X8 - Drums on Fire Mountain

[EruSilme]

i have just discovered that "tarantella" in english is used to indicate the spider... in italian is just the folkloristic dance from southern Italy (the spider itself is named "tarantola"), so i was at first a little confused, thinking about PCs encountering a lot of people dancing around a tree stomp

I like the way it looks; maybe a little dark, but i suppose this small clearing is surrounded by trees shielding the sunlight... and a giant spider is more scary in shadow than in plain sight!

May i ask how many pcs counts the party? How do you expect the encounter to evolve?
I am asking about, because i ever try to predict how the player will react and so i prepare the battlefiled accordingly to my ipothesis; i was wondering about the way others DMs set up the scene.

[anomiecoalition]

i have just discovered that "tarantella" in english is used to indicate the spider... in italian is just the folkloristic dance from southern Italy (the spider itself is named "tarantola"), so i was at first a little confused, thinking about PCs encountering a lot of people dancing around a tree stomp

That's funny cause the adventure actually talks about how the spider has somehow charmed its victims into doing ritualistic dancing around the stump...maybe the authors were italian.

The plan right now is just to recreate the maps from this old D&D adventure...and run the game much later down the road. So I haven't thought too much about how I'm going to DM it...but, I would anticipate a group of 4 PCs come across the clearing while on a long wilderness trek and decide that this would be a good spot to make camp for a bit. One of them meanders over to the stump and is surprised by the spider. Like many encounters in old D&D modules, I don't expect this one to be particularly difficult for the PCs to overcome - but more to set the mood that they need to keep their guard up while going through the jungle.