I need ideas fungal/thorn animals and monsters. Got any?

[Man_Over_Game]

I'm starting up a table in a couple weeks, and I have plans for my players to get involved with a town that's dealing with an otherworldly fungus epidemic. I need some ideas for monsters, though, with things that use thorns, briars, bark, and fungus, and I would really like your help. Even having some Resident Evil type stuff would work perfectly.

A few ideas I've had so far:

Briar Boar: Large boar that's covered in a thorny, bark-like skin. High AC, damages enemies who start their turn adjacent to it or move adjacent to it.
Briar Elk: Elk that has a solid, thorny, bark-like slab instead of standard antlers. It can charge you and pin you to a wall. You can evade it (DC 10, Dex) or attempt to brute through the charge (DC 20, Con) to avoid being pinned, although it will be stunned if you brute through it.
Spore Wolf: Wolf that has its eyes and brain fused into a fungal bloom, uses its nose to track a target. Can move and attack with its Reaction, but it may act incorrectly if wind or scents are manipulated. Can detect invisible creatures.
Spore Tortoise: A tortoise that passively infects water supplies with a fungal colony in its shell. In combat, it can sacrifice its toxin-producing capabilities to transform its arms and legs into large, spiderlike limbs that are hard to the touch. Dangerous, but slow.
Briar Bear: A heavily mutated bear who's bones have grown with the guidance of the fungus to split through the skin and encompass the body as an armor. It is a powerhouse of a creature, with few weaknesses.
Hunger Pod: A carnivorous fungus that's shaped like a pod that hides inside of trees. It actually grows from an infected tree, which shapes these pods as part of the fungal reprogramming. The pods are held in place using a special sap as they fall down on prey that tickle the fungi growing off the tree's roots. The pod then bites onto the prey and drags them upwards. Easily taken care of, if you aren't alone.
Hunger Ent: A Hunger tree that's fed off of enough creatures can grow animalistic intelligence, using its arms to grab creatures that it then pulls into its many Hunger Pods in its canopy that have become less narrow and more wide to accommodate their new, "mouthlike" roles. It is blind, but it does have Tremorsense out to 60 feet. Slow, but it can attack with its roots through the ground.

Briar creatures have high AC and HP, rely on brute force, but are generally weak to Fire damage. Spore creatures have sunlight sensitivity unless they're blind, are lethal but generally have a large weakness about them, and their minds are programmed so they aren't all too bright. Hungers are weak to Fire and require unique tactics to remove.

Do you guys have anything that comes to mind when someone says "fungus creature"? I'd rather not steal directly from The Last of Us, but I'm not totally against it either.

[Segev]

The Blights from the Monster Manual may be of interest to you. As might the Myconids.

[MrStabby]

Maybe some form of spore that infects the timber in buildings, animating the building with a primitive intelligence.

Oozes spring to mind. Chameleonic oozes could be fun, disguised as a pile of leaves or similar they entrap and digest nearby creatures.

Parasitic brain control fungus is always good and you can have it influencing the behaviour of almost any creature you want.

[Nagog]

You seem to have a solid repetoire of enemies there, so I'm going to go on a limb with it and add some things to the suggestions to add to the overall ambiance of a spore-infested area

Sentient Spore Cloud: Difficult to detect and immune to physical damage, and when it moves it leaves behind a cloud of it's spores, spreading by 5 feet each round. Each square would have 1 hp and an AC of like 5, so it's easy to clear but difficult to detect and it spreads quickly. Standing in a space it occupies deals poison damage each round. It could be a fun hazard to throw at the players, but easy to clear if you know where it is. Perhaps fire damage clears more than a 5 foot square? AOE would clear pretty much everywhere in it's effect, as long as it's not physical damage (although idk what AoE physical damage would look like). Detectable with anything that detects invisibility.

Quick Bark: Trap on the ground. Typically looks like a small log or bundle of sticks, but if stepped on it latches to the offender's foot, quickly spreading to cover the offender's body. each turn it remains on the player's body, their movement speed is reduced by 10. Once their movement speed is reduced to 0, the bark has completely enveloped them, and they begin to both suffocate and take 2d10 acid damage each round as the fungus begins digesting them. Removing the fungus is fairly easy, just requiring an action to remove it, one action for every 10 feet of movement speed it has prevented, but thrown at them in combat, where the Fighter sacrificing their attack action could mean much more than a few seconds to remove it while wandering around.

Fog of Fear: Airborne spores that require an Int save when contact is made with them. They'd be fairly visible (perhaps with a perception or investigation check?), and on a failed Int save, they begin to see things in the environment around them, creatures who's details they can't quite make out but they know are watching them, drawing closer. This imposes effects similar (but not stacking with) one level of exhaustion, as well as disadvantage on resisting fear-inducing effects.



For enemies, perhaps a mass of vines that function like tentacles? Varying sizes could have differing CR, with the "Oh Shiz" factor ranging between a baby octopus to a Kraken. Perhaps it looks something like a bundle of Spanish Moss? I'm trying hard to avoid the obvious similarities to the Pokemon Tangela, in case you haven't noticed.

Another fun enemy could be something like a stealthy bundle of tall grass that will creep up on the players and attempt to strangle them, or provide other allied enemies with cover to hide in.


Second Edit: If you want some good inspiration for effects and styles, check out the Infested from Warframe. They do a great job of getting the fungal infection vibe across in their aesthetic, fighting style, environment, etc.

[Kane0]

Battlebriar, Orcwort, Shambling Mound, Wood Woad...

Or just a handful of templates you can apply to beasts, monstrosities, oozes, aberrations and plants

To top it off, throw in some good rot and decay spells.

Putrid Haze
1st-Level Transmutation
Casting Time: 1 Action
Range: 120 feet
Components: None
Duration: Concentration, up to one minute

You target one corpse you can see within range. The target corpse decomposes, spilling forth a toxic vapor in a 10 foot radius. Any creature that starts its turn within this area takes 1d10 poison damage, or half if they succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your spell DC. Creatures that fail their saving throw are also poisoned until the end of their next turn.
If the spell affects the target corpse for the full duration the corpse is fully decomposed when the spell ends. A moderate or stronger wind disperses the vapor and ends the spell.
At higher levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d10 for every slot level above 1st.

[Crucius]

Looks like you've got a couple of great ideas yourself already, only things I could think of that you didn't list were:

- Floating spores: 'suicidal' floating spheres that detonate upon death/contact. Can act as shock troops that the party has to prioritize or evade. Their presence can be crowd control. (think Puffer Mines from Metroid)
- Spore launcher: not really a creature, but keeping in mind the crowd control aspects of creating danger zones on the battlefield you could design a creature that is able to launch blobs of fungus to harm the players should they enter a specific area (may be too similar in effect to your Briar Boar).

Both examples could damage through noxious gasses and maybe explode when ignited, thus turning the hazard into the party's favor?

EDIT: have you seen what magnificent things slime mold can do? They can basically solve mazes in search for food. With that in mind and the players being the food, what if you create a 'mothership' creature that bunkers down and releases slime mold that slithers towards the players, laying a track of fungus over the battlefield. Then as soon as a player comes in contact with it, it can use its reaction to send a pulse through the slime mold, activating the 'trap' and dealing substantial damage?

[Brookshw]

I'll try to give more useful ideas tomorrow, but offhand have you looked at the vegepygmy in volo's?

[Rukelnikov]

The Blights from the Monster Manual may be of interest to you. As might the Myconids.

Came here to say exactly this.

Btw, if you wanna do warped monsters, you could also do a template and apply it to beasts and whatnot.

[JackPhoenix]

Nobody suggested Spore Servants (template from myconid entry in MM)?

[Ninja_Prawn]

I might have a couple of related monsters that could provide extra options...

Topiary Guardian (https://nailsofvecna.tumblr.com/post/185949845219/topiary-guardians-are-animated-plant-creatures), Assassin Vines (https://nailsofvecna.tumblr.com/post/169418672204/this-ones-a-revival-of-an-old-3rd-edition) and Dread Blossoms (https://nailsofvecna.tumblr.com/post/165927661844/found-primarily-in-the-beastlands-the-flowers-of) are updates of 3rd edition monsters. Pretty thorny.

I've also made stats for Final Fantasy style malboros (https://nailsofvecna.tumblr.com/post/172717417942/the-scourge-of-many-a-darkened-swamp-or-dank). Could work for a boss fungus?

[Segev]

- Floating spores: 'suicidal' floating spheres that detonate upon death/contact. Can act as shock troops that the party has to prioritize or evade. Their presence can be crowd control. (think Puffer Mines from Metroid)

I forget if they were updated to 3e, but Gas Spores would be a good mechanical base for this if they have been. By default, they look like Beholders, but explode if they take even 1 hp of damage and spread noxious spores everywhere. You could make them look like anything you like, though.

[TyGuy]

Vegy pigmies and thornies in Volos are fungal.

I'm picturing some sort of puffball that explodes in a small cloud of spores. And I'm picturing them in a group like a scene in an aliens movie. A cave or room filled with this round fungus. An adventurer gets too close or touches one and POOF. If they linger or touch another, it chain reacts POOF-POOF-POOF-POOF-POOF.

Now I don't know what the spore cloud would entail, it's just a scene I visualized. Should be a horrific effect though :)

[Bloodcloud]

Also, might want to check Guildmaster's guide to Ravnica, specificaly the Golgari section. Some cool monsters in there/lair action in there and spell list.

Spore druid class has good abilities to pilfer.

Myconids/spore servant are certainly useful. Out of the Abyss has a Myconid section, worth checking out too.

DMG has a section about dungeon ecology talking about molds and slime as "traps", not sure of page number but might want to also check those.

Others mentionned the Thornies and Vegepygmy, and I echo this, but the Grung are also nicely adaptable (I reskinned and modded them to get Rot feys for my game).

The corpseflower is also great.

Another monster I modded was a rotten Treant. Too wet to burn, but vulnerable to lightning instead (because wet), and summoned a single shambling mound.

Venom trolls seem fitting too (mordenkainene or vole, unsure.

Hags can be a good mastermind monster behind it all IMO.

[Segev]

Oh, if it hasn't been mentioned yet, the Yellow Musk Creeper and its eponymous zombies always makes for a creepy encounter.

[MagneticKitty]

I'd do templates you can apply to any

briar - hitting with a melee weapon within 5 feet does xd4 damage. Where x is the number of hit dice it has. Ac +x (unsure how much)
Floral - invert sunlight sensitivity, advantage on attacks in direct sunlight and heals x in direct sunlight (maybe heals one hit dice)
Wooden - constantly under barkskin (16 a.c.), resistance to non magic b, p, s
Spore - on hit releases a cloud of spores for a radius of x. dc x or poisoned for a minute.
Tangle - covered in writhing vines, once per turn when the creature attacks with a melee attack make a contested grapple check or be grappled. Gains prof in athletics.

Something like that.

[CapnWildefyr]

How about a mutant ambulatory shrieker, that can do a directional sonic blast?

Also, how about at the other end of the spectrum? For example, you can identify someone with under 'fungal mind control' because they have a small fungal growth rising out of the spine at the base of the neck. Or for a more humorous approach in role playing from the base of the spine.

Maybe drinking gutshaker provides immunity, or just heavy drink, so only the town drunk and soon to be inebriated PCs see whats going on? For that matter, spores in the air can lead to a general 'illusion' of normality etc, so even though someone is not controlled they might not perceive the alien 'mushroom heads' as anything but normal humans, even when they are eating strange things and in reality look anything but human.