The Echidna Tale/The Arachne
From Create Your Own Story
The arachne were creatures of nightmares, quite literally. Taking your inspiration from the dream of a mentally ill old weaver, you spawned a child so horrifying that even the strongest of heroes screamed like little girls upon seeing even a sign of those creatures.
The arachne was, in its most simplest form, a swarm of small, mindless spiders. Individually they weren't strong, but when moving in a full swarm, they could overwhelm and paralyse even the strongest of heroes, slowly eating them from the inside, keeping their prey alive as long as they were able to. As they would consume the brains of their victims, they would gain their last victim's memories and intelligence, the whole swarm effectively working as a single mind.
If they so wished, they could take human bodies, controlling their puppets as they feasted on the flesh inside. To reproduce, they needed a human female; they would take over her body, slowly eating and absorbing her mind while forcing her to go over a physical transformation. The swarm permanently bonded with her, the woman would become a brood mother. A hybrid of a human and a spider, capable of lying tens of thousands of eggs into living bodies of humans and animals. The eggs would then hatch, forming a new swarm.
The brood mothers often kept zombified humans around their lairs for labour, their minds consumed and bodies controlled by the swarms. Of course, such bodies would not last very long, as the swarm would have to keep feeding on them to stay alive.
Perhaps something as horrifying as that would be required to bring the world under your control.
