“ There is a small and strange nature-worship cult that has dedicated itself to freeing vegetables. They appear usually in working pairs or trios, arriving to villages and towns separately and wearing the local garb. For some reason, they have taken to disguising themselves specifically as a scholar, a cooper, and a fisher. At night, they will sneak into backyards and side gardens, digging up household fruits and vegetables. They pile the pilfered plants into a cart and vanish in the night. While the townsfolk wake up to empty gardens, the cultists replant the fruits in the wild to let them be 'free'.”
“ These rare, fist-sized spiders do not make webs, but rather excrete secretions which harden upon contact with air. These 'droppings' resemble barley-sized spider eggs, or even lustrous pearls, once the slime coating them, dries up. In fact, dried Pearl Spider 'drops' are indistinguishable from the marine varieties produced by mollusks, and hence of identical value on the open market!
Several centuries ago, they were studied by naturalists, and several observations were made. Firstly, was that these spiders 'lay' these pearls for no apparent or discernible 'natural' reason, and secondly, the naturalists had discovered that the more these spiders ate or were fed--and they were true omnivores--the larger the spider pearls came out.
A cottage industry began. Enterprising merchants hunted and collected these creatures across the lands, erecting spider-farms for the manufacture of Spider Pearls. It wasn't long before someone got the idea to force-feed the spiders, ala foie gras geese, and soon, the fattened spiders began pooping out pearls of great size! (relatively speaking). The regular pearl market came to disarray, and prices and value fluctuated wildly.
[b]Plothook[/b] The Mermen Mercantile Alliance hires the party to eradicate all terrestrial Pearl Spider Farms!”
“ I am in the process of planning a complete steampunk themed campaign world.
The underdark will not be made up of caverns or caves, but huge, interlocking gears. The gears will be constantly moving and are basically a gigantic mechanism.
Part of this underdark is controlled by an insane analytical engine (mechanical computer).
Stay tuned for more details”