Monetizing Giant-Spider Silk

[Kromm]

It isn't just any giant spiders that yield the silk. Only the humongous species that inhabits the tunnels at the edges of the Kingdom of the Shadow Elves has webs strong enough for a DR 2 T-shirt and flexible enough not to cause a DX penalty. The webs of smaller spiders aren't strong enough, while those of humongous spiders from other regions aren't fine enough. Why do you think the shadow elves settled in the area all those millennia ago? They were spider-herders, of course!

You can't use webs strung in the caves. Those are full of dust, mineral residue from dripping stalactites, and creepy-crawlers ('pedes, regular-sized spiders, etc.). Generations of shadow elves have tried cleaning them up with magic, but spells ruin the webbing. You have to incapacitate or slay the spiders and then milk out the silk, which is a special IQ/Average skill that the shadow elves are reluctant to teach. That's a quest unto itself.

You can't expect to sell dead spiders to the shadow elves. They consider killing the spiders to be sacrilege against the scantily clad spider goddess from Hell that they totally don't worship. You can get paid a regular herder's wage if you bring back a live spider, though. Call it $120 per spider, divvied up among the whole party.

Basically, the whole thing is akin to enchanting items: Something NPCs do.