Editing Fungus (section)

==D&D Fungi==
In [[Dungeons & Dragons]], the humble fungus has long been a supporting character throughout the editions. At its most basic, you have exotic background fungi, such as tree-sized mushrooms in the [[Underdark]], with many species of edible, poisonous or even magical fungi often showing up in articles on the Underdark. Other fungi are even more spectacular, or at least memorable, because they can try to kill your adventurers. In 3rd edition and onward, these creatures tend to fall into the Plant creature type, even though they aren't in the same kingdom.

Be warned: a lot of these fall into [[Old School Roleplaying]]'s tradition of "[[Gotcha Monster]]s".

* '''Ascomoid''': essentially puffballs. Just... grown to gigantic size. And mobile. And hungry to chase down living creatures and squash them to a pulp to feed on their rotting flesh. So, actually, not all that much like puffballs really.
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* '''Basidirond''': A walking mushroom that emits powerful hallucinogens when at rest, and poisonous spores when attacked.
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*'''Brown Mold''': Feeds on heat. It deals cold damage to any warm-blooded creature that touches it. Any fire that comes near it causes it to grow exponentially. Cold spells don't kill it, only make it go dormant for 5d6 turns.

*'''Chromatic Mold''': It emits hypnotic patterns that can only be seen by those with darkvision, and draws them towards it. Upon sensing neaby movement, the mold releases spores that get breathed in by the victim, and then a new patch of mold chest-bursts out of them 10 hours later. There is also a '''Sonic Mold''' variant that hypnotizes with sound instead of vision.
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* '''Cushion Fungus''': Introduced in [[Dragon Magazine]] #172. Enormous carnivorous mushrooms that resemble plush cushions. They secrete soporific spores when they sense living creatures, causing the weak-willed to take a nap on the "cushion", which then smothers them before digesting their corpse.
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*'''[[Dusanu]]''': A fungus which infests and animates skeletons. The resulting monster is technically not undead and is thus immune to undead-affecting spells.

* '''Egarus''' or '''Vacuum Fungus''': is a voraciously energetic strain of fungus native to the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum, which has the distinct and unpleasant habit of rapidly growing on - and disintegrating - any form of matter, inanimate or not.

*'''Explodestool''': Do I really have to spell it out for you? It's a mushroom that explodes when you touch it. Appeared in Dragon #89.
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* '''Gas Spore''': Infamous as one of the damn ''cheapest'' of D&D's long and sordid history of "[[Gotcha Monster]]s". Far worse than the aforementioned Cushion Fungi. These toxic puffballs are full of lighter-than-air gas, which sends them floating around the place. And they just so happen to resemble the dreaded [[beholder]]. Exactly why has never really been explained in most editions, although 3.5's came pretty close to a satisfactory one by saying they were created as expendable decoys by beholder mages. If you're boring you could also just say "Natural Mimicry". In 5th edition, they're a magical fungus that grows on beholder corpses, and if you survive exposure to the toxic spores, you'll pick up fragmented memories of the beholder they originated from.
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* '''Mu Spore''': Introduced in the [[Epic Level Handbook]]. Giant (at ''least'' 60 feet tall) walking mushrooms, with mouths that exhale deadly spores atop their heads, and bodies covered in sticky tentacles.

* '''[[Myconid]]''': A race of sapient, humanoid mushrooms native to the [[Underdark]].

:* '''[[Campestri]]''': Devolved, dimwitted, surface-dwelling, music-loving relative of the Myconids.

* '''Phantom Fungus''': A four-legged fungal beast with a maw of sharp teeth surrounded by several strange sensory organs. They are always completely invisible until after they are killed.

* '''Phycomid''': Slithering carpet-like masses of predatory fungus that spew caustic alkaline goop at living creatures, seeking to kill them and feast on their flesh.
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* '''Sargusian Fungu''': Commonly and inaccurately referred to as "Dirtwraiths", these species of semi-intelligent predatory fungus native to the [[Abyss]], but which can also be found in the Vesve Forest of [[Greyhawk]], a result of a Bonehart wizard unwittingly bringing spores back with him after a trip to the Abyss and then accidentally sowing them around Delaquenn. This fungus attaches itself to plants and animates them, using them as weapons to kill living creatures so it can feed on their corpses. [[Demon]]s love the stuff, they think it's a delicacy, but it's lethally poisonous to mortals.

* '''Shrieker''': Semi-ambulatory mushrooms that are harmless... in the way that a burglar alarm is harmless unless you trip it. If these things bump into something, they scream. Very, ''very'' loudly. And whilst they can't hurt you, anything that hears the screaming and comes to investigate probably isn't so non-hostile.

* '''Ustilagor''': Ambulatory fungi that happen to look like brains. Later retconned as juvenile [[Intellect Devourer]]s.
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* '''[[Vegepygmy]]''': Fungus-based humanoids that grow out of the bodies of people consumed by the alien fungus called '''Russet Mold'''.

* '''Vermeil Fungus''': Native to the [[Savage Coast]] of [[Mystara]], and supposedly are related to gas spores. Taking the form of large, crimson mushrooms, these fungi explode in a thick red cloud that resembles vermeil when disturbed - worse, this has the same effect on cinnabryl as detonating smokepowder, allowing their toxic spores to spread the debilitating effects of the Red Curse.

* '''Violet Fungus''': Semi-ambulatory mushrooms that actively hunt living creatures, lashing out with toxic, flesh-rotting tendrils to kill and consume prey.
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*'''Yellow Mold''': If touched, it releases a cloud of deadly spores. It can be destroyed with fire. Colonies bigger than 300 square feet are sentient, and can project their spores up to 60 feet toward living creatures, cast ''suggestion'' twice a day, and drain intelligence points.
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* '''[[Zuggtmoy]]''': The demon queen of fungus. She's quite prominent due to her involvement with the [[Temple of Elemental Evil]], which is home to many fungus creatures.

*'''Zygom''': An alien fungus implied to have come from the [[S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks|crashed spaceship in the Barrier Peaks]] that infests living creatures and controls their bodies against their will.
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===Out of the Abyss===
The 5e module Out of the Abyss has an entire section detailing the types of fungus that grow in the Underdark, largely because it relies on the survival mechanic to create artificial difficulty til the party reaches a city from the drow prison camp.
It introduces some nutritional ones:
*''Barrelstalks'' are pretty much naturally-occurring, edible barrels of water. Super useful for the starving escapee.
*''Bluecaps'' are inedible on their own, but their spores can be used as flour to make something called sporebread or bluebread.
*''Fire Lichen'' is a hot fungus that grows near geothermal vents. It's basically fungal wasabi, and duergar use it to make spicy alcohol.
*''Ripplebark'' is an edible bracket fungus, really only unique in that it looks like rotten meat and tastes better cooked.
*''Trillimacs'' are five-foot-tall grey-green mushrooms that can be harvested for faux leather and kinda shitty bread.
*''Waterorbs'' are little... orbs of water. They hold about a gallon of drinkable water and can themselves be eaten, though they don't really taste like anything but water.
*''Zurkhwood'' is basically a fungal version of redwood trees, growing in the form of huge forests. Only its spores are edible, but the mushroom itself is noted as being the replacement for timber in the Underdark.
...and some fun ones:
*''Nightlights'' are fungal fluorescent tube lights. They're around 8 feet tall, lighting a large area around them as long as they're not uprooted. They even tap on and off like a tap-light when they're touched.
*''Nilhogg's nose'' is a mushroom that grants its consumer super-smell for a few hours. Jury's out as to whether it actually looks like a nose.
*''Ormu'' is more of a moss, significantly less luminescent than nightlights but useful for making glowing pigments.
*''Timmask'' is also called "the devil's mushroom," mostly because uprooting it makes it explode into a cloud of spores that inflicts the poisoned condition and the effects of the confusion spell.
*''Tongue of madness'' is a big fat tongue-shaped mushroom that forces its consumer to say every single thing that comes to mind.
*''Torchstalks'' would be useful for making torches, since they burn for 24 hours straight when they're lit, except for the fun little quirk that sometimes they explode as soon as you light them.

===Orcs of Thar===
Way back in the days of [[Mystara]], the Known World Gazetteer #10: the Orcs of Thar introduced a short guide to the various fungi native to the Broken Lands:
* ''Foodshrooms'' are mushrooms that grow just about anywhere, especially on decaying organic matter. Marked by a sickly-gray, buboe-riddled "foot", a green trunk and a mud-brown hat, these are one of the major edible fungi of Thar, both in their own right and when they grow big enough to attract fungus-eating worms.
* ''Badshrooms'' are a poisonous mushroom that grows alongside foodshrooms, which means the local goblinoids consider them a right nuisance. They're all but identical to foodshrooms, but the colors are wrong; sickly green feet, sickly gray trunks and black-dotted mud-brown hats provide a clear warning to anyone with the patience to stop and look at them first.
* ''Biggiz'' are the largest shroom species in the Broken Lands, taking the form of huge, flat-capped mushrooms that can grow "ten ogres tall" and be "as wide as a purple worm". The hollow stems are a popular construction material in Thar.
* ''Futpuff'' is a purple-spotted green puffball fungus that goblinoids of Thar have learned to use as a primitive warning signal. When trodden on, it loudly expels clouds of spores, which also stink to high heaven.
* ''Rokstolk'' is a flat-capped mushroom that grows on metallic items that have started to rust. Rock-hard to the touch, rokstolks form encrusting mats over whatever metallic item is feeding them.
* ''Fireshrooms'' look like dead, gnarled branches in red and purple shades. They grow in areas of high heat, such as near lava pools, and quickly burst into flames themselves when agitated. Tharrians like to use them as a cheap source of fire arrows.
* ''Rustlemoss'' is a blue-grey discus shaped mushroom that grows on the sides of Biggiz. Characterised by a rotten egg smell, it's actually a powerful curative that can heal wounds and alleviate certain diseases. Thar goblinoid shamans are always interested in gathering batches of rustlemoss.
* ''Darksnap'' is a predatory fungus that grows on solid surfaces, such as cavern walls or the stalk of a biggiz. Sharing the same rotten egg smell as the more useful rustlemoss, darksnap grows large enough to devour a [[troll]] in one mighty bite. Do '''not''' confuse the two!
* ''Oozeshrooms'' are gray, stalk-shaped fungus tendrils that secrete a black, slippery goop when agitated. Carefully dried out, the oozeshrooms can be used as sculptable wood, whilst the sap is readily employed as a strong glue.
* ''Gooberries'' are fungi that grow on cavern ceilings, taking the form of berry-like bundles of sticky fungus nodules on the end of long, hairy stalks. The carnivorous fungus grows big enough to consume a goblin, but is itself quite edible.
* ''Wogar's Cups'' are cup-shaped giant red mushrooms that grow in dry, miserable places. Their inverted bell-cap holds water, and the mushroom secretes nectar into the water to attract insect swarms. Whilst the nectar-laced water is sweet and drinkable, the swarming bugs aren't likely to react well to people poaching.
* ''Weeping Fungi'' are massive, hairy-capped mushrooms that look sort of like weeping willows, hence their name. Their size makes them a popular spot for predators to ambush prey, or lazy humanoids to seek a quiet spot to rest. The branches are also viable for bows and arrows as well.

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]]