Spider's Silk [Rewrite]

[Apotolofo 2204]

 

 

 

 

A woman depicted harvesting silk from a spider’s web.

 

IN A WORLD IN WHICH giant spiders can be found in many a cave, spider’s silk is a highly useful, and obtainable resource. Essentially a highly durable fabric, the Arachnoid’s Cloth is a luxurious and somewhat protective iteration of casual wear. 

 

SPIDER’S SILK IS MOST USEFUL when woven into a cloth. It may be used to make the finest of clothing, highly effective bandages, and may also be used as a sort of ductile or extremely durable string. The latter of which might be used as bow strings, or within mechanical devices.

 

PROPERTIES

An artist’s depiction of the silk being packaged into bolts.

Toughness

 

REFINED SPIDER’S SILK IS A quality material with some quirks. It is highly resistant to slashing attacks, though given its flimsy nature, does little to stop the force behind such attacks, merely converting them into bludgeoning strikes of equal force. Stabbing & piercing attacks may easily penetrate spider silk cloth, so long as the point is sharp. For example, if a hefty man struck you right on the forearm with a longsword, instead of losing that arm from such a blow you’d end up with a fractured or broken bone.

SPIDER’S SILK HAS A FEW weaknesses to note. Firstly, it is highly flammable, and is useless against fire. Secondly, Argentum, due to its anti-arachnoid properties, will cut through Spider’s Silk with no resistance, ignoring its durability against slashing damages. 

 

Spoiler

- Spider’s Silk is as heavy as any other middleweight fabric or cloth.
- Spider’s Silk is especially vulnerable to flame, catching alight swiftly and burning for some time until put out.
- Spider’s Silk garments are classified as Light Armor in terms of protection, following Armament Techlock outside of its unique properties. Spider’s Silk IS compatible with Kani
- Slashing or hacking motions from a melee weapon will be converted into an equal level of blunt force.
- Stabbing and piercing motions from a melee weapon will be capable of easily penetrating spider’s silk.
 

 

Response to Water and Wounds

SPIDER’S SILK NATURALLY CONTRACTS WHEN it gets wet. This, combined with tightly weaving properly refined material, makes it somewhat waterproof. This allows it to smoothly cling to one’s body and make swimming easier.

AS A RESULT OF ITS reaction to moisture, another useful quirk of Spider’s Silk is its effective ability to patch wounds. It has been observed that when used as bandages, the fabric contracts around the wound and effectively staunches bleeding. However, due to the tightening of the fabric, this would restrict the movement of the limb until blood flow can return to normal. Effectively, this will allow the silk bandages to work as re-flavored tourniquets.

ADDITIONALLY, REFINED SPIDER’S SILK IN the form of string may be used as a highly durable suturing thread. Wounds stitched with this thread will not re-open unless directly snipped through.  

 

Spoiler

 

-  One bolt of silk can make up to 4 separate Bandages, enough to cover 1 wound each. 

-  One bolt of silk can make up to 4 spools of thread. 

- Spider silk bandages must be kept as separate RP items when represented in one’s inventory. No bashing them into a medical kit item.

- Spider silk bandages naturally constrict around leaking wounds, being superior to mundane bandages in firmness & contributing to the prevention of blood loss.

- The increased swimming ability is purely flavor, and provides no combat advantages

 

 

REFINEMENT

A woman depicted weaving the silk thread into fabric.

Harvesting

WHILE SILK IS PLENTIFUL IN spider dens, only recent pieces of webbing spun from cocoons may be harvested and used to its fullest effects. This is most easily achieved by baiting the spider with a creature of proportionate size, such as a dog or human. Send them into or near the nest, & wait for them to be taken away. Once this is done, the spider will wrap the lure in a thick casing of fresh silk, which will then be capable of being effectively harvested and used in crafts should you steal it from its weaver.

 

ONCE THE CREATURE IS FREED from the cocoon the creature has been ensnared in. This may take some effort as the silk is exceptionally difficult to cut. In any case, once the cocoon is claimed, it must be submerged in hot water. This will cause the silk to constrict, but the stickiness that held it together will vanish; allowing one to unravel the creature and place the silk where it may dry off. Luckily, most spiders don't immediately kill their prey, so it is likely the bait will be able to survive this encounter unless killed by the spider’s venom. Moreover, the size of the creature which was entombed decides how much potential silk you may acquire. The larger the creature which was captured, the more silk. However, how well the silk is extracted may affect its yield and quality.

 

Spoiler

 

- Giant spiders cannot be domesticated by players, therefore Spider Silk cannot be farmed. 
- Spider Silk is player signed, but must be obtained after a player run event. Do not spawn in materials. That's cringe.

- A medium creature’s cocoon (golden retriever and larger) will result in TWO counts of silk.                                    

 - A large creature’s cocoon (bear and larger) will result in THREE counts of silk.                                                          

- Anything larger or smaller will be out of a spider’s preferred diet, and thus will not be found in a den.                    

- A killed spider may be harvested for ONE count of silk.                                         

- One count = 1 bolt

 

 

Refining Process

 

REFINING MUNDANE SILK IS NO easy task, and requires the skillful hand of a prodigious tailor or weaver. Spider’s Silk is an even more complicated process. Through heavy trial and error, a method was created.

 

1. Firstly, one must stew gislocinovi, or any regent containing the alchemical symbol separation, into a saturated tincture via a cauldron of boiling water. At this time, dyes may be added, though the color will always be somewhat pale. 

 

2. Then, the raw silk harvested from the fresh cocoons must be placed into the cauldron. Stir until the strands separate from each other. 

 

3. Whilst the tincture is still boiling, take a ladle, stick, sift, etcetera through the gossamer strands, gently pulling them out from the water and laying them on a smooth surface to dry. 

 

4. Once dried, the silk strands may be fed into a spindle and spun into thread. This thread may be used on its own, or used in a loom to create bolts of fabric. 

 

Spoiler

 

- The difficulty of working Spider’s Silk should be taken into account by the tailor, and RPed accordingly. The refining method is considered COMMON knowledge

- 1 Herb/Regent containing the separation symbol is required to refine 1 bolt of fabric
- Mundane dyes do not stain Spider’s Silk well, often appearing faded and dull. However, the silk’s natural gossamer sheen will remain. Due to this property, Spider's Silk CANNOT be alchemically or herbaly treated.
- 1 bolt of silk may make; 4 silk bandages, a hat, a face mask, a pair of gloves, a pair of shoulder pads, a sleeve, a pair of socks, etc.
- 2 bolts of silk may make; a shirt, a pair of pants, a scarf, an arming coif, etc.
- 3 bolts of silk may make; a jacket, a cape, a sleeveless cloak, etc
- 4 bolts of silk may make; a full cloak, coat, etc.
- 5 bolts of silk may make; a full suit, dress, etc.

 

 

PATCH NOTES IN COMPARISON TO THE OLD POST:

 

 

Spoiler

 

- Defined interactions with ranged weapons with armament techlock in mind

- Defined interactions with melee weapons with armament techlock in mind

- Defined protective capabilities & weight

- Clarified interactions with water

- Clarified spider silk bandages

- Changed how applying spider silk to a wound acts. Acts as superior stitches instead of a tippens root salve clone.

- Made player signed

 

 

 

PURPOSE

 

Spider’s Silk has a lot of potential, but at the moment isn’t very useful for how tedious it is to collect, as well as the lore page being highly confusing. I hope that this rewrite will be able to make the material more usable. 

 

CREDITS TO:

 

@Apotolofo - Writing

@SlitheryC1 - Writing

@Cheese - Formatting

 

[Cheese 8883]

wow you guys have such cool formatting and also lore

[Helmet 1454]

the redlines... they aren't red... what have we done...

[lemonke 6014]

1 hour ago, Apotolofo said:

The difficulty of working Spider’s Silk should be taken into account by the tailor, and RPed accordingly. The refining method must be learned IRPly, and is considered RARE knowledge

:/

[Frisket 4538]

I must ask, if this is a rare knowledge what benefits does this give the individual player.?

 

Besides acting as a IRP replacement for bandages. I'm just struggling to find the ++ as this is rare knowledge, I wish to know the benefits one gets when using this to make items. (Non combative or combative advantages)

 

If there aren't any then I wouldn't even suggest this as a rare knowledge piece. 

[tasty_cheesecake 2298]

Two annoying questions

 

1: Spiders silk is super flammable but I can technically athin treat it to ameliorate this issue

2: Does this technically give kani users access to a pseudo-medium armor option?

[_RoyalCrafter_ 5285]

Very awesome, its cool that other's are paying attention to neglected lore like spidersilk.

Though as people have said above, i dont think it needs to be rare. Many cultures on lotc know ab spidersilk, like dark elves for one. restricting it to rare seems overly restrictive, since the effects do not seem that strong. Most metals are common knowledge and have stronger effects.

[Apotolofo 2204]

16 hours ago, tasty_cheesecake said:

Two annoying questions

 

1: Spiders silk is super flammable but I can technically athin treat it to ameliorate this issue

2: Does this technically give kani users access to a pseudo-medium armor option?

 

17 hours ago, Frisket said:

I must ask, if this is a rare knowledge what benefits does this give the individual player.?

 

Besides acting as a IRP replacement for bandages. I'm just struggling to find the ++ as this is rare knowledge, I wish to know the benefits one gets when using this to make items. (Non combative or combative advantages)

 

If there aren't any then I wouldn't even suggest this as a rare knowledge piece. 

 

Edits made: 

- Made into Common Knowledge 

- Added redline that it is unable to be alchemically treated 

- Added redline that padded silk is considered too dense for Kani

 

[Wulfric 472]

how many bolts would a unit of raw spider silk produce? the usual 2 as with ore?

[Apotolofo 2204]

10 hours ago, Wulfric said:

how many bolts would a unit of raw spider silk produce? the usual 2 as with ore?

 

1 to 1, I will specify that

 

[Islamadon 9158]

Amendments/Additions implemented into main lore post. Thank you for your submission. Moving to correct subforum to prevent redundancy and clutter.