Sunday, April 18, 2010

The Wrecking Crew


Fungal Dead
No. Enc.: 2d8 (3d10)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 60’ (20’)
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 1+2
Attacks: 1 (bony claws)
Damage: 1d6
Save: F1
Morale: 12
Hoard Class: See below
XP: 27

The fungal dead are human corpses whose bodies have been overtaken by a virulent strain of unwholesome fungus. These alien spores animate their non-living hosts into a nightmarish semblance of life and seek to spread the colony into new, recently-deceased corpses. Luckily, this horrid fungus is only known to grow in places steeped in the unwholesome radiance of that bizarre fertility deity, Ishnigarrab.

Fungal dead tear at their opponents with ragged hands, raking their victims with sharp, splintered fingers. If a fungal dead is struck by a weapon, its body emits a cloud of foul-smelling, psychotropic spores. Anyone in melee combat with a fungal dead when struck must save vs. poison or become afflicted by horrific but short-lived hallucinations. Such characters suffer a -1 penalty to all attacks and saving throws for 1d4 turns. A successful save indicates that the character is immune to further exposure by these spores during that encounter.

Although fungal undead can be “slain” by normal attacks, the fungus that powers them reanimates the host corpse after two turns with full hit points. Only by completely destroying the fungus that affects the corpse, usually by using fire, acid, or similar destructive means, can a fungal dead by permanently slain. As they are not true undead, fungal dead are unaffected by turning attempts or holy water.

On some occasions, fungal dead are born from sacrificial victims that have been exposed to colonies of the loathsome fungus as part of the veneration of Ishnigarrab. These sacrificial victims are adorned with symbolic, low grade jewelry prior to being cast into vile pits filled with the fungus and some may still bear these tokens when discovered. Each group of fungal dead has a 40% chance of wearing these decorations when encountered, with the jewelry on each corpse worth 2d10x10 gp.

9 comments:

James said...

ooh! I can definitely use these fellers! Thanks for posting this. :)

Brutorz Bill said...

I agree with James, I can use these guys!

Unknown said...

Keith Thompson's take: Fungal Zombies

http://www.keiththompsonart.com/pages/zombie.html

David The Archmage said...

Very cool!! This is just the sort of thing that'll make the party cleric wonder just what's up with these powerful undead.

Mograg said...

Hi Michael,

This is not a comment about Fungal Zombies (although I'm sure they're a boatload of fun); instead I wanted to drop you a quick note on Stonhell Dungeon. I had a throw-together Swords & Wizardry Whitebox game last night, and needed a dungeon quick(!) as my friends were coming over in a half hour. I had seen the freebie samples of Stonehell and was impressed (I also have your Dungeon Alphabet in hardcover - top shelf!). Anyway, I zipped over to Lulu.com, slapped down my credit card, and seconds later Stonehell was downloading. Minutes later it was spitting out of my home printer just as my friends were pulling into my driveway. Short version: we had a blast. Longer version: I read them the preamble about the Evil Potentate and the creation of the dungeon as my players were rolling up their characters (on index cards! Hey, it's Whitebox). Then it was off to the dungeon. My group explored the box canyon retaining wall and the gatehouse, and tangled with the fell creatures inhabiting this outmost tip of the Stonehell experience. Michael, this is a great adventure, and really saved my bacon in terms of coming up with something that was new and fresh for the players and easy for me to present at a moment's notice, thanks to .pdf format and the terrific "one page" formatting of the dungeon itself (really love that!). So - I hope to keep my players enteretained for a long time exploring the vastness of Stonehell, and if you publish a second installment of the dungeon, I'll be getting that as well.

Sorry again about posting this under the Fungal Zombies entry...was not sure how to make a comment elsewhere without it being buried somewhere way down in the blog.

Cheers,

Brian C.
Chelmsford, Massachusetts

Vanadorn said...

Well - did you slow down the Clerical "TURN UNDEAD" rampage you were suffering with these guys?

Anonymous said...

Last year I used a variation on these guys and blogged about it here: http://admtale.blogspot.com/2011/01/so-what-really-happened-at-castle.html

Michael, in the event that you check comments or get an e-mail update, I wanted to thank you for posting this and contributing to our game.

Michael Curtis said...

Glad you got some use out of them, James. My own players still remember these guys albeit with less than fond feelings.

Jim said...

Michael, may I include these guys in the Massive Monograph of Malignant Malefactors? I'll give you full credit!