“Spider-horses, as the name suggests, are magical crossbreeds of a riding horse and a giant spider. The body is primarily horse-like, although a spidery abdomen, complete with spinnerets, sticks out at the end. Four of the spider-horse’s legs are horse-like, down to the hooves, while four more spider-like legs grow out of the horse body. The spider legs are situated between the front and rear horse legs. The head is equine in nature except for the eight eyes which are compound.”
Johnathan M. Richards, Dragon Magazine #243
In the grand tradition of combo monsters like the owlbear, Johnathan Richards brought us this wild amalgam in Dragon Magazine #243 way back in 1998! It was accompanied by an illustration by George Vrbanic.
There's a handful of very bizarre creatures in this issue of Dragon Magazine but there's something about how incongruous a spider and a horse are that makes this one the absolute wildest one. The spider-horses were created by wizards as an all terrain mount; a horse with sticky feet! But the very detailed back story keeps going and actually gets really morose.
"Spider-horses, for reasons still unknown to wizards, cannot reproduce. The magic employed to merge the two beings renders the newly-created being sterile. Therefore, spider-horses usually live a solitary existence. Their spidery bodies often make standard horses skittish and nervous around them. However, this often makes them more emotionally attached to their masters."
These are the type of bonkers monsters I love the most about Dragon Magazine. This isn't elegant, it's not "cool" or scary but it's bizarre and funny...and in the right hands grotesque and sad.
Odin riding Sleipnir from the Icelandic manuscript known as NKS 1867 4to
If you want to stretch, I suppose you could make a connection with Sleipnir, Odin's magical 8 legged horse from Norse mythology. Similarly, in Hungarian folklore a shaman rides a magical horse with 5 or 6 legs called Táltos. BUT while the numerous legs are correct it is not a combination of two disparate animals from two entirely different phylum!
Unfortunately, this still is from a cool animation that does not credit the artist.
OK we're back to weird but not too weird tomorrow!
In the grand tradition of combo monsters like the owlbear, Johnathan Richards brought us this wild amalgam in Dragon Magazine #243 way back in 1998! It was accompanied by an illustration by George Vrbanic.
There's a handful of very bizarre creatures in this issue of Dragon Magazine but there's something about how incongruous a spider and a horse are that makes this one the absolute wildest one. The spider-horses were created by wizards as an all terrain mount; a horse with sticky feet! But the very detailed back story keeps going and actually gets really morose.
"Spider-horses, for reasons still unknown to wizards, cannot reproduce. The magic employed to merge the two beings renders the newly-created being sterile. Therefore, spider-horses usually live a solitary existence. Their spidery bodies often make standard horses skittish and nervous around them. However, this often makes them more emotionally attached to their masters."
These are the type of bonkers monsters I love the most about Dragon Magazine. This isn't elegant, it's not "cool" or scary but it's bizarre and funny...and in the right hands grotesque and sad.
If you want to stretch, I suppose you could make a connection with Sleipnir, Odin's magical 8 legged horse from Norse mythology. Similarly, in Hungarian folklore a shaman rides a magical horse with 5 or 6 legs called Táltos. BUT while the numerous legs are correct it is not a combination of two disparate animals from two entirely different phylum!
OK we're back to weird but not too weird tomorrow!
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