Grungehog wrote:
I somehow doubt that, as there have only ever been 2 cases of brown recluse related deaths.
Being a fan of his and seeing the band 6 times live, I followed this story for all two years of it. He was bit while hanging out in a hot tub. His arm started to decay rapidly as he went to the hospital. He was saved from death. He was recovering for two years from it and died of liver failure linked to the bite (and of course years of abuse to his liver). So, though you are correct that the bite is not directly linked to his death, it is the cause of him being out of commission for two years and his liver could no longer fight whatever they were pumping into him for his recovery. It is easy to point to liquor, cause you know only bands drink right? normal people never drink regularly
.
Anyway, I lived in Cali for a long time and only saw thousands of black widows in my time (everywhere) and was never bitten even when messing with the webs to provoke them to come out so I could study them. So bites are rare from any spider species.
I think browns for mirkwood is the easiest to paint up, but there is definitely an abundance of spider types to use to go outside the box and be creative with it.