The Beast Fears Fire - Masqueraders

Masqueraders [Malevolence 2]
Impulse - Masqueraders gonna Masquerade

It's kind of hard to tell how many masqueraders there are in Crickton. When persuaded to admit to their existence in the first place, the spiders say they're pretty rare, and since their missions take them into human dominated territory for years and years, a lot of masquerader children grow up entirely ignorant of and unable to tap in to their heritage.

No one ever finds this of great comfort, and I cannot blame them. Masqueraders are shape changers, like corbins and silver coats, they have two entangled bodies, one constantly out of phase with the world and one constantly here. Their spider bodies tend to be a little sleeker and smaller than even weavers are. Their other body, at least the ones people in Crickton are aware of, is human.

Masqueraders are meant to be spies, descended from a group or species of weavers who took up shape-shifting as a means of keeping tabs on their sapient neighbors and, where possible, keeping them away from spider settlements. It's not unreasonable to expect that there might be masqueraders that pose as other communicative species - rukh, wolves, ghouls, goblins; possibly even less active shape changers like silver coats. That said, the only documented masqueraders found in Crickton and surrounding countries have had human forms.

Harm 1/Peril [Poisoned] and/or Variable Masqueraders aren't significantly weaker than weavers, though their silk glands and spinning aptitudes have fallen by the evolutionary wayside. Their venom causes both mild tissue destruction (if you can call it mild) and lethargy, but it isn't very potent. Masqueraders prefer to fight in their more resilient and easy to heal human bodies, but, unlike most other shape shifters, both the body in phase and their body out of phase can act independently, and the masquerader can change which one is in or out of phase at a moment's notice. Masqueraders who find themselves in violent conflict tend to defend themselves in their human body while their spider body gets around behind for a quick change and a bite.

Arms all Around, Tongue in my Eyes
When you face a masquerader in a violent confrontation, face Malevolence
On a Hit, you become aware of the out-of-phase spider body and can choose to suffer Harm from it or from the human body.
On a Hard Hit, you anticipate the change and harm the spider body, which will usually prompt the masquerader to flee or surrender.
On a Miss, you get hit from all sides. Suffer all Harm from both bodies.

It's much to late to get away, turn on the light

Whatever their numbers are, there's a sense that masquerader populations are declining rather rapidly, with only a handful of generations before they become extinct. The reason for this is pretty simple. For the spider body, sex is the most dangerous, fraught and unpleasant aspect of their existence. For the human body, well, it can be dangerous and fraught, but it doesn't have to be, and it's regarded as one of the most pleasant aspects of human existence. Children born to a human parent or conceived by two masqueraders in human form are human children with, usually, very undeveloped and often undiscovered vestigial spider bodies which they have to learn how to manifest and use. These hybrid children don't have the greatest reputation with either species, since the spiders can't really trust their loyalty and humans are pretty freaked out by giant spiders, no matter what, and don't have the greatest regard for shape changers. It's not hard for these kids to pass as normal people, though, even if they have developed a spider body.

Spider Other Thanks to your masquerader heritage, you can manifest a spider body. When you want to take on spider form, face Malevolence.
On a Hit, you can take spider form, losing access to your human possessions, and gaining the ones available to a Weaver Spider. You do not have their wilk-related moves.
On a Hard Hit, you can take on spider form and resolve a Peril or Harm in doing so. When you resume human form, you can resolve a Peril or Harm again.
On a Miss, you suffer the Harm your spider body causes in feedback as you fail to change form.

People who take Spider Other can also learn spider Abilities, which they can only access in spider form.