Phycomid

Another fungus.  Another risk of poison.  Another chance for a fate worse than death: to not only be killed, but to have your corpse burst open and reveal a phycomid grown to full size feasting on your insides.  Good times!

Phycomids are likely to be encountered alone and among their own kind—other monstrous fungi won’t appreciate the competition for resources, and few other creatures (at least of the living, mortal variety) can tolerate the colonies’ acid and spores.  (The exception, of course, being goblins, and the Bestiary 2 makes it clear how well that goes for them in the long run.)

Thus for the most part, phycomids are to be found in filthy, isolated areas—sewers, cesspools, swamps, dank caverns, and the like.  They’re a great guard for rarely used backdoors…or, on a metagame level, for slapping overconfident PCs with a little Con damage if they become too cavalier exploring the Lands Below.

A thieves’ guild needs a hand.  For years the rogues used a phycomid to guard the hidden backdoor of their safe house.  But the plant’s minder (an orphan whose childhood spent fending for herself gave her the equivalent of druidic training) died in a slum fire, and the phycomid has since spawned an infestation.  Now the entire safe house is overrun, and the guild needs the plants cleared…with discretion, of course.

Goblins may be dumb enough to live with phycomids, but hobgoblins aren’t.  At least one tribe has found a use for them, however.  The River Raiders direct their goblin slaves to tend phycomids on crude “barges” that are barely more than dirty logs lashed together.  When a fungus grows large enough, its barge is pushed downstream (with a goblin attendant or two to act as pilots or fertilizer, depending how lucky they are).  The succession of phycomid torpedoes has greatly reduced the amount of logging, boat traffic, and insolent humans in general downriver.

A moss troll lives in a strange symbiosis with the phycomid that grows on its back—the moss troll is not harmed by the Plant creature’s acid and its regeneration has fed the fungus while keeping the troll sickly but alive.  The mushroom colony might abandon the troll mid-battle, however, if presented fresh bodies from which to spawn.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 210

Reddit continues to break my heart. Guy asks a question about steampunk adventure ideas set in 1895.  Adventure ideas are what I do.  I stay after work more than a half hour typing up thoughts. 

Dude deletes the post.  These daggers represent how stabby I am feeling at the moment: †††††††

(At least I can still see what I wrote, thankfully.)

Music for your Monday!  If you’re new here (hi, new followers!), you don’t know that I’m a DJ.  What I do sounds like this.  (Or it will in a little over two minutes—less if you fast-forward.)  Download it.

(Usual drill applies: Music starts about 2:20 into the file.  If the feed skips, let load in Firefox or Chrome, Save As an mp3, and enjoy in iTunes. Link good till Friday, 4/12, at midnight.)