Grandmother Spider
The petulant mother, the weaver of the world, and the silver- tongued charmer who talked the lioness out of her mane, Grandmother Spider is a teacher, a trickster, and a folk hero popular in southern Garund, particularly among her so-called children, the anadi. Much like her elder brother, Achaekek, she entered existence as a device of older gods to enact their will, weaving destiny and time into the fabric of creation as they set about making the world. But she found her circumstances infuriating and rebelled, weaving herself a new destiny and spinning it into a duku to grant herself freedom. She resents her birth as a servant, and by extension despises arrogance, dominance, and comfort bought by the exploitation of others.
Understanding grandmother spider Also known as Nana Anadi, Grandmother Spider began her life as a divine servant. She antagonized many other gods when the world was young, nipping at heels, stealing ambrosia, and making deities look like fools: she stole and copied Asmodeus’s keys, leading to chaos, and swiped a portion of Sarenrae’s fire to lead travelers astray. Eventually, she wove her own freedom and left behind divine control. Time tempered her antics; by the time she reached the Material Plane, she saw more value in teaching lessons and evening the odds than in spreading confusion. Grandmother Spider delights in games, schemes, and misfortunes that upset expectations, insisting life is not a dance to be rehearsed, but a spiraling tumble down a hill, trying desperately to right oneself before hitting the bottom—thrilling, messy, and dangerous. The Weaver embraces this philosophy fully, sometimes taking advantage of others and sometimes being tricked herself, considering her failures to be just as important as her successes. She encourages pranks to teach valuable life lessons and loves laying the mighty low, though cruelty
and predation draw her outrage.
Because life is so dangerous, Grandmother Spider is also a goddess of family, encouraging faith in friends and community. She is a protector of the downtrodden, and she is credited with guiding her children, the anadi and all spiders, out of darkness and into freedom.
In her human guise, Grandmother Spider is depicted as an old, dark-skinned woman wearing a bright duku and colorful clothing. In her spider form, she is depicted as a huge brown spider with black patterns and large eyes. Grandmother Spider’s holy symbol is a diamond made of eight interwoven threads. Signals of her approval include the sound of laughter, the smell of a hearth fire, and a spider spinning a perfect dew-covered web outside of a window. Signs of her displeasure include objects vanishing and becoming impossible to find, cloth snagging on branches or fingernails, and obnoxious but invisible cobwebs sticking to the skin.