On a Yellow Dingo's Fungus Guide I-V

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A long time ago, a blogger, Yellow Dingo posted many weird and wonderful things. Sadly (s)he is no longer with us. The best work by yellow dingo was a series on weird and dangerous fungus that was posted to his blog.. Sadly, that blog is now lost, to a spammer. However, some members of our community managed to save that information.

In the spirit of archival and rejuvenation, I am without permission (and with no charge to my patrons), reposting that wonderful series here on this blog. All writing and art is credit to the original poster at Yellow Dingo. All fungus statted up for Labyrinth Lord, but easily convertable to any system from Original Dungeons and Dragons to 5th Edition. Anyone who feels strongly that this is a bad (or good) idea, feel free to contact me with your concerns. My personal hard drive and OSR back channels are not nearly as resilient as the cloud. Enjoy.

From the defunct Yellow Dingo Appendix blog:

A Guide to Dangerous Fungi I-V

Death-Kap

Environment	Caves, Dungeons, Fungi Forests	Alignment	Neutral
Armour Class	7	Hit Dice	4
Move	20' (8')	Intelligence	1
Attacks	2 Tentacles / 1 Bite	Damage	Grapple / 1d6 + Special
No. Appearing	1	Save As	Fighter: L3
Treasure Type	Nil	XP Value	75
Morale	12

Description: Also known as the Cave Kraken, these large fungi come with heavy root like appendages extending from the trunk of the plant. Any foe entering within ten feet of the plant will be grappled by two of the tentacles (or one tentacle each if two or more foes can be attacked at once). A beak exists under the cluster of limbs which when a grapple is successful (any successful hit roll against the target) the Death-kap will bite – infecting the victim (save vs. poison) with spore that will germinate in 7-10 days as a new Death-kap (killing the victim).

Colossal Death-kap: These are known to exist in fungi forests in huge numbers and are often mistaken for trees though their prey is more on the scale of giants and dragons.

Eye-Stalkers

Environment	Other living hosts	Alignment	asdf
Armour Class	9	Hit Dice	1 hp / eyestalk
Move	0'	Intelligence	1
Attacks	nil	Damage	Special
No. Appearing	1	Save As	Normal Human
Treasure Type	nil	XP Value	6
Morale	12

Description: These fungi are parasitic in nature and will infect any open wound as spores growing into a mature eyestalk at the rate of one per week connecting into a host’s neural network and functioning as an actual eye. The host will eventually die after a number of eyestalks equal to his/her/its hit-points have grown to maturity. The infestation can be removed by fire and remove disease and remove curse though it will leave the victim blinded for many days until the brain gets used to decreased neural transmitter activity. This particular fungus is capable of functioning with the Oozers as their ‘eyes’.

Oozers

Environment	Caves, Dungeons, Fungi Forests	Alignment	Neutral
Armour Class	9	Hit Dice	1 hp
Move	0'	Intelligence	Individual (1), Collectively (2-100)
Attacks	Ooze	Damage	Special
No. Appearing	1-100	Save As	Normal Human
Treasure Type	nil	XP Value	6
Morale	12

Description: These fungi are unusual in that even though they are individually weak they are a collective intelligence. Depending on the scale of intelligence they are as smart as a door-knob or as brilliant as an Immortal.
The Ooze they give off is a mind control agent on par with a mass charm spell. As a consequence they have the ability (depending on parallel neuron capacity) to manipulate an entire region by simply infecting victims with ooze (save vs. spell). The needs of the plant are very specific— survival—and given the capacity of these particular fungi to infect and control other host are capable of being the BBEG that most Adventurers are incapable of comprehending.

Stalker

Environment	Fungi Forests	Alignment	Neutral
Armour Class	Mushroom: 4 Body:-8	Hit Dice	4-7 Mushroom: 8-14 hp Body: 32-59 hp
Move	Burrowing 30' (10')	Intelligence	1
Attacks	Bite	Damage	1d6xHD
No. Appearing	1(1)	Save As	Fighter: L4-7
Treasure Type	I	XP Value	75, 175, 275, 450
Morale	12

Description: Officially it isn’t a Fungi, it only looks like one. It is actually a kind of giant worm with teeth. The four to seven foot tall ‘Mushroom’ is a lure/mouth with bone teeth which is pushed to the surface by the worm in order to breathe and feed on prey.
When prey enters within fifty feet of the ‘mushroom’ the trunk of the mushroom stretches out to fifty feet and the mouth takes a bite out of the target. A successful hit will swallow anything up to Halfling size.

Smudger

Environment	Caves, Dungeons Fungi Forests	Alignment	Neutral
Armour Class	8	Hit Dice	1/2*
Move	20' (7')	Intelligence	2
Attacks	Special	Damage	See Description
No. Appearing	1 (1 mature and 1-10 immature)	Save As	Fighter: L1
Treasure Type	Nil	XP Value	6
Morale	12

Description: They may look like cute little mushroom people about a foot tall but they are nasty little buggers. They like to rub themselves against any adventurers (or other prey) swanning through their habitat coating their prey in an attractant that will draw aggressive species to the target in a frenzied attack (ML12, +2 Hit Roll Bonus). They then lay spores in the carcass which germinate into 3d4 new Smudgers. Outdoors/Fungi Forest the Attractant will draw predators to the victim from up to a mile away so the DM may consider any encounters with attracted predators to be at maximum population.

Fairy Lights

Environment	Other living hosts, Mushroom Forests, Caves, Dungeons	Alignment	Chaotic
Armour Class	9	Hit Dice	1/2*
Move	0'	Intelligence	1
Attacks	Special	Damage	Special
No. Appearing	1	Save As	Normal Human
Treasure Type	Nil	XP Value	6
Morale	12

Description: These annoying glowing fungi charm Pixies in large numbers (as Mass Charm spell) and cause the Pixies to act as a chaotic alignment.

Lightning Brush

Environment	Caves, Dungeons, Mushroom Forests, Heavy Forests	Alignment	Neutral
Armour Class	9	Hit Dice	1 hp/stalk
Move	0'	Intelligence	1
Attacks	Lightning Discharge	Damage	1 hp/stalk
No. Appearing	1-100 stalks	Save As	Normal Human
Treasure Type	Nil	XP Value	6 xp/stalk
Morale	12

Description:  These Amber stalks will discharge a lightning bolt through any foe within one hundred feet. They take a day to recharge before a second electrical strike can be discharged. Outdoors: A huge lightning brush can be mistaken for a dead tree and will kill all other trees out to a hundred feet radius with its lightning creating a region of ‘lightning-struck’ trees.

Monarch's Crown

Environment	Other living hosts	Alignment	As Host
Armour Class	As Host	Hit Dice	As Host
Move	As Host	Intelligence	2x host
Attacks	As Host	Damage	As Host
No. Appearing	1	Save As	Fighter: LX
Treasure Type	As Host	XP Value	As Host
Morale	As Host

Description: Monarch’s Crown is in fact the final stage of these fungi. The victim having been infected with spore has experienced loss of bone and marrow as the fungi uses it to grow the crown from the victim’s skull. Unfortunately the victim develops a need to suck the marrow from bones of freshly killed victims and should he/she/it be exposed to sunlight will germinate into spores as though the whole body was a spore pod. Not even killing the Host will kill these fungi.
The Monarch’s Crown has one advantage – it doubles the existing intelligence of the victim. Consequently some subterranean cultures deliberately infect their ruling class with the Monarch’s Crown.

Death's Hand

Environment	Other living hosts, Dungeons, Caves, Fungal Forests	Alignment	Neutral
Armour Class	9	Hit Dice	1
Move	15' (5')	Intelligence	1
Attacks	Special	Damage	1d6/round
No. Appearing	0 (1)	Save As	Fighter: L1
Treasure Type	As Host	XP Value	13
Morale	12

Description: The Spores of these fungi are breathed in. It will then grow in the lungs until it can dig its way out in to the chest cavity and grab the heart which it will crush – feeding on the blood like a sponge - until the victim is dead. It will then rip its way out of the chest and find some place to plant itself until it goes to spore.

Miasma Tree

Environment	Caves, Fungal Forests, Green Dragon Lairs	Alignment	Neutral
Armour Class	8	Hit Dice	1*
Move	0'	Intelligence	2
Attacks	Up to six branches / Poison Cloud	Damage	1d6 per branch / Special
No. Appearing	1-10 (1-100)	Save As	Fighter: LX
Treasure Type	k	XP Value	13
Morale	12

Description: Also known as the Miner’s Tree, these fungi will bludgeon any foe who damages the gas bladder. The Gas Bladder in its branches is how it absorbs poisonous gasses found in deep dungeons crystallizing them into gemstones and refined metals of highest purity.
Green Dragons keep these in order to farm their own poisonous gasses into gems and precious metals. Rupturing the gas bladder requires a save vs. poison or death ensues.

Web of Som

Environment	Dungeons, Caves, Mushroom Forests	Alignment	Neutral
Armour Class	9	Hit Dice	1/2*
Move	0'	Intelligence	17
Attacks	Special	Damage	Special
No. Appearing	1 (1)	Save As	Normal Human
Treasure Type	Nil	XP Value	6
Morale	12

Description: This white fine fungal web can be found growing in pretty much any cave, dungeon or subterranean wilderness.
It has the ability to analyse environmental changes and counter them with Weather Control (as the spell). If a warm body of a PC is detected (raising the temperature of the room) it will counter the temperature increase with cold. A fireball spell will be countered with an ice storm out of nowhere followed by a tornado to bring in non toxic air.

Goblin's Mother

Environment	Mushroom Forests, Caves, Dungeons	Alignment	Neutral
Armour Class	9	Hit Dice	7*
Move	0'	Intelligence	0
Attacks	Special	Damage	Special
No. Appearing	1 (1-100)	Save As	Fighter: LX
Treasure Type	Nil	XP Value	850
Morale	12

Description: This large ‘cup’ is filled with primordial ooze from which Black Goblins are born at the rate of one an hour. This mushroom is very popular with fiends that dwell in the deepest cavers who are raising an army of black goblins as their minions.  Black Goblins are a lot like Kobolds except they have no fear (12ML) and can move twice as fast.

Hob's Nail

Environment	Caves, Dungeons, Fungal Forests, Heavy Forests	Alignment	Neutral
Armour Class	2	Hit Dice	1*
Move	0'	Intelligence	1
Attacks	Special	Damage	Special
No. Appearing	1	Save As	Normal Human
Treasure Type	Nil	XP Value	13
Morale	12

Description: Also known as the Coffin Nail, his iron-like purple ‘shroom’ will cause undead who have been destroyed by a cleric to return to the world of undeath. Some intelligent undead (vampires, lich, etc.) will cultivate the fungi for the purpose of a second chance at undeath although few are willing to become the ‘minion’ of a mushroom for the centuries it takes the ‘shroom’ to produce offspring and become an Odic. Elves can use it to return as Banshee.