Chronicles of the World of DaoTyr

Lord Aofyr, the Necroprelate of Anthroilt and his warden conscript of goblins were very interested in the birth of the Spider Chylde.

It was not a normal childbirth.

The dam was no one, a stranger, lost in the woods when they found her. Her arms and legs were scraped and bloody, little bits of stone and dirt embedded in the wounds. Her dirty blond hair was tangled not with burrs and twigs as one would expect, but with slime and mushrooms, crawling with albino beetles. There were spiders on her white skin. Lots and lots of spiders; like a woven dress they covered her, swarming.

They found her raving, gravid, stumbling blind. She said things like, “Heroes have no need of wisdom, for they have strength, like the ants in a hill…” and, “Do the gods care? I am lost, even to the darkness…” and, “They are crawling inside me, weaving within meeeee!”

They took her to the manger, put her on a bed of straw while the animals screamed in distress. She died, but there was no blood. They went to find a priest to help, leaving only the stable boy to try and calm the goats, cows, and cattle. Whatever it was he saw in the manger struck him dumb and turned his hair white. When they returned they found the boy weeping tears of blood. All that was left of the woman was a delicate form of silk, a silk mother, a broken cocoon. Whatever had been inside was loose in the world, now.

They burned the manger to the ground and slaughtered the animals as the priest directed.

Miles away, a naked little girl with skin the color of old dust paused at a crossroads. She shaded her eyes from the sun, and couldn’t decide if she liked it or not, though it felt warm on her dusky skin. A kind old farmer woman gave her a burlap sack to wear when she passed by, and a ride to the nearby town. “Well isn’t that a funny mark, just on the nape of your neck, girl,” said the farmer woman. “It’s like a spider or summat!”

Upon arriving to the small hamlet, the girl was attracted to a simple weaver’s shop by the bright silks and dyed cotton streamers. The weaver took her in, for those there were the kind kind of folk.

Over the years girl learned well for she had a talent with weaving. She wove threads of all kinds into wonderful cloths and patterns. Her work was strong and light, and one day, she wove more than cloth. When her first woman’s moon arrived, she found her real talent, the weaving of the threads behind all things. She could pluck the warp and weft of magic.

That was the day the girl left the small weaver’s shop to follow the threads of fate she saw shining in the distance.