Myconid

Myconids, or fungus men, look like toadstools shaped into human form, with puffy, spongy flesh in shades from purple to gray. Their broad feet have stubby vestigial toes, and each pudgy hand has a thumb on each side of two short fingers. They have no spoken language, and Hit Dice determine both social rank and ability.

Myconids want only to be left alone. Forced to fight, they club with joined hands for 1d4 damage per Hit Die, from 1d4 at 1 HD up to 6d4 for the 6 HD king, and avoid killing whenever possible because violence disturbs their melding.

They can also release clouds of spores. Each new size level brings one more spore type, and a myconid may use each of its types once per day per Hit Die; a 6-foot myconid of 3 HD thus has three types, each usable three times. Known types include distress, rapport and hallucinatory spores, and the king can animate the dead as guardians; one type, gained at 5 Hit Dice, reaches 40 feet.

Sunlight terrifies them. Its exact effect is unknown, but they will never go to the surface by choice.

Society rests on circles of 20, four members of each Hit Die from 1 to 5, with 1d10 circles in a community. Each day is split into eight hours of rest, eight of tending fungus crops, and eight of melding, when the eldest release rapport and hallucinatory spores and the circle shares one telepathic dream. Melding is their worship, entertainment and social life, the reason they exist, and only distress spores interrupt it early. No conflict between myconids has ever been recorded.

The king, the only 6 HD member, stands outside every circle so it can lead objectively, a role seen as a grim duty; the others pity its loneliness. It schedules work, watches outside threats, animates guardians so others need not fight, and brews potions. When it dies, the strongest 5 HD myconid takes its place.

Colonies hide in remote, damp places near water. A community gathers around moss-covered stone mounds where circles meld and sleep, beside a large garden; myconids feed on small fungi and water, and the king harvests potion ingredients there. Kings are buried with honor under the mounds, others near the gardens. Only work parties leave the lair, searching for battlefields and unburied dead for the king to animate. Fungus folk and humanoids find each other repulsive; myconids see humanoids as mad conquerors. Approached peacefully they may talk, but with deep suspicion, and crowding in the underworld makes clashes likely.

Myconids grow fungi that decay and enrich the soil, and feed on those nutrients. They gain a Hit Die every four years, reaching 5 HD at 20 and living 24 years; becoming king requires a special regimen. Alchemists value their spores for brewing poisons and delusion potions. Besides standard potions (one is always a potion of anointment; roll others on the potion table), a king brews these:

Fungus growth adds 1 Hit Die, once per lifetime, used when circles need young members to mature quickly. Fungus healing restores 1d6+1 hit points to fungi only. Decay, rarely used, works on a humanoid like purple fungus spores on a corpse: save vs. poison or die, and in 1d4+1 days a fungal mind friendly to myconids takes over the body for 1d4+1 weeks before it rots for good. Cure disease within three minutes of infection prevents death; after 48 hours, cure disease plus raise dead can revive the victim. Hallucination powders replace hallucinatory spores when the circle's 4 and 5 HD members have died; laid on a spider-silk film in a circle's entrance as a trap, they burst when a size M creature passes, affecting everyone within 20 feet as hallucinatory spores. Anointment instantly and painfully raises a 5 HD myconid to 6 HD and kingship, works only once, and kills humans who fail a save vs. poison.