I’ve been doing some thinking lately about that ol’ underground denizen: the Mushroom Man. They’re a little bit of a staple in subterranean adventures, but instead of the more literal version of the mushroom man, being a humanoid ambulatory toadstool with a broad cap on its head, let’s consider a more sophisticated and alien denizen of your world’s dark, moist places.
But First, About Fungus:
In our world, we know fungus chiefly as mold and mushrooms. There’s more diversity to them than that, of course, but for now, let us consider that we typically only see the “fruit” of a fungus– the bit the organism produces, when it has reached a developmental stage at which it begins to produce and spread spores. Broadly speaking, one might consider the true “body” of a fungus to not be the charming little toadstool poking from the forest floor, but the mat of woven root-like strands within the soil known as mycelium. These masses can be quite substantial– by some estimates, the largest organism in the world is what seems to be a 2,000 year-old mega-fungus spread over 2,000 acres in Oregon (more here). So, let us regard the mycelium as the heart of the fungal organism, and the toadstool to be merely an extremity.
The “Mass”:
Now, this network of linked hyphae forming mycelium puts me in mind of another type of organic structure: the animal brain. What if, in a fantasy setting, the vast network of the previously mentioned Oregon “megafungus” functioned as a sort of living brain spread out through and within the soil? Perhaps it could capable of sophisticated thought and planning, in the same way that the masses of interlinked dendrites within our own heads communicate and exchange signals. This disembodied brain could be a lurking consciousness, perhaps like Ego the Living Planet, or “the Mind-Flayer” of Stranger Things. But, unlike our own minds, vulnerable in the casks of our heads, the dispersement of the fungal mind could be advantageous: some damage here and there might be inconsequential when the system is not wholly dependent on intermediary structures like hearts and lungs to get nutrients to its brain.
Myconids:
But what of the “mushroom man” in this scenario? A disembodied brain is all well and good, but we’re trying to jazz up those funky guys with the mushroom heads.
If we take a cue from nature, than perhaps the Myconid becomes the “fruiting body” of the larger Mycelial Mass, and represents a stage of the life-cycle of the organism in which it intends to reproduce. At its most basic, perhaps the humanoid mushroom is the mobile phase of the organism that toddles off to parts unknown to spread spores, which it hopes will eventually take root to become the next generation of Mycelial Brain. I feel like it undersells the possibilities of the mushroom man to merely make them a humanoid “dandelion seed,” though.
An additional role for these guys could be as the mobile servitors of the organism. In this way, they might be like worker bees, or soldier ants, gathering food or protecting the Mass. In most depictions in various bestiaries of various games, myconids don’t seem to have sophisticated material or social cultures like, say, goblins or orcs, so it would be fairly simple for them to be “humanoid animals,” just doing their weird mushroom business in places that pesky adventurers keep raiding. The individual GM could tailor this Mycelium-is-the-Brain-Myconids-are-the-Muscle relationship to her taste. Here are a few possibilities:
- Myconids are dim-witted servants of the intelligent Mycelial Overmind
- Myconids are individuals of “normal” humanoid intelligence governed by a Mycelial “queen.”
- The Mass is not in and of itself conventionally “intelligent,” but operates as a focus for the colony: a sort of “memory pool” that generates the personalities of the colony as needed (i.e., if Mushroom Chief is killed, the mycelium re-grows a new Chief with its memories intact).
- Hivemind: all of the Myconids and the Mass have the same, shared intellect/personality– what one knows, they all know.
Lifecycle:
As for the lifecycle of the Myconid, the most basic way for them to be “born” (like the mushrooms of our reality) is to just sort of poke out from the mycelium of the soil, and (unlike our mushrooms) start ambling around once they’re big enough. I’m not sure that’s cool enough for this revamp, so I propose an alternative origin.
We all know fungi are decomposers– they’re a big part of that “circle of life” diagram that we learned about in elementary school. I propose that the mushroom man is not simply an advanced walking toadstool, but is the result of the Mycelium “salvaging” a dead organsim, and hijacking its body for its own inscrutable purposes.
Picture a recently departed adventurer, felled by Orcish arrows, face down on the forest floor. As fate would have it, he’s come to rest in the spongy soil of a growing mycelial mass, who is pleased to have had the good fortune for such promising material to have been deposited onto its limited domain. Gradually, fine hyphae spread from the soil over the corpse, shrouding it in a soft, grey veil. In time, the fibers have penetrate into the tissue of the body, rendering it cell by cell into nutritive matter, and innervating the muscle and bone with a new, alien nerves. When enough strands have wrapped, replaced, and reconstructed the former adventurer’s original workings, the Puppetmaster tugs at the strings, and a wholly different creature rises to its feet. Alive in one sense, but dead in another, this “infant” mushroom man sets to work implementing the will of the mycelium: Serve and Protect. In time, this “zombie,” wrapped in its thin shroud of fungal matter, will become more robust as the deteriorating tissue of the original host is replaced and reinforced with stouter fungal-stuff. Eventually, the only indication that this creature was once human will be its general shape… and the fact that it always carries within it the reused bones of its predecessor.
If all mushroom men are built around the salvaged armature of some other dead organism, this can lead to a lot of potential variety of myconids. With access to mostly dead goblins, a cave might be full of relatively small mushroom men. A forest-based Mycelial Mass might have a lot of myconid “animals” roaming around, and be eager to add more humanoids to its toolbox. A party of adventurers merrily hacking its way through a colony of mushroom men to retrieve a stolen wagon might be sorely surprised to discover that this Mass annexed a dead Hill Giant at some point!
Another benefit derived from the “recycled” body mushroom man: more interesting treasure. A mass of fungus in the woods may have more use for a wagon full of carrots than a chest of silver pieces, but the myconids themselves may be still carrying the gear of their original “hosts.” If an intrepid party is willing to investigate, they might find coins absorbed into the mass of the myconid, and perhaps still find rings clinging to skeletal fingers buried under the fungal tissue. Perhaps one especially difficult-to-kill mushroom man will be discovered to be wearing a still usable +1 chainmail shirt beneath its rubbery hide!
I’ve got a bunch more ideas concerning this more grim variant of the mushroom man, but this post is running a bit long, so I think I’ll revisit them again in the future. But in the meantime, consider who your mushroom men used to be, and what they might still be carrying. Perhaps they were just kidnapped farmers, assimilated into the colony… or maybe it’s another way to send your players on a side quest when a found signet ring implies that the myconid they just felled was shambling around in the bones of the Missing Heir of House Bellerophon.