Sorrow-Spiders

"These little charmers sneak into the bedrooms of sleepers and bite their eyes off. They take them back to their nests and do...what? No-one's actually seen them eating the stolen eyes."

That old saying that spiders drink your tears while you sleep? Sorrow-spiders take out the whole eye. Sweet dreams!

Sorrow-spiders have notoriously infested almost every corner of Fallen London, and a truly enormous number of them can be found in Saviour's Rocks, where they act as the rulers of the human settlement there.

Burn the Whole City Down

"Sorrow-spiders. Disgusting or lovable? Objects of worship, entertainment, or mere silk-producing machines? Opinion is divided."

Sorrow-spiders are terrifying arachnids that grow to about the size of a cat, with there silk surprisingly popular as a fabric. They infest quite a few corners of London, to the point that the Department of Menace Eradication often pays handsomely for sacks filled with their legs. Rooms full of sorrow-spiders are sometimes used for executions, especially for unfortunate players of the Great Game. In the caverns under the Singing Mandrake, the Spider Symposium endlessly debate over the nature of language and its relationship to their sapience, which should it ever end will lead to thousands of hungry sorrow spiders to descend and feast upon the inhabitants of London. Furthermore, the Observatory near Watchmaker's Hill is home to a blind cult of astronomers, who seem to worship the spiders as some sort of idol.

Sorrow-spiders can travel through mirrors, and thus to and from Parabola, although the ramifications of this ability are unknown... beyond the obvious one, that spiders infest our dreams (ah, wonderful). They can also, in fact, be tamed; apparently they can be quite intelligent and prone to ambition. Now, what is that ambition?

Spider-Councils

"Sorrow-spiders are already repulsive. Spider-councils are what happens when sorrow-spiders go bad."

A spider-council.

Every now and then a bunch of sorrow-spiders come together and combine to form a hulking spider-council. These monsters can grow even larger than a horse, and they often fester in the crypts of abandoned buildings. Sorrow-spiders actually bring these monsters stolen eyes, in which they lay their eggs. In particular, Spider-councils seem to value the eyes of those "blessed" with the Correspondence.

Also, they can talk. A smooth, silky contralto, as one would expect. One infamously huge spider-council resides in Saviour's Rocks, and another, even larger one patrols the nearby Eastern waters of Gossamer's Way.

A Web Hung Between the Stars

"Are you quite sure you want to know this?" Beyond this point lie major spoilers for Fallen London, Sunless Sea, or Sunless Skies. This may include endgame or major Fate-locked spoilers. Proceed at your own risk. You can find out more about our spoiler policy here.

"It depicts a star infested with spiders, that cleave to each other like fish caught in a net. On the reverse, an azure regent prepares for war, in his chariot of hateful radiance." "Soon I will shuck this place like a skin."

A Nightmare.

There's no particular limit to how big a spider-council can grow; all they need is more and more spiders. Well, okay, there is a limit, namely that there can be only so many spiders in a council before it becomes a threat to the gods themselves. These planet-sized groupings are called spider-senates.

Long ago, a spider-senate was formed by laying an egg in a star, but was defeated by the Sapphir'd King. After defeating it, he imprisoned the spider-senate in the frozen White Well.

A spider-cult from the Fourth City called the Motherlings are attempting to create another spider-senate. They know the art of knitting two spider-councils into a bigger one, and with this process they tried to create a spider-council large enough to lay an egg on the Sun. When the Khanate, the remnants of the Fourth City, took to the skies, the Motherlings followed them to Eagle's Empyrean. Perhaps they will assist the existing spider-senate in some way...