

(Creature)

Type

Aberration

CR

2

Environment

Any underground

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Source: Midwives to Death, pg(s). 80

Chelaracs are dangerous spider-like aberrations with the ability to leech the memories of those they bite.

Appearance

Chelaracs resemble greenish-yellow spiders with human heads and a spider's mandibles. Their abdomen is covered in dozens of sacs filled with fluids where their young gestate. A typical chelarac is seven feet tall, has a leg span of 10 feet, and weighs more than 800 pounds.

Ecology

Chelaracs learn about the outside world by biting adventurers that come to their lairs, in the process extracting their (usually esoteric and interesting) memories. During their millennia-long lives, chelaracs can become veritable libraries of valuable obscure knowledge that would otherwise be lost to time.

Chelaracs reproduce through parthenogenesis. When their broodlings grow to a certain size, they enter stasis within their sac, and can remain indefinitely in this state until the parent decides to release them or when the sac ruptures. Chelarac broodlings bear the faces and memories of those bitten by the parent, and babble these memories as they emerge from their sacs, which can disturb a chelarac's foes as they see broodlings with their own faces. Chelarac broodlings usually leave their parent less than a day after hatching and mature after a few months.

An obscure text written by a Darklands alchemist includes the formula to make a substance that can be combined with chelarac blood, and claims that imbibing the mixture grants one access to the chelarac's wealth of memories.

Habitat

Chelaracs usually make their homes deep underground or in out-of-the-way ruins, where few people encounter them.

Society

Some creatures seek out chelaracs to learn their knowledge, but are rarely welcomed and have to bargain with them, usually by letting the chelarac bite them and allowing extraction of their memories in exchange for the chelarac's lore. Broodlings are more willing to share their memories than adults, and strangers can easily request their knowledge.