Copyright 2009 Wizards of the Coast

Myconids have been in the game since AD&D as one of its most famous “novelty humanoids”. They make their 4e debut here in the MM2.

The Lore

Myconids are sapient fungal humanoids who originated in the Feywild. The fomorians did something to them in the distant past, and they still bear the scars of that corruption. In our narrative present they can be found in deep caves or the Underdark both in the world and in the Feywild. Their preferred environment are underground mushroom forests that provide them with a complete ecosystem to live in, but they also have an instinctive need to multiply and spread and so can be found in less ideal conditions as well.

Myconids communicate by releasing special spores laced with emotions and sensations, which only other myconids can understand. Only one individual in each of their colonies, known as the “Sovereign”, can communicate with outsiders through telepathy.

These mushroom-people aren’t evil, but their expansionist instinct, difficulty with communication, and the fact that they live in the friggin’ Underdark means they tend to engage in conflict with anyone they come across. They often end up enslaved by drow, fomorians, and shadar-kai.

Peaceful interaction with myconids is predictably hard - you have to reach the sovereign, which means infiltrating the heart of their territory or letting yourself be captured and hoping they take you there.

The Numbers

Myconids are Fey Humanoids with the Plant keyword. Sovereigns are Large, everyone else is Medium. They have Tremorsense 10, which allows them to operate well in total darkness. Their signature trait is Roots of the Colony, a free action that triggers when they’re hit by an attack and allows them to split half the damage between themselves and a myconid ally within 5 squares. Given they’re level 3-4, this is likely to be the party’s first encounter with something resistant to focus fire.

Myconid Rotpriest

Myconid culture isn’t well-understood enough for people to know if they worship something, but rotpriests kinda fulfill the “healer” role usually taken up by clerics in other species. They do so in a much more self-sacrificing way, though.

Rotpriests are Level 3 Brutes with the Leader keyword and 48 HP. They have a speed of 5, and Regeneration 5 that can be temporarily disabled by radiant damage. They fight with stipe staffs in melee and can also release decomposing sprays to deal necrotic damage in a Close Burst 3.

They have Roots of the Colony like every other myconid, and when another myconid uses this ability to deal damage to them, rotpriests can use Sacrifice for the Colony to take all of the damage from the trigerring attack instead of just half. The idea is that they then heal this using their regeneration.

When they finally get killed, they release a Life Burst that heals every living creature in a Close Burst 1 for 10 HP. This includes both monsters and PCs!

Myconid Sovereign

Each colony has one of these acting as its leader. As mentioned before, sovereigns are the only myconids with any ability to communicate with outsiders. They’re Level 4 Controllers with the Leader keyword and 58 HP. If forced into a fight they can defend themselves with Slams and with a variety of interesting spore bursts.

The default Spore Burst is a close blast 3 that targets the Will of nonplants and deals poison damage. There’s also Commanding Spores, which allows a plant ally within 5 squares to shift 1 square. Sounds like a waste of a standard action, but it can set up some interesting flanks.

A Sovereign should stay a bit away from the main scrum, spraying it with its spore pesticides and helping keep the PCs surrounded.

Myconid Guard

Though it’s the last monster in the entry, guards are likely to be the most numerous foes the party meets. They’re the rank and file of the colony’s protectors. Guards are Level 4 Soldiers with 56 HP.

They fight with spiny strikes from their fists, and can release pacification spores in a close burst 1 that target enemies’ Wills, do poison damage, and prevent those hit from taking standard actions during their next turns. Fortunately, this is only an encounter power. Roots of the Colony is the last trick on their arsenal.

Front-liners are going to have a bit of a bad time facing down myconid guards, since the guards can stagger their spore releases to keep the PCs from attacking for a while.

Sample Encounters and Final Impressions

Myconids can live in any place that provides good conditions to mundane fungi, such as damp caverns, surface forests, and so on. Encounters with them can involve any wildlife that also lives in these places, either as “third parties” or perhaps as pets if the wildlife is also fungal. They can also be found alongside the several people who enslave their colonies, though in that case you might need to perform some level adjustments.

The sample encounters are an all-myconid party that has just ran into a deathjump spider (level 3); a pair of myconid guards minding an arbalester for their bosses near a patch of green slime (level 4); and a geonid accompanied by a pair of rust monsters and another of rotpriests (level 5).

I like these mushroom people, and I like making then relatively friendly once the PCs manage to breach the communications gap.