Eldercap

Eldercap

1 STR, 0 DEX, 9 WIL

  • Wicked blue mushrooms that enthrall living creatures to spread their spores.
  • During the day, they fill the air around them with their spores. The larger they grow, the larger the radius affected. Creatures that ingest the Eldercap's spores are infected; they gain an aversion to salty food, and in d4+2 days they become an Elderthrall.
  • Resistant to flame, and vulnerable to salt or cold.

Elderthrall (template)

+4 STR, +1 Armor, 1 WIL

  • Their skin grows pale and webbed with fungal tendrils, their eyes dull.
  • Within the radius of an Eldercap's spores, they act according to its will. If they stray too far from that radius, they will climb to a high and secluded spot and a new Eldercap will burst from their spine.
  • Does not roll for Critical Damage. Is not phased by physical harm.

The lifecycle of an Eldercap is a curious thing. While all Eldercap's seem to possess the same instinct for domination, different species appear to pursue that goal in various ways. The most common are eager and shortlived, infecting other creatures and incubating a new Eldercap within their skin until it bursts forth larger in proportion to the creature enthralled. Some are innovative, having found the means to grow from the body of living thralls without consuming them. Others are patient--they start small, like any mushroom, enthralling insects or small rodents to protect them as they grow larger and larger. These are most to be feared. Tales tell of such Eldercap's the size of trees, with whole countrysides under their thrall.

Regardless of the variety, those that live at the edge of the Wood know to be wary of the Eldercap. When it is small, they know to pluck it and salt the ground. When an Elderthrall-animal wanders near, they know to catch it by surprise, stuff its throat with salt, and bury it. When the forest grows silent and spores shimmer in the sun, they know to keep their distance, then when night falls a scouting party will find and dispose of the source. If proper care is taken, the people of the Wood need not fear the Eldercap. Even so, the stories remind us what can happen to those who are not so mindful. And not all who settle by the forest have been taught the signs.

Commentary

Who doesn't love a good cordyceps? I can't take any credit for being the first to think about them infecting humans--The Last of Us did it a long time ago. But it's just such a ripe idea! Obviously this version isn't so overtly aggressive, more... inevitable.

Another fun take on this whole concept would be to play into the idea of tradition: the flavor text I provided suggests people who understand very clearly what they're dealing with. But you could just as easily imagine a people who have long since forgotten why they do the things that they do. And pretty soon a new generation is asking why we eat our food so salty, and why we only enter the woods at night, and so on and so on...

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