Some Real Fun Guys

The system reference document for D&D 5e lacks any background or flavor text for monsters. Personally, I love this. It forces me to look at a creature and build a story in my head to explain its existence without falling back on nostalgia. It's a fun challenge!

Lately I've been working on a new approach to designing monsters and building encounters in 5e. I've written about it before, but to summarize:

• Monsters have a level and a role, like minion or elite.

• A monster level represents its power, just like character level. 3rd level monsters are good enemies for 3rd level characters.

• Roll tells you how many monsters you should normally throw at the party. Match one champion per PC, or two troopers, or four minions. An elite can take on two PCs, while a solo can take on four.

• Monsters also have XP values, so you can build using XP budgets per the core rules.

• The math I'm using here is not yet playtested! I've done a lot of spreadsheet work, but my testing in earnest only begins this week.

As part of that, I've built a bestiary of 50 tier 1 monsters. Not all of them have flavor text yet, but one group does - the fungoids.

Fungoids came about when I was staring at the stat block for the shrieker. It makes no sense without any context. It's a 13 HP mushroom that yells when exposed to light. It's worth 0 XP, so silencing does nothing for your march to level 20. Right next to it is the violet fungus, a CR 1/4 creature with speed 5 and no ranged attacks. Shooting it full of arrows nets you 50 XP.

These creatures are 100% in the rules because 50 years ago people didn't yet know to avoid weird mushrooms in a dungeon. You could argue that Super Mario Brothers might make gamers even more likely to blindly trust subterranean fungi, but if these guys manage to get the drop on you the payoff is underwhelming.

Staring at these stat blocks, I knew I wanted to do something more interesting with them. What if we took their basic concept and rewrapped them as a new, low-level humanoid species?

Fungoid

"If you see one, you'll soon see a dozen or more. See more than that, and they'll be the last thing you see." - Bjorn Fellforge

A fungoid infestation in a dungeon always heralds trouble. Wherever aberrations enter this world, fungoids always follow. Long ago these creatures were forced into vassalhood by aboleths and other powerful psionic creatures. Perhaps all too aware of their relative weakness compared to most aberrations, they are always eager to make a servant or meal out of any creature that stumbles into one of their colonies.

The Keepers of the Old Ways, the druids who in ancient time banished the aberrations, insist that the fungoids are victims. The fungoids' sunless world was a paradise for them until the aboleths escaped there from our realm. The aberrations broke the great divine mind that guided the fungoids, turning a benevolent collective into a bitter, rage-filled predator.

While this story provides a tragic backdrop for adventurers who encounter to them, the fact remains that fungoids are organized, vicious, and aggressive. Their psionic talents unite them into a menace that can dominate an entire dungeon if left unchecked.

Shrieking fungoids are set as sentinels around the fungoid lair. They burrow into loose earth, leaving only a patch of strange mushrooms visible. When intruders approach, they emit a psychic shout that creatures other than plants cannot detect. These creatures usually wait for intruders to pass deeper into the fungoid territory before emerging to ambush them from behind, preferably after they have encountered the rest of the colony.

Violet fungoids are the primary defenders of a colony. They attack in small groups, preferably after invaders have blundered into an area where they can press in from all sides. Their long tendrils allow them to induce rapid, painful rot that sloughs away a victim's flesh, turning it into a slurry that the fungoids feast upon after defeating their foes. They can also latch on to other fungoids with their tendrils, psionically augmenting their attacks.

Yellow fungoids are the most powerful specimens of these creatures found on upper dungeon levels. They are the heart of a small colony, their spores serving to terraform a dungeon region into a hot, humid region with thick fungal growth along the walls and ceiling.

Spotting Fungoids

Spotting a fungoid hidden in the earth requires experience fighting them or a knowledge of the natural world, which allows you to notice that subtle, alien nature of their fungus growths. You can spot them using an Intelligence (Nature) check (suggested DC 20) or, after a character has encountered them, a Wisdom (Perception) check (suggested DC 15).

Bjorn Fellforge's Wisdom

If you're exploring a dungeon with these things, clear them out before they settle in. You see, fungoids aren't native to our world. The air, the trees, the water, it's all poison to them. They need to drink in the soil and breathe the air of their native place. So, they follow crossings into dungeons and try to rearrange the place to their liking. Once they settle in, they get to the business of turning a slice of our world into theirs. More and more of them make the crossing, and inevitably an aboleth or worse follows behind them.

But always take care. These things spread their tendrils throughout a dungeon. Kill a colony on an upper level, and you bet your soul that something, something alien, horrible, and vengeful, knows about it.