Chapter 5

Sporophore

The Lazaret classes the sporing brood as Sporophore; common folk call it the bloom. It does not attach to anything and does not need a host: it grows on ground, on stone, on burned timber, and on creatures, and it sheds constantly. Three of its four lines do not hunt — they occupy, and everything that walks through them breathes some of it in. The fourth took a creature, and does what a creature does: the orcshroom tribes range, raid, and recruit.

Either way, this brood is the one a party walks into, and the Lazaret’s standing instruction for it: go at noon, and bring tools for letting it in.

How a sporophore works

No single Sporophore is the creature; the colony is, and every creature in this brood is part of one.

Colonies and lines

A colony is a family: everything grown from one original growth, however far it has spread, held together by Mycelial Chorus.

A line is what a growth became — rotgill, ashcap, reredos, or orcshroom — and the ground decides it, not the parent. A colony whose spores drift across a flooded cellar, a burn scar, and a standing wall grows all three of those lines and remains one colony. Kinship follows the colony; form follows the ground. This is why a driftling carries the Chorus before it has a line: it is already its parent colony’s, and only its landing decides what it grows into.

The shared traits

Three traits carry the colony, printed in full on each stat block:

Mycelial Chorus. The creature knows the direction of, and can communicate wordlessly with, every member of its colony within 1 mile, and it has Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened while another member is within 60 feet. Mindless growths — mats, larvae, and fruiting bodies — carry a reduced version: the colony can direct them, and nothing more. An apex is the center of its colony, aware of every member within 5 miles, and can speak through any of them.
Sun-Withered. While in sunlight the creature can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and its spore actions decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns. The middle clause changes encounters the most: a Sporophore fought in daylight is barely contagious.
Sporing. Every Sporophore sheds. A creature that ends its turn within the trait’s radius makes a Constitution saving throw or gains 1 Spore Load.

Sporing’s shape varies by line, because a colonized wall and a colonized orc do not release spores the same way:

Line	Radius	Trigger	Spore action
Orcshroom	10 feet	Always	Cone — they exhale it
Rotgill	10 feet	Always	Sphere — wet air that hangs where it lands
Ashcap	15 feet, from a 5-foot trigger	Only once disturbed, by approach within 5 feet or by damage — Sporing (Disturbed)	Emanation that lingers a round
Reredos	5 feet	Always	None — it sheds a burst as a Reaction when damaged

Apexes shed to 30 feet, because there is more of them shedding.

NOTE

A creature makes one Sporing save per turn no matter how many Sporophores it stands among, against the highest Difficulty Class among them, the same way overlapping contaminated areas resolve. The save falls at the end of the creature’s own turn.

Spore actions

Sporing is what a fungal body loses by being open to the air; a spore action is everything it has packed and stored, thrown at once. Large and larger bodies carry 2 uses per day, Medium and smaller carry 1 — except the rank and file (the orcshroom warriors, the stalkers, the mats and swarms), which hold nothing in reserve and fold a weaker, always-available burst into their turns instead. From Challenge Rating 8 upward, a spore action grants 1 Spore Load even on a successful saving throw: at that tier, contamination is not avoided by rolling well.

Variant: running dry

Tables that want spent colonies to feel spent can use this rule: while a Sporophore has no uses of its spore action remaining, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing decreases by 2. It applies only to creatures whose spore action has a daily limit — the rank and file never held anything back — and is best decided once for the whole brood.

Spore Load

Every Sporophore contaminates through one counter. A creature can carry up to 6 Spore Load — the same 0-to-6 shape as the Inquiline’s Depth in chapter 4, and symptomless like it. Every penalty in this brood comes from a disease’s stage, never from the load itself: a creature learns what it carries from a Lazaret officer’s eye, a Detect Poison and Disease spell, or the moment the counter fills. What the load changes is how the brood fights it — several spore actions bear down harder on a creature carrying 3 or more, and a stalker tracks anything carrying 1 or more.

Colonization

On reaching 6 Spore Load, the counter resets to 0 and the creature contracts the disease of the line that gave it the sixth point, at stage 1 — or advances that disease one stage if it already has it. That is the only way a Sporophore disease advances: a fungal colony does not incubate, it spreads, and it spreads only while a creature keeps breathing it in.

Shedding it

A creature loses 1 Spore Load at the end of a Short Rest and all of it at the end of a Long Rest, provided the rest is taken more than 1 mile from a colony. A Lesser Restoration spell removes 3. Inside a brooding ground none of that works — Spore Load is not lost while the colony is close enough to replace it.

MIXED EXPOSURE

Spore Load is one pool no matter how many lines contributed to it. Only the sixth point decides which disease the creature takes.

Contaminated ground

Several spore actions leave an area contaminated. A creature that enters a contaminated area or ends its turn there repeats the saving throw against that spore action. Contaminated areas do not stack: one save per turn, against the highest Difficulty Class among the overlapping areas.

The brooding ground

A brooding ground is a colony’s territory: everything within 1 mile of any of its members. Inside it:

Spore Load is not shed. Rests remove none of it; the colony replaces what the body clears.
Diseases do not recede. The recovery save below is made only when the Long Rest is taken more than 1 mile from any colony.
The colony knows. Where a stalker or an apex is present, anything carrying Spore Load is tracked (see Spoor-Reader), and the tracking does not stop at a camp’s walls.

Reading the ground

Every line marks its territory before defending it. A rotgill ground sweats — damp walls, standing water that never clears, a smell of wet cellars where there is no cellar. An ashcap ground is a burn scar that never greened over, warm underfoot, with dust that rises too easily. A reredos ground looks like weathering: gray frost-lines along the mortar, brackets nobody built. An orcshroom ground is the tribe’s — spoor, dust in still air, gray stipple on everything they have handled. A creature that succeeds on a DC 13 Intelligence (Nature) or Wisdom (Survival) check recognizes the ground and which line holds it.

Daylight

Sunlight stops a colony healing and blunts its spores, so a colony grows away from the sun — under floors, into hillsides, behind shutters — and every opened roof, felled wall, and dug trench pushes it back.

Between colonies

Nothing a Sporophore grows harms its own colony: its contaminated areas, Difficult Terrain, Sporing, and spore actions have no effect on a fellow member, whatever line either of them belongs to. A rival colony is another matter, and what one colony can do to another depends on their lines:

Rotgill and ashcap prey on anything with substance to take, including each other. Rotgill rots what is wet; ashcap dries what is damp and feeds on what is left. Which of them holds a stretch of ground is mostly a question of whether that ground is flooded or burned. Both can also take orcshrooms, which are still flesh under the gray.
Reredos and orcshroom take nothing from the brood. Reredos wants stone and timber, orcshroom wants people, and neither has a use for a body that is already fungal.
Nothing takes reredos. A reredos growth is bound into masonry with nothing in it to rot and nothing to dry, so the other three lines cannot touch it.

When one colony takes another

A Sporophore that reaches 6 Spore Load from a rival colony does not sicken. It dies, and a stage 2 creature of the winning colony grows from the remains within 1d4 days. Orcshrooms are the exception, being flesh: one that reaches 6 Spore Load contracts that line’s disease and runs the stages like anything else, which is how a tribe overtaken by rotgill ends as Drowned Choruses still speaking Orc. This contest is also why there is no single Sporophore super-colony: the two lines that could expand without limit spend most of their effort on each other.

How they speak

Most of the brood does not. Mycelial Chorus is not speech — it carries direction, condition, and attention, no words, and cannot be overheard. An apex speaks through any member of its colony that has a mouth, which is how a party usually hears one first: the creature speaking is not the creature they can see. The apexes’ own voices, where their bodies allow one, are described in their entries, and the transformed hosts — the Drowned Chorus, the Cinderwalk, the Buttress — kept whatever speech their bodies kept.

The diseases

Each line’s disease advances only through colonization, and recedes only with distance:

Receding

At the end of each Long Rest taken more than 1 mile from any colony, an infected creature makes a Constitution saving throw against the Difficulty Class for its current stage — 12 at stage 1, 14 at stage 2, 16 at stage 3. Success: The disease recedes one stage, and receding below stage 1 cures it. Failure: No change. Stage 4 allows no save.

Restoration magic

The spells work by stage, identically for all four lines:

Spell	Stage 1	Stage 2	Stage 3	Stage 4
Lesser Restoration	Cures	Reduces to stage 1	Nothing	Nothing
Greater Restoration	Cures	Cures	Reduces to stage 2	Nothing
Heal	Cures	Cures	Reduces to stage 1	Nothing
Mass Heal	As Heal	As Heal	As Heal	Nothing

Treatment

The Lazaret’s other tiers, shared by all four lines:

Care. A creature that spends a day of downtime tending the patient makes a DC 15 Wisdom (Medicine) check. Success: The patient has Advantage on its next saving throw to recede.
Remedy. A preparation rendered from the line’s own growth (see Harvesting). Taking a line’s remedy drops its disease one stage.
Procedure. A physical treatment, different per line, listed with each disease below.

Any creature can attempt a procedure. A trained physician makes its Wisdom (Medicine) check with Advantage, and a Lazaret officer automatically succeeds on the check — compressing these into a day’s work is much of what the order’s houses are for.

Stage 4 in every case is governed by the library-wide rule in chapter 1. Two of these diseases kill and two do not; each stage table says which.

Mortification

The Lazaret files the rotgill disease as Mortification; common folk call it wetrot. The fungus takes the wet tissue first, and the wet tissue is where a body keeps everything it cannot do without:

Stage	Effect
1	Wounds stop closing. The creature gains no benefit from a Short Rest, and takes 3 (1d6) Necrotic damage at the end of each Long Rest.
2	The creature’s Hit Point maximum decreases by 10, and it has Disadvantage on Constitution saving throws.
3	The Hit Point maximum decreases by a further 20, healing the creature receives is halved, and it has the Poisoned condition.
4	The creature dies. After 1d4 days it rises as a Drowned Chorus.

The Hit Point maximum reductions last until the disease ends and do not stack with themselves. Stage 2’s Disadvantage counts twice: the save to recede is itself a Constitution save, so a creature at stage 2 is measurably worse at leaving stage 2 than it was at leaving stage 1, before the Difficulty Class rises.

Its remedy and its procedure:

Remedy. The gills of a rotgill creature, boiled and inhaled.
Procedure — extraction. An hour of surgery and a DC 18 Wisdom (Medicine) check. Success: The disease ends and the patient takes 11 (2d10) Slashing damage. Failure: The patient takes 22 (4d10) Slashing damage and the disease is unchanged.

Calcination

The Lazaret files the ashcap disease as Calcination; common folk call it the drying. Where Mortification rots a body, Calcination takes the water out of it:

Stage	Effect
1	The creature stops sweating and stops shivering. Weather a healthy creature would call merely warm or merely cool is extreme for it: at the end of each hour spent in such weather without clothing suited to it, the creature makes a DC 10 Constitution saving throw, gaining 1 Exhaustion level on a failure.
2	The dried skin splits. The creature has Vulnerability to Fire damage, and its Speed decreases by 10 feet.
3	The creature has Vulnerability to Bludgeoning damage in addition, and its Speed is halved.
4	The creature dies. The body does not fall. After 1d4 days it walks as a Cinderwalk.

DESIGN NOTE

The Vulnerability to Fire is not a defense of the fungus — it is preparation. A body with Calcination in it is being dried into fuel, so that whatever eventually burns is full of spores. Stage 1 costs time, attention, and pack space rather than Hit Points: heavy layers against cold, loose cover against heat, changed at every boundary the party crosses.

Its remedy and its procedure:

Remedy. An oil pressed from ashcap growth, worked into the skin over several hours.
Procedure — immersion. The patient is submerged in fresh water for 8 hours, breathing through a reed, tended by someone who makes a DC 16 Wisdom (Medicine) check. Success: The disease ends and the patient gains 3 Exhaustion levels. Failure: The disease is unchanged and the patient gains 3 Exhaustion levels.

Ankylosis

The Lazaret files the reredos disease as Ankylosis; common folk call it the settling. The joints fuse, the skin plates over, and the victim slows toward a stop. It is the only disease in the brood that offers the sufferer something in exchange:

Stage	Effect
1	The creature’s Speed decreases by 5 feet, and it has Resistance to Piercing damage.
2	The creature’s Speed decreases by 10 feet, it has Disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws, and its Resistance extends to Slashing damage.
3	The creature’s Speed decreases by 15 feet, and its Armor Class increases by 2.
4	The creature’s Speed is 0 and it can no longer act. It does not die. Over 1d4 days it hardens and stands as a Buttress.

DESIGN NOTE

The trade is meant to be visible and real: a character at stage 3 has Resistance to two damage types, +2 Armor Class, and 15 feet less Speed, and stage 4 is not a worse version of stage 3 — it is a different outcome, arriving the next time the character reaches 6 Spore Load. The disease never grants Resistance to Bludgeoning, because the fungus does not have one either: a body plating over like masonry inherits masonry’s weakness.

Its remedy and its procedure:

Remedy. A draught ground from reredos growth, taken over 3 days.
Procedure — manipulation. The fused joints are broken and reset by hand over an hour, with a DC 16 Wisdom (Medicine) check. Success: The disease ends and the patient takes 13 (3d8) Bludgeoning damage. Failure: The disease is unchanged and the patient takes 27 (6d8) Bludgeoning damage. Success or Failure the Bludgeoning damage ignores resistances gained by the disease.

Metaplasia

The Lazaret files the orcshroom disease as Metaplasia; common folk call it the greying. Where the other three lines take a place and wait for people to pass through it, this one takes the people — not eaten and not killed, but converted, a little at a time, into a member of the tribe:

Stage	Effect
1	The fungus eats first. The creature needs twice as much food each day; on any day it goes without the full amount, it gains 1 Exhaustion level.
2	The creature is drawn toward the direction of the colony that infected it. At the end of each Long Rest it makes a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw; on a failure, it can’t willingly increase its distance from that colony until it finishes another Long Rest with a successful check.
3	Gray shows plainly, and the creature’s breath carries the colony. It gains the Sporing trait (5 feet, DC 11), and orcshroom creatures don’t attack it unless it or its allies attack them first.
4	The creature does not die and knows the exact location of the colony that infected it. Over 1d4 days the change completes, and it stands as an Orcshroom, a member of the tribe, under the Game Master’s control.

DESIGN NOTE

Stage 3 puts the victim on both sides at once: still themselves, still fighting, and a hazard to stand beside, while the tribe has stopped treating them as prey. Stage 4 is the only terminal stage in the brood its victim walks away from. A tribe grows two ways — whelps are born colonized, and Metaplasia takes everyone else. The Spore-Struck is the swifter route, a settled driftling rather than this disease, and its Not Yet Gone trait belongs to that route alone — an unfinished growth is still a guest the body can be made to reject, which is what that Lesser Restoration spell does (see Stage 4). Metaplasia follows the rules above at every stage.

Its remedy and its procedure:

Remedy. A bitter mash rendered from the gray shelving of the tribe’s dead, eaten over a day.
Procedure — starvation. The fungus eats what the host eats, so the host stops eating: a strict fast of 3 days, tended by someone who makes a DC 16 Wisdom (Medicine) check at its end. Success: The disease ends and the patient gains 3 Exhaustion levels. Failure: The disease is unchanged and the patient gains 3 Exhaustion levels and takes 13 (3d8) Piercing damage, as the fungus eats the creature’s flesh.

Harvesting

Each line’s remedy is rendered from its own growth, so treating a Sporophore disease means cutting a piece off the thing that caused it. For most of the brood this needs no roll: a fruiting body, a crust, a rind, or a colonized limb is solid matter, and taking a usable portion is a minute’s work with any blade. Two conditions constrain it instead — the creature has to be dead, and the piece has to be undamaged. That rules out fire, and fire is otherwise the most efficient way to deal with a colony.

The Rotgill Fleece is the exception, and its stat block carries the rule: a fleece is loose filament, and cutting one cleanly is a check. Metaplasia is the other odd case — its line colonizes people, so the remedy comes from the gray shelving of the tribe’s dead, and a party that wants some has to make some first.

The creatures

The two every line begins with

These belong to the colony that made them and to no line at all. Every Sporophore line starts here and diverges according to what the spore lands on:

Driftling

Tiny Plant, Unaligned

A spore that has germinated and not yet settled: fingernail-sized, the color of wet paper, and too light to steer its own course. What it becomes depends entirely on what it comes down on — damp flesh, burned ground, or old stone. A driftling left alone for a day is no longer a driftling.

AC: 11
Initiative: +1 (11)
HP: 4 (1d4+2)
Speed: 0 ft., Fly 5 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	3	−4	−4	INT	1	−5	−5
DEX	12	+1	+1	WIS	6	−2	−2
CON	14	+2	+2	CHA	1	−5	−5

Immunities: Poison; Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Frightened, Poisoned
Senses: Blindsight 10 ft., Passive Perception 8
CR: 0 (XP 10; PB +2)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The driftling is part of a colony. It knows the direction of every other member of its colony within 1 mile, and the colony can direct it wordlessly.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 5 feet of the driftling makes a DC 11 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the driftling can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Windborne.

The driftling has no legs and does not walk. It is carried on moving air, and its Fly Speed changes with the weather.

Air	Fly Speed
Still	5 ft.
A breeze	15 ft.
Strong wind	30 ft., and all of its movement must be downwind
Gale or stronger	It can’t move deliberately. At the start of each of its turns it is carried 1d10 × 10 feet downwind.

A driftling carried out of an encounter this way is not destroyed and does not come back. It lands somewhere else.

Taking. If the driftling spends 24 hours undisturbed on viable substrate, it is replaced by the stage 2 creature for that substrate. On living flesh, a Lesser Restoration spell cast before the 24 hours elapse destroys it.

Actions

Tendril. Melee Attack Roll: +3, reach 5 ft. Hit: 2 (1d4) Poison damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load.

Running it. Taking is the only line in the block that matters, and it resolves off the table over a day: a driftling on a sleeve is a Lesser Restoration spell if anyone notices and a stage 2 creature if nobody does. Windborne is also how the brood has always traveled — a Gust of Wind spell clears the chamber and seeds the next valley, and nothing in the encounter says so.

Spore Veil

Large Swarm Of Tiny Plants, Unaligned

Driftlings that never landed, held together by the colony that made them. From a distance it is a haze; from inside, a wall of grit that gets into everything. It thickens in still air, stretches thin in a breeze, and has never once chosen a direction.

AC: 12
Initiative: +2 (12)
HP: 75 (10d10+20)
Speed: 0 ft., Fly 20 ft. (hover)

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	3	−4	−4	INT	1	−5	−5
DEX	14	+2	+2	WIS	6	−2	−2
CON	14	+2	+2	CHA	1	−5	−5

Resistances: Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing
Immunities: Poison; Charmed, Frightened, Grappled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Restrained, Stunned
Senses: Blindsight 10 ft., Passive Perception 8
CR: 2 (XP 450; PB +2)

Traits

Swarm. The veil can occupy another creature’s space and vice versa, and it can move through any opening large enough for a Tiny creature. It can’t regain Hit Points or gain Temporary Hit Points.

Mycelial Chorus. The veil is part of a colony. It knows the direction of every other member of its colony within 1 mile, and the colony can direct it wordlessly.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 10 feet of the veil makes a DC 12 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the veil can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Windborne.

The veil is carried on moving air, and its Fly Speed changes with the weather. It can hover only in still air.

Air	Fly Speed
Still	20 ft.
A breeze	30 ft.
Strong wind	45 ft., and all of its movement must be downwind
Gale or stronger	It can’t move deliberately or use Engulf. At the start of each of its turns it is carried 1d10 × 10 feet downwind.

A veil carried out of an encounter this way is not destroyed and does not come back.

Actions

Engulf. Constitution Saving Throw: DC 12, each creature in the veil’s space. Failure: 14 (4d6) Poison damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only.

Running it. The veil has no attack roll and cannot be blocked, only outrun or moved: a creature in its space saves against Engulf and a creature within 10 feet saves against Sporing, in the same round. At gale strength it can neither hold a space nor use Engulf, so moving air takes it out of a fight — and delivers it somewhere else. A sealed chamber is where it is most dangerous, and the only place it can be finished.

The orcshroom line

Cave orcs whose tribe was colonized generations ago and has never known otherwise. They keep their language, their weapons, and their arguments, and none of them can say when the change happened.

The tribe is what the line’s stat blocks coordinate: its orcshrooms, its spore-struck, its blightboars, and the rootfather at the center of it. The rest of a colony cannot be given orders — mats, crusts, rinds, and fruiting bodies carry only the reduced Mycelial Chorus, and a warchief has no more to say to a reredos rind than to a wall. Kinship still runs colony-wide; command runs no further than the tribe.

Orcshroom Whelp

Small Plant (Orc), Chaotic Evil

Knee-high and already gray. Orcshrooms are born colonized, not infected — the ribbing is present at birth, the crest comes in with the teeth. Whelps run messages for the warband, and they are not kept out of a fight so much as positioned inside one.

AC: 13
Initiative: +2 (12)
HP: 60 (11d6+22)
Speed: 30 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	12	+1	+1	INT	8	−1	−1
DEX	14	+2	+2	WIS	10	+0	+0
CON	14	+2	+2	CHA	8	−1	−1

Immunities: Poison; Poisoned
Skills: Stealth +4
Senses: Darkvision 120 ft., Passive Perception 10
Languages: Orc
CR: 1/2 (XP 100; PB +2)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The whelp is part of a colony. It knows the direction of, and can communicate wordlessly with, every other member of its colony within 1 mile. While at least one other member of its colony is within 60 feet, the whelp has Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 5 feet of the whelp makes a DC 11 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the whelp can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Pack Tactics. The whelp has Advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of the whelp’s allies is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally doesn’t have the Incapacitated condition.

Actions

Shortspear. Melee Attack Roll: +4, reach 5 ft. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) Piercing damage plus 5 (2d4) Poison damage.

Bonus Actions

Scurry. The whelp takes the Disengage action.

Running it. Whelps deliver Spore Load rather than damage: a 5-foot Sporing radius fills the gaps larger creatures cannot reach. Pack Tactics makes them work in groups; a single whelp is a rounding error.

Spore-Struck

Medium Humanoid, Neutral Evil

Not yet an orcshroom, and no longer whoever it was. The gray climbs the throat, the cough produces dust, and the victim slowly loses interest in everything except being somewhere else. A spore-struck can be of any species, and is most often whoever the tribe took last.

AC: 12
Initiative: +0 (10)
HP: 71 (11d8+22)
Speed: 30 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	14	+2	+2	INT	10	+0	+0
DEX	10	+0	+0	WIS	10	+0	+0
CON	14	+2	+2	CHA	8	−1	−1

Resistances: Poison
Senses: Darkvision 60 ft., Passive Perception 10
Languages: the languages it knew before
CR: 1 (XP 200; PB +2)

Traits

Drawn. The spore-struck knows the direction of the colony that infected it. If it starts its turn with no creature within 30 feet of it, it must use its movement to move toward that colony.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 5 feet of the spore-struck makes a DC 11 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Sick. While in sunlight, the spore-struck can’t regain Hit Points.

Not Yet Gone. If a Lesser Restoration spell is cast on the spore-struck while it has more than 0 Hit Points, the infection ends. It is no longer a Sporophore, loses every trait in this stat block, and is whoever it was.

Actions

Multiattack. The spore-struck makes two Claw attacks.

Claw. Melee Attack Roll: +4, reach 5 ft. Hit: 6 (1d8 + 2) Slashing damage plus 3 (1d6) Poison damage.

Running it. Not Yet Gone is the whole creature: everything else about it is ordinary, so the encounter turns on whether a second-level slot is spent on something that is currently attacking. It has no Mycelial Chorus — only the pull — and one that gets away walks toward the tribe for as long as it takes, which is how a village loses people one at a time without ever seeing an orcshroom.

Orcshroom Stalker

Medium Plant (Orc), Chaotic Evil

Leaner than the warriors and grown low, the crest flattened back along the skull and the gill-ribbing reduced to a fine gray stipple. Stalkers range days ahead of the warband. They do not track by sight or scent but by the spores the tribe has already put into the world.

AC: 14
Initiative: +3 (13)
HP: 91 (14d8+28)
Speed: 30 ft., Climb 30 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	14	+2	+2	INT	10	+0	+0
DEX	16	+3	+3	WIS	12	+1	+1
CON	14	+2	+2	CHA	8	−1	−1

Immunities: Poison; Poisoned
Skills: Perception +3, Stealth +5
Senses: Darkvision 120 ft., Passive Perception 13
Languages: Common, Orc, Undercommon
CR: 2 (XP 450; PB +2)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The stalker is part of a colony. It knows the direction of, and can communicate wordlessly with, every other member of its colony within 1 mile. While at least one other member of its colony is within 60 feet, the stalker has Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 10 feet of the stalker makes a DC 12 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the stalker can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Burst Spores decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Spoor-Reader. The stalker knows the location of every creature within 1 mile that has 1 or more Spore Load, and it shares that knowledge with its colony through Mycelial Chorus.

Actions

Multiattack. The stalker makes two attacks, using Handaxe or Shortbow in any combination. It can replace one attack with a use of Burst Spores.

Handaxe. Melee or Ranged Attack Roll: +5, reach 5 feet or range 20/60 ft. Hit: 6 (1d6 + 3) Slashing damage plus 7 (2d6) Poison damage.

Shortbow. Ranged Attack Roll: +5, range 80/320 ft. Hit: 6 (1d6 + 3) Piercing damage plus 7 (2d6) Poison damage.

Burst Spores. Constitution Saving Throw: DC 12, each creature in a 15-foot Cone. Failure: 5 (2d4) Poison damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only. Failure or Success: A target that has 3 or more Spore Load also has the Incapacitated condition until the end of its next turn.

Bonus Actions

Slip Away. The stalker takes the Disengage or Hide action.

Running it. Spoor-Reader ends a party’s ability to disengage: anything carrying Spore Load is tracked for a mile, through stone and in the dark, and Spore Load is not shed inside the colony’s ground. The stalker is built to appear first, seen leaving, before the party knows what Spore Load is for.

Orcshroom

Medium Plant (Orc), Chaotic Evil

A head taller than a living orc, and gray where an orc is green. Pale ribbing climbs the throat and splits into a low crest across the skull, and the whole body sheds a fine dust that hangs in still air. It carries a spear it made itself, and it argues with its warband in Orc while it fights.

AC: 15
Initiative: +1 (11)
HP: 97 (13d8+39)
Speed: 30 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	16	+3	+3	INT	10	+0	+0
DEX	12	+1	+1	WIS	11	+0	+0
CON	16	+3	+3	CHA	10	+0	+0

Immunities: Poison; Poisoned
Skills: Athletics +5, Intimidation +4
Senses: Darkvision 120 ft., Passive Perception 10
Languages: Common, Orc, Undercommon
CR: 3 (XP 700; PB +2)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The orcshroom is part of a colony. It knows the direction of, and can communicate wordlessly with, every other member of its colony within 1 mile. While at least one other member of its colony is within 60 feet, the orcshroom has Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 10 feet of the orcshroom makes a DC 13 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the orcshroom can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Burst Spores decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Actions

Multiattack. The orcshroom makes one Spear attack and uses Burst Spores.

Spear. Melee Attack Roll: +5, reach 5 ft. Hit: 13 (3d6 + 3) Piercing damage plus 7 (3d4) Poison damage.

Burst Spores. Constitution Saving Throw: DC 13, each creature in a 15-foot Cone. Failure: 7 (2d6) Poison damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only. Failure or Success: A target that has 3 or more Spore Load also has the Incapacitated condition until the end of its next turn.

Bonus Actions

Aggressive. The orcshroom moves up to its Speed toward a hostile creature it can see.

Running it. Burst Spores is a Cone, and Aggressive exists to put two or three characters inside it on the first round; a warband opens by closing distance and firing cones into the same space. Sporing runs whether the orcshroom acts or not — a wounded one being ignored still costs a save each round.

Blightboar

Large Plant (Beast), Unaligned

A cave boar that stopped being one. The bristles have gone over to gray filament, the tusks are sheathed in shelf-growth, and a crest of gills runs the spine and opens when the animal runs. Tribes herd them, eat them, and drive them ahead of a raid. Nothing about the animal objects.

AC: 14
Initiative: +1 (11)
HP: 123 (13d10+52)
Speed: 40 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	18	+4	+4	INT	2	−4	−4
DEX	12	+1	+1	WIS	10	+0	+0
CON	18	+4	+4	CHA	5	−3	−3

Immunities: Poison; Frightened, Poisoned
Senses: Darkvision 60 ft., Passive Perception 10
CR: 4 (XP 1,100; PB +2)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The blightboar is part of a colony. It knows the direction of every other member of its colony within 1 mile, and the colony can direct it wordlessly. While at least one other member of its colony is within 60 feet, the blightboar has Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 10 feet of the blightboar makes a DC 13 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the blightboar can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Relentless. If damage reduces the blightboar to 0 Hit Points, it drops to 1 Hit Point instead if the damage was not Radiant or Fire damage. It can’t use this trait again until it finishes a Long Rest.

Actions

Multiattack. The blightboar makes two Tusk attacks.

Tusk. Melee Attack Roll: +6, reach 5 ft. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) Piercing damage plus 5 (2d4) Poison damage. If the blightboar moved at least 20 feet straight toward the target immediately before the hit, the target has the Prone condition.

Spore Trail (2/Day). The blightboar moves up to its Speed without provoking Opportunity Attacks and leaves a trail of spores in every space it leaves. The trail lasts until the end of the blightboar’s next turn. Constitution Saving Throw: DC 13, each creature that enters the trail or ends its turn in it. Failure: 7 (2d6) Poison damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only.

Running it. Spore Trail turns the animal into terrain: it crosses the room, and the warband pushes the party back into what it left. Relentless buys one guaranteed extra round, which is why a tribe drives a blightboar at the most dangerous thing on the field rather than the nearest.

Orcshroom Sporespeaker

Medium Plant (Orc), Chaotic Evil

Where the warriors grew plates, the sporespeaker grew inward: its ribcage has opened into a shallow basket of pale gills that flex as it breathes. It speaks for the colony in a voice not quite its own, and the tribe defers to it on everything except the fighting.

AC: 14
Initiative: +2 (12)
HP: 120 (16d8+48)
Speed: 30 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	12	+1	+1	INT	12	+1	+1
DEX	14	+2	+2	WIS	17	+3	+6
CON	16	+3	+6	CHA	14	+2	+2

Immunities: Poison; Poisoned
Skills: Medicine +6, Nature +4, Perception +6
Senses: Darkvision 120 ft., Passive Perception 16
Languages: Common, Orc, Undercommon
CR: 5 (XP 1,800; PB +3)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The sporespeaker is part of a colony. It knows the direction of, and can communicate wordlessly with, every other member of its colony within 1 mile. While at least one other member of its colony is within 60 feet, the sporespeaker has Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 10 feet of the sporespeaker makes a DC 14 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the sporespeaker can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Spore Bloom decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Voice of the Colony. Each allied member of the tribe within 60 feet of the sporespeaker has Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened, whether or not another member of its colony is nearby.

Spellcasting

Casts using WIS as the spellcasting ability, spell save DC 14.

At Will: Anamnesis, Druidcraft, Poison Spray

2/Day Each: Entangle, Glebe, Spike Growth

1/Day Each: Plant Growth

Actions

Multiattack. The sporespeaker makes two Blightstaff attacks. It can replace one attack with a use of Spore Bloom.

Blightstaff. Melee Attack Roll: +6, reach 5 ft. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) Bludgeoning damage plus 10 (3d6) Poison damage.

Spore Bloom (1/Day). Constitution Saving Throw: DC 14, each creature in a 15-foot-radius Sphere centered on a point the sporespeaker can see within 60 feet. Failure: 14 (4d6) Poison damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only. Failure or Success: A target that has 3 or more Spore Load also has the Blinded condition until the end of its next turn.

Bonus Actions

Draw from the Sown. One allied member of the tribe the sporespeaker can see within 30 feet regains Hit Points equal to 5 × the number of creatures within 30 feet of the sporespeaker that have 1 or more Spore Load, to a maximum of 20.

Running it. Draw from the Sown converts the party’s Spore Load into the colony’s healing, which changes the target order the moment it is understood. Voice of the Colony uncouples the warband from Mycelial Chorus’s positioning. Entangle and Spike Growth both take Concentration, and both need ground that grows something — worked stone disables them, exactly as it does the chieftain’s Grasping Hyphae.

Orcshroom Warchief

Medium Plant (Orc), Chaotic Evil

The crest has thickened into a plate running from brow to shoulder, and the ribbing down the arms has fused into something closer to armor than skin. A warchief fights at the front of the warband and never more than a few paces from it.

AC: 16
Initiative: +1 (11)
HP: 127 (15d8+60)
Speed: 30 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	18	+4	+7	INT	10	+0	+0
DEX	12	+1	+1	WIS	12	+1	+1
CON	18	+4	+7	CHA	12	+1	+1

Immunities: Poison; Frightened, Poisoned
Skills: Athletics +7, Intimidation +4
Senses: Darkvision 120 ft., Passive Perception 11
Languages: Common, Orc, Undercommon
CR: 6 (XP 2,300; PB +3)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The warchief is part of a colony. It knows the direction of, and can communicate wordlessly with, every other member of its colony within 1 mile. While at least one other member of its colony is within 60 feet, the warchief has Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 10 feet of the warchief makes a DC 16 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the warchief can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Burst Spores decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Actions

Multiattack. The warchief makes two Battleaxe attacks. It can replace one attack with a use of Burst Spores.

Battleaxe. Melee Attack Roll: +7, reach 5 ft. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) Slashing damage plus 10 (3d6) Poison damage.

Burst Spores (1/Day). Constitution Saving Throw: DC 15, each creature in a 20-foot Cone. Failure: 17 (5d6) Poison damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only. Failure or Success: A target that has 3 or more Spore Load also has the Incapacitated condition until the end of its next turn.

Bonus Actions

Drive Them On. One allied member of the tribe the warchief can see within 60 feet moves up to its Speed and makes one attack.

Running it. Drive Them On converts the warchief’s Bonus Action into another creature’s movement and attack every round, so the biggest thing in the room is rarely the most productive target. The warchief stays within 60 feet of its warband, because Mycelial Chorus’s save Advantage ends the moment it is alone.

Orcshroom Chieftain

Medium Plant (Orc), Chaotic Evil

The growth has stopped pretending to be an orc. Gray shelf-fungus stands out from the shoulders and back in overlapping tiers, and the head sits low between them. The chieftain is the oldest walking thing in the tribe, and the only one the colony speaks through directly.

AC: 16
Initiative: +2 (12)
HP: 152 (16d8+80)
Speed: 30 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	20	+5	+8	INT	10	+0	+0
DEX	14	+2	+2	WIS	12	+1	+1
CON	20	+5	+8	CHA	10	+0	+0

Immunities: Poison; Frightened, Paralyzed, Poisoned, Stunned
Skills: Athletics +8, Intimidation +5
Senses: Darkvision 120 ft., Passive Perception 11
Languages: Common, Orc, Undercommon
CR: 7 (XP 2,900; PB +3)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The chieftain is part of a colony. It knows the direction of, and can communicate wordlessly with, every other member of its colony within 1 mile. While at least one other member of its colony is within 60 feet, the chieftain has Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 10 feet of the chieftain makes a DC 17 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the chieftain can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Burst Spores decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Reckless. At the start of its turn, the chieftain can gain Advantage on all melee attack rolls it makes during that turn. Attack rolls against it have Advantage until the start of its next turn.

Actions

Multiattack. The chieftain makes two Greataxe attacks. It can replace one attack with a use of Burst Spores.

Greataxe. Melee Attack Roll: +8, reach 5 ft. Hit: 18 (2d12 + 5) Slashing damage plus 10 (3d6) Poison damage.

Fist. Melee Attack Roll: +8, reach 5 ft. Hit: 9 (1d8 + 5) Bludgeoning damage plus 7 (3d4) Poison damage.

Burst Spores (1/Day). Constitution Saving Throw: DC 16, each creature in a 20-foot Cone. Failure: 21 (6d6) Poison damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only. Failure or Success: A target that has 3 or more Spore Load also has the Incapacitated condition until the end of its next turn.

Bonus Actions

Grasping Hyphae. Strength Saving Throw: DC 16, one creature the chieftain can see within 20 feet that is standing on soil, timber, or fungal growth. Failure: The target has the Restrained condition until the end of its next turn.

Reactions

Low Blow. Trigger: A creature within 5 feet of the chieftain misses it with an attack roll. Response: The chieftain makes one Fist attack against that creature.

Running it. Reckless hands out Advantage, and Low Blow collects on the misses that follow it. Grasping Hyphae functions only on soil, timber, or fungal growth — on worked stone the chieftain loses its ground control entirely, which is a real reason to fight the tribe in a hall rather than in its own tunnels.

Orcshroom Bulwark

Large Plant (Orc), Chaotic Evil

The growth wins eventually, and a bulwark is what winning looks like. The shelf-fungus has closed over shoulders and back in one fused mass, the arms have thickened past holding a weapon, and the head has sunk into the chest. A bulwark cannot run and does not need to; tribes stand them in doorways and leave them there for years.

AC: 18
Initiative: −1 (9)
HP: 168 (16d10+80)
Speed: 20 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	22	+6	+9	INT	8	−1	−1
DEX	8	−1	−1	WIS	12	+1	+1
CON	20	+5	+8	CHA	8	−1	−1

Immunities: Poison; Frightened, Poisoned, Prone
Senses: Darkvision 120 ft., Passive Perception 11
Languages: Orc
CR: 8 (XP 3,900; PB +3)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The bulwark is part of a colony. It knows the direction of, and can communicate wordlessly with, every other member of its colony within 1 mile. While at least one other member of its colony is within 60 feet, the bulwark has Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 15 feet of the bulwark makes a DC 17 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the bulwark can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Sporeburst decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Living Wall. The bulwark’s space is Difficult Terrain for other creatures, and allied members of the tribe within 5 feet of it have Half Cover.

Siege Growth. The bulwark deals double damage to objects and structures.

Actions

Multiattack. The bulwark makes two Slam attacks.

Slam. Melee Attack Roll: +9, reach 10 ft. Hit: 19 (3d8 + 6) Bludgeoning damage plus 10 (3d6) Poison damage.

Sporeburst (2/Day). Constitution Saving Throw: DC 16, each creature in a 20-foot Cone. Failure: 21 (6d6) Poison damage, and the target gains 2 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Failure or Success: A target that has 3 or more Spore Load also has the Incapacitated condition until the end of its next turn.

Reactions

Brace. Trigger: An allied member of the tribe within 5 feet of the bulwark is hit by an attack roll. Response: The bulwark becomes the target of that attack instead, using the same roll to determine whether it hits.

Running it. The bulwark is the one creature in the line that wants to be approached: Living Wall and a 15-foot Sporing radius price the approach, and Brace covers whatever stands behind it. At a Speed of 20 feet it cannot fix a bad angle — where it is placed at the start of the fight is where it fights.

Rootfather

Huge Plant (Orc), Chaotic Evil

The reason there is a tribe rather than sixty separate infections. He has not moved in decades; the legs went to root long ago, and what shows above ground is a mass of pale shelving four times the size of the orc it grew from. His head is still an orc's, buried to the jaw, and he can still use it — slowly, and at evident cost. Most of what he says, he says through somebody else's mouth.

AC: 17
Initiative: +6 (16)
HP: 207 (18d12+90)
Speed: 0 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	20	+5	+5	INT	14	+2	+2
DEX	6	−2	−2	WIS	18	+4	+8
CON	20	+5	+9	CHA	16	+3	+7

Immunities: Poison; Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Frightened, Poisoned, Prone
Skills: Insight +8, Perception +8
Senses: Blindsight 120 ft., Tremorsense 120 ft., Passive Perception 18
Languages: Common, Orc, Undercommon, telepathy 1 mile
CR: 11 (XP 7,200; PB +4)

Traits

Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If the rootfather fails a saving throw, he can choose to succeed instead.

Mycelial Chorus. The rootfather is the center of his colony. He knows the direction and condition of every member of it within 5 miles and can speak through any of them.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 30 feet of the rootfather makes a DC 19 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the rootfather can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of his Sporing and Sowing decreases by 5, and he takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of his turns.

Rooted. The rootfather can’t be moved against his will.

Heart of the Colony. Each allied member of the tribe within 1 mile of the rootfather has Advantage on saving throws. If the rootfather dies, every member of the tribe within 1 mile has Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws for the next 24 hours.

Regrowth. The rootfather regains 15 Hit Points at the start of each of his turns. This trait doesn’t function if he took Fire or Radiant damage since the end of him last turn.

Actions

Multiattack. The rootfather makes three Hypha Lash attacks. He can replace one attack with a use of Sowing.

Hypha Lash. Melee Attack Roll: +9, reach 30 ft. Hit: 16 (2d10 + 5) Bludgeoning damage plus 10 (3d6) Poison damage, and the target has the Grappled condition (escape DC 17) if it is Large or smaller.

Sowing (2/Day). Constitution Saving Throw: DC 19, each creature in a 30-foot-radius Sphere centered on the rootfather. Failure: 27 (6d8) Poison damage, and the target gains 2 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only, and the target gains 1 Spore Load.

Bonus Actions

Call the Tribe. One allied member of the tribe the rootfather is aware of within 1 mile moves up to its Speed toward him, and if it ends that movement within 60 feet of him it makes one attack.

Running it. The fight is about the ring between 30 and 60 feet — outside his lash and his Sporing, inside Call the Tribe’s approach corridor. Regrowth stops only for Fire and Radiant damage, and Sun-Withered means digging him out into daylight works. Heart of the Colony is why he is the target rather than the chieftain: his death turns the tribe’s save Advantage within a mile into a day of Disadvantage on everything.

The rotgill line

The rotgill line holds flooded and standing-water ground, and its disease is the one the brood is infamous for:

Rotgill Fleece

Medium Plant, Unaligned

A shag of pale filament growing anywhere damp enough to keep it: the underside of a jetty, a flooded cellar, the wet parts of a body that has been in the water a while. It does not move. It occupies a place people have to pass, and breathes out when they do.

AC: 12
Initiative: −2 (8)
HP: 78 (12d8+24)
Speed: 0 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	14	+2	+2	INT	2	−4	−4
DEX	6	−2	−2	WIS	10	+0	+0
CON	14	+2	+2	CHA	3	−4	−4

Immunities: Poison; Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Frightened, Poisoned, Prone
Senses: Blindsight 30 ft., Passive Perception 10
CR: 1 (XP 200; PB +2)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The fleece is part of a colony. It knows the direction of every other member of its colony within 1 mile, and the colony can direct it wordlessly.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 10 feet of the fleece makes a DC 12 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the fleece can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Gill-Burst decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Sessile. The fleece can be cut away from what it grows on. Doing so takes 1 minute, a bladed tool, and a DC 15 Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check. Success: The fleece comes away whole and can be carried, replanted, or rendered down. Failure: Enough is left behind to regrow. The severed portion has half its Hit Point maximum, and what remains on the substrate becomes a new Rotgill Fleece after 1d4 days. Failure or Success: Cutting opens the gills. Each creature within 10 feet of the fleece immediately makes its Sporing saving throw.

False Appearance. While the fleece remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from ordinary growth.

Actions

Multiattack. The fleece makes one Frond attack and uses Gill-Burst.

Frond. Melee Attack Roll: +4, reach 10 ft. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) Bludgeoning damage plus 3 (1d6) Poison damage.

Gill-Burst. Constitution Saving Throw: DC 12, each creature in a 10-foot-radius Sphere centered on a point the fleece can see within 30 feet. Failure: 7 (2d6) Poison damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only. Failure or Success: The area is Lightly Obscured and remains contaminated until the end of the fleece’s next turn. A creature that enters the area or ends its turn there repeats the saving throw.

Running it. The 10 feet around a fleece are dangerous whether or not it acts, and Gill-Burst contaminates the ground a party wants to stand on next. False Appearance means a flooded cellar with three fleeces in it reads as a flooded cellar. Sessile is why parties come looking for one on purpose — the Mortification remedy is rendered from its gills — and a botched cut contaminates the cutter and regrows the fleece in 1d4 days.

Rotgill Bell

Large Plant, Unaligned

The rotgill fruiting body: a pale hood taller than a man on a thick stalk, its gills stretched tight enough to sound when they release. The note is low, carries far underground, and is how a colony fills territory it has never seen.

AC: 14
Initiative: −1 (9)
HP: 105 (14d10+28)
Speed: 10 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	16	+3	+3	INT	4	−3	−3
DEX	8	−1	−1	WIS	12	+1	+1
CON	14	+2	+2	CHA	6	−2	−2

Immunities: Poison; Blinded, Charmed, Frightened, Poisoned
Senses: Blindsight 60 ft., Passive Perception 11
CR: 3 (XP 700; PB +2)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The bell is part of a colony. It knows the direction of every other member of its colony within 1 mile, and the colony can direct it wordlessly.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 10 feet of the bell makes a DC 13 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the bell can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Toll decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Struck. Whenever the bell takes Thunder damage, it regains one expended use of Toll. It can regain no more than one use this way per round.

Actions

Multiattack. The bell makes two Frond attacks.

Frond. Melee Attack Roll: +5, reach 10 ft. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) Bludgeoning damage plus 3 (1d6) Poison damage.

Toll (2/Day). Constitution Saving Throw: DC 13, each creature in a 15-foot-radius Sphere centered on a point the bell can see within 60 feet. Failure: 14 (4d6) Poison damage, the target gains 1 Spore Load, and it has the Deafened condition until the end of its next turn. Success: Half damage only. Failure or Success: The area remains contaminated until the end of the bell’s next turn. A creature that enters the area or ends its turn there repeats the saving throw.

Running it. Struck is a trap for a party that has learned the brood’s weaknesses and reached for the wrong one: Thunder damage refills Toll. The contaminated area is the creature’s output — a bell behind a chokepoint denies 30 feet of floor every other round, and walks that denial forward at 10 feet.

Drowned Chorus

Medium Plant, Neutral Evil

Whoever this was drowned standing up, over days, and never stopped talking. The lungs have gone over to pale shelving that pushes out through the chest and up the throat, and the voice comes from there now. It has every voice the colony has taken, and it uses them in the order that works.

AC: 15
Initiative: +1 (11)
HP: 136 (16d8+64)
Speed: 30 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	18	+4	+4	INT	10	+0	+0
DEX	12	+1	+1	WIS	14	+2	+5
CON	18	+4	+7	CHA	16	+3	+3

Immunities: Poison; Charmed, Frightened, Poisoned
Skills: Deception +6, Persuasion +6
Senses: Darkvision 60 ft., Passive Perception 12
Languages: Common and every language it knew before
CR: 6 (XP 2,300; PB +3)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The chorus is part of a colony. It knows the direction of, and can communicate wordlessly with, every other member of its colony within 1 mile. While at least one other member of its colony is within 60 feet, the chorus has Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 10 feet of the chorus makes a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the chorus can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Drowning Song decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Many Voices. The chorus can speak in the voice of any creature the colony has consumed, and it has Advantage on Charisma (Deception) checks made to impersonate one of them.

Still Sounds Like Them. The first time on a turn that a creature which knew the chorus before its death sees or hears it, that creature makes a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, it has Disadvantage on attack rolls against the chorus until the end of that turn.

Actions

Multiattack. The chorus makes two Grasp attacks. It can replace one attack with a use of Drowning Song.

Grasp. Melee Attack Roll: +7, reach 5 ft. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) Bludgeoning damage plus 7 (2d6) Poison damage.

Drowning Song (1/Day). Constitution Saving Throw: DC 15, each creature in a 20-foot-radius Sphere centered on a point the chorus can see within 60 feet. Failure: 21 (6d6) Poison damage, the target gains 2 Spore Load, and it can’t speak or cast spells with a Verbal component until the end of its next turn. Success: Half damage only, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Failure or Success: The area remains contaminated until the end of the chorus’s next turn. A creature that enters the area or ends its turn there repeats the saving throw.

Running it. The chorus is what stage 4 of Mortification produces, so its strongest version is one the party caused, and Still Sounds Like Them is the mechanical edge of that. Drowning Song silences speech and Verbal components — the correct weapon for a disease of the lungs — and Many Voices works before initiative: a familiar voice calling for help from somewhere out of sight.

Miasm

Huge Plant, Neutral Evil

Bad air with something in the middle of it: a loose column of hanging gill-curtain twenty feet tall, wet through, trailing filament that never quite reaches the floor. It has no front. Where it has stood for any length of time, the walls sweat and nothing else lives.

AC: 17
Initiative: +10 (20)
HP: 218 (19d12+95)
Speed: 20 ft., Fly 30 ft. (hover)

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	18	+4	+4	INT	12	+1	+1
DEX	14	+2	+2	WIS	18	+4	+8
CON	20	+5	+9	CHA	14	+2	+2

Immunities: Poison; Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Exhaustion, Frightened, Grappled, Poisoned, Prone, Restrained
Skills: Perception +8, Stealth +6
Senses: Blindsight 120 ft., Passive Perception 18
Languages: Common, Undercommon, telepathy 1 mile
CR: 11 (XP 7,200; PB +4)

Traits

Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If the miasm fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

Mycelial Chorus. The miasm is the center of its colony. It knows the direction and condition of every member of that colony within 5 miles and can speak through any of them.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 30 feet of the miasm makes a DC 18 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the miasm can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Bloomfall decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Amorphous. The miasm can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch without spending extra movement.

Choking Presence. A creature that starts its turn within 30 feet of the miasm and has 3 or more Spore Load has Disadvantage on attack rolls until the start of its next turn.

Actions

Multiattack. The miasm makes three Suffocating Coil attacks.

Suffocating Coil. Melee Attack Roll: +8, reach 10 ft. Hit: 15 (2d10 + 4) Bludgeoning damage plus 10 (3d6) Poison damage. If the target is Large or smaller, it has the Grappled condition (escape DC 16), and it can’t breathe while Grappled this way.

Bloomfall (2/Day). Constitution Saving Throw: DC 18, each creature in a 30-foot-radius Sphere centered on a point the miasm can see within 60 feet. Failure: 31 (7d8) Poison damage, and the target gains 3 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Failure or Success: The area remains contaminated for 1 minute. A creature that enters the area or ends its turn there repeats the saving throw.

Legendary Actions (3/round)

Immediately after another creature’s turn, this creature can expend a use to take one of the following actions. It regains all expended uses at the start of each of its turns.

Drift. The miasm moves up to half its Fly Speed without provoking Opportunity Attacks. The miasm can’t take this action again until the start of its next turn.

Exhale. Constitution Saving Throw: DC 18, one creature within 30 feet. Failure: 7 (2d6) Poison damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only. The miasm can’t take this action again until the start of its next turn.

Constrict. One creature Grappled by the miasm takes 10 (3d6) Bludgeoning damage. The miasm can’t take this action again until the start of its next turn.

Running it. Bloomfall grants 3 Spore Load on a failed save — half the distance to Mortification in one round — and Choking Presence is where the brood’s accumulated Spore Load is finally punished directly. A 30-foot Sporing radius and 10-foot reach leave no safe melee range. Amorphous means no door holds it; Sun-Withered means a door that leads outside does.

The ashcap line

The ashcap line holds burned ground, and it is quiet until something touches it:

Ashcap Crust

Medium Plant, Unaligned

A gray-white rind across the underside of burned ground, thin as a fingernail and as hard. It grows in the cavities a fire leaves and is seen only after somebody has put a foot through the layer above it.

AC: 12
Initiative: −2 (8)
HP: 60 (11d8+11)
Speed: 0 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	12	+1	+1	INT	2	−4	−4
DEX	6	−2	−2	WIS	10	+0	+0
CON	12	+1	+1	CHA	3	−4	−4

Resistances: Fire
Immunities: Poison; Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Frightened, Poisoned, Prone
Senses: Blindsight 30 ft., Passive Perception 10
CR: 1/2 (XP 100; PB +2)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The crust is part of a colony. It knows the direction of every other member of its colony within 1 mile, and the colony can direct it wordlessly.

Sporing (Disturbed). The crust becomes disturbed when a creature enters a space within 5 feet of it or when it takes damage, and it stays disturbed until the end of its next turn. While the crust is disturbed, a creature that ends its turn within 15 feet of it makes a DC 11 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the crust can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Ashfall decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

False Appearance. While the crust remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from burned ground.

Actions

Ashfall. Constitution Saving Throw: DC 11, each creature in a 15-foot Emanation originating from the crust. Failure: 10 (3d6) Poison damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only. Failure or Success: The area is Lightly Obscured and remains contaminated until the end of the crust’s next turn.

Running it. The crust is inert until something comes within 5 feet, and its cloud reaches three times that far, so the character who triggers it is rarely the only one who pays. A room floored with crusts is safe to stand still in and expensive to move through — it prices movement, not presence, which is at its sharpest under a fight the party has to move through.

Ashcap Censer

Large Plant, Unaligned

The ashcap fruiting body, hung rather than standing: a gray pod the size of a barrel, grown from a wall or beam on a stalk long enough to swing. It swings — slowly, without wind, to a rhythm that has nothing to do with anything nearby. What comes out when it opens is warm.

AC: 14
Initiative: −1 (9)
HP: 123 (13d10+52)
Speed: 10 ft., Climb 20 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	16	+3	+3	INT	4	−3	−3
DEX	8	−1	−1	WIS	12	+1	+1
CON	18	+4	+4	CHA	6	−2	−2

Resistances: Fire
Immunities: Poison; Blinded, Charmed, Frightened, Poisoned
Senses: Blindsight 60 ft., Passive Perception 11
CR: 4 (XP 1,100; PB +2)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The censer is part of a colony. It knows the direction of every other member of its colony within 1 mile, and the colony can direct it wordlessly.

Sporing (Disturbed). The censer becomes disturbed when a creature enters a space within 5 feet of it or when it takes damage, and it stays disturbed until the end of its next turn. While the censer is disturbed, a creature that ends its turn within 15 feet of it makes a DC 13 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the censer can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Censing decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Settling Ash. When the censer drops to 0 Hit Points, what it was holding comes down. Each creature within 20 feet of it makes its Sporing saving throw.

Actions

Multiattack. The censer makes two Chain attacks.

Chain. Melee Attack Roll: +5, reach 10 ft. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 3) Bludgeoning damage plus 5 (2d4) Poison damage.

Censing (2/Day). Constitution Saving Throw: DC 14, each creature in a 20-foot Emanation originating from the censer. Failure: 14 (4d6) Poison damage, the target gains 1 Spore Load, and it has the Blinded condition until the end of its next turn. Success: Half damage only. Failure or Success: The area remains contaminated until the end of the censer’s next turn.

Running it. Settling Ash makes the kill itself an event: dropping a censer while standing under it costs the save anyway, which rewards range and punishes rushing a stationary target. The censer climbs, and it is built to hang above a fight — a beam, a stairwell, the doorway the party has to come through — rather than stand in one.

Cinderwalk

Medium Plant, Neutral Evil

What Calcination leaves standing. The body is intact and weighs almost nothing, gray through to the bone, with no water left anywhere in it — no voice, no tears, nothing to bleed. It moves like somebody with an errand and makes no sound at all.

AC: 15
Initiative: +2 (12)
HP: 152 (16d8+80)
Speed: 30 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	18	+4	+4	INT	8	−1	−1
DEX	14	+2	+2	WIS	12	+1	+4
CON	20	+5	+8	CHA	8	−1	−1

Resistances: Fire
Immunities: Poison; Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Exhaustion, Frightened, Poisoned
Skills: Stealth +8
Senses: Blindsight 60 ft., Passive Perception 11
Languages: understands the languages it knew but can’t speak
CR: 7 (XP 2,900; PB +3)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The cinderwalk is part of a colony. It knows the direction of, and can communicate wordlessly with, every other member of its colony within 1 mile. While at least one other member of its colony is within 60 feet, the cinderwalk has Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened.

Sporing (Disturbed). The cinderwalk becomes disturbed when a creature enters a space within 5 feet of it or when it takes damage, and it stays disturbed until the end of its next turn. While the cinderwalk is disturbed, a creature that ends its turn within 15 feet of it makes a DC 16 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the cinderwalk can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Bloom of Ash decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Voiceless. The cinderwalk makes no sound and weighs almost nothing. It has Advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks, and other creatures have Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks made to hear it.

Dry Rot. A creature that takes damage from the cinderwalk can’t regain Hit Points until the end of its next turn.

Actions

Multiattack. The cinderwalk makes three Grasp attacks. It can replace one attack with a use of Bloom of Ash.

Grasp. Melee Attack Roll: +7, reach 5 ft. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) Bludgeoning damage plus 7 (2d6) Poison damage.

Bloom of Ash (1/Day). Constitution Saving Throw: DC 15, each creature in a 20-foot Emanation originating from the cinderwalk. Failure: 21 (6d6) Poison damage, the target gains 1 Spore Load, and it has the Blinded condition until the end of its next turn. Success: Half damage only. Failure or Success: The area remains contaminated until the end of the cinderwalk’s next turn.

Running it. Dry Rot is why three weak attacks beat two strong ones: any hit shuts off a target’s healing for a round, which removes a healer from the fight without touching them. The cinderwalk is the deliberate opposite of the Drowned Chorus — no voice, never heard coming, and it stops the people who mend rather than the people who speak.

Burnt Acre

Gargantuan Plant, Neutral Evil

Up to an acre of burn scar that is a single body: the ash, the fallen timbers, the standing chimneys, the ground for a foot down. Most have been in place long enough to be marked on maps as terrain. Fire does not threaten a burnt acre. Fire is how it reproduces.

AC: 18
Initiative: +8 (18)
HP: 247 (15d20+90)
Speed: 10 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	22	+6	+6	INT	10	+0	+0
DEX	6	−2	−2	WIS	16	+3	+8
CON	22	+6	+11	CHA	12	+1	+1

Immunities: Poison; Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Exhaustion, Frightened, Grappled, Paralyzed, Poisoned, Prone, Restrained
Skills: Perception +8, Stealth +8
Senses: Blindsight 120 ft., Tremorsense 120 ft., Passive Perception 18
Languages: Common, Undercommon, telepathy 1 mile
CR: 13 (XP 10,000; PB +5)

Traits

Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If the burnt acre fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

Mycelial Chorus. The burnt acre is the center of its colony. It knows the direction and condition of every member of that colony within 5 miles and can speak through any of them.

Sporing (Disturbed). The burnt acre becomes disturbed when a creature enters a space within 5 feet of it or when it takes damage, and it stays disturbed until the end of its next turn. While the burnt acre is disturbed, a creature that ends its turn within 30 feet of it makes a DC 19 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the burnt acre can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Pall decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Fire-Sown. Whenever the burnt acre is subjected to Fire damage, it takes no damage and instead regains a number of Hit Points equal to half the Fire damage dealt.

Ground Itself. The burnt acre’s space is Difficult Terrain for creatures that aren’t Sporophores, and other creatures can move through it.

Actions

Multiattack. The burnt acre makes three Sifting Limb attacks. It can replace one attack with a use of Pall.

Sifting Limb. Melee Attack Roll: +11, reach 15 ft. Hit: 19 (3d8 + 6) Bludgeoning damage plus 10 (3d6) Poison damage.

Pall (2/Day). Constitution Saving Throw: DC 19, each creature in a 40-foot Emanation originating from the burnt acre. Failure: 36 (8d8) Poison damage, and the target gains 3 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Failure or Success: The area remains contaminated for 1 minute.

Legendary Actions (3/round)

Immediately after another creature’s turn, this creature can expend a use to take one of the following actions. It regains all expended uses at the start of each of its turns.

Spread. The burnt acre moves up to its Speed. Every space it leaves remains contaminated until the end of its next turn, and a creature that enters one or ends its turn in one makes the burnt acre’s Sporing saving throw. The burnt acre can’t take this action again until the start of its next turn.

Sift. Constitution Saving Throw: DC 19, one creature within 30 feet. Failure: 10 (3d6) Poison damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only. The burnt acre can’t take this action again until the start of its next turn.

Settle. Strength Saving Throw: DC 19, one creature within 20 feet. Failure: The target has the Restrained condition until the end of its next turn as the ground takes hold of it. The burnt acre can’t take this action again until the start of its next turn.

Running it. Fire-Sown is the creature’s premise: fire is how this line reproduces, so a plan built on burning the colony out feeds it — at half rate, so a round spent on the mistake costs a round, not the fight. Sun-Withered still works; the answer is opening the roof, not lighting the floor. The disturbance clause matters most here: standing still on a burnt acre is genuinely safe, and Ground Itself and Settle exist to make standing still impossible for long.

The reredos line

The reredos line wants buildings. It cannot be taken by the other three, and its disease is the one people volunteer for:

Reredos Rind

Medium Plant, Unaligned

A gray-brown skin across worked stone, following the mortar lines like frost on a window. It grows in cellars and undercrofts and the shaded faces of standing walls, and it passes for water damage until somebody puts a hand on it.

AC: 15
Initiative: −2 (8)
HP: 71 (11d8+22)
Speed: 0 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	14	+2	+2	INT	2	−4	−4
DEX	6	−2	−2	WIS	10	+0	+0
CON	14	+2	+2	CHA	3	−4	−4

Resistances: Piercing, Slashing
Immunities: Poison; Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Frightened, Poisoned, Prone
Senses: Blindsight 30 ft., Passive Perception 10
CR: 2 (XP 450; PB +2)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The rind is part of a colony. It knows the direction of every other member of its colony within 1 mile, and the colony can direct it wordlessly.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 5 feet of the rind makes a DC 12 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the rind can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Spall decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

False Appearance. While the rind remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from a stain on the stone.

Actions

Multiattack. The rind makes two Grip attacks.

Grip. Melee Attack Roll: +4, reach 10 ft. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) Bludgeoning damage plus 3 (1d6) Poison damage.

Reactions

Spall. Trigger: The rind takes damage from a creature within 10 feet of it. Response: Constitution Saving Throw: DC 12, the triggering creature. Failure: 5 (2d4) Piercing damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only.

Running it. A rind reaches 10 feet and cannot move, so the whole creature is a decision about whether to engage it at all: pass at 11 feet and nothing happens; hit it and Spall sheds into whoever swung. Clearing three rinds off a cellar wall with melee costs four or five Spore Load without one attack that felt like an attack, which is the line’s economics in miniature.

Reredos Corbel

Large Plant, Unaligned

The reredos fruiting body, shaped like the bracket it is named for: hard gray shelving thrust from a wall at head height, wide enough to stand on and strong enough to hold a roof. Old ones are load-bearing in fact as well as appearance, and masons have built around them without asking what they were.

AC: 16
Initiative: −1 (9)
HP: 105 (14d10+28)
Speed: 10 ft., Climb 20 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	18	+4	+4	INT	4	−3	−3
DEX	8	−1	−1	WIS	12	+1	+1
CON	16	+3	+3	CHA	6	−2	−2

Resistances: Piercing, Slashing
Immunities: Poison; Blinded, Charmed, Frightened, Poisoned
Senses: Blindsight 60 ft., Passive Perception 11
CR: 5 (XP 1,800; PB +3)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The corbel is part of a colony. It knows the direction of every other member of its colony within 1 mile, and the colony can direct it wordlessly.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 5 feet of the corbel makes a DC 14 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the corbel can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Spall decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Load-Bearing. When the corbel drops to 0 Hit Points, whatever it was holding up comes down. Each creature within 10 feet of it makes a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw, taking 18 (4d8) Bludgeoning damage on a failed save or half as much on a successful one, and the area within 10 feet becomes Difficult Terrain.

Actions

Multiattack. The corbel makes two Bracket attacks.

Bracket. Melee Attack Roll: +7, reach 10 ft. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) Bludgeoning damage plus 5 (2d4) Poison damage.

Reactions

Spall. Trigger: The corbel takes damage from a creature within 10 feet of it. Response: Constitution Saving Throw: DC 14, the triggering creature. Failure: 9 (2d8) Piercing damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only.

Running it. Load-Bearing makes killing a corbel worse than leaving it alive for a round, and lets the line change the floor without anything moving. The corbel climbs and is usually above the fight — on a wall the party has to pass under rather than in the room with them.

Buttress

Large Plant, Neutral Evil

What Ankylosis leaves standing: a person set solid, arms fused down and out into two thick braces, head sunk between them, the whole figure leaning as if holding something up. It walks, slowly, and the marks it leaves in a flagstone floor are a settling pier's.

AC: 18
Initiative: −2 (8)
HP: 138 (12d10+72)
Speed: 20 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	22	+6	+10	INT	6	−2	−2
DEX	6	−2	−2	WIS	12	+1	+1
CON	22	+6	+10	CHA	8	−1	−1

Resistances: Piercing, Slashing
Immunities: Poison; Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Exhaustion, Frightened, Poisoned, Prone
Senses: Blindsight 60 ft., Tremorsense 60 ft., Passive Perception 11
Languages: understands the languages it knew but can’t speak
CR: 9 (XP 5,000; PB +4)

Traits

Mycelial Chorus. The buttress is part of a colony. It knows the direction of, and can communicate wordlessly with, every other member of its colony within 1 mile. While at least one other member of its colony is within 60 feet, the buttress has Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 5 feet of the buttress makes a DC 17 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the buttress can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Spall decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

Immovable. The buttress can’t be moved against its will.

Shoring. Allied Sporophore creatures within 5 feet of the buttress have Half Cover.

Actions

Multiattack. The buttress makes two Pillar Arm attacks.

Pillar Arm. Melee Attack Roll: +10, reach 10 ft. Hit: 22 (3d10 + 6) Bludgeoning damage plus 10 (3d6) Poison damage.

Reactions

Spall. Trigger: The buttress takes damage from a creature within 10 feet of it. Response: Constitution Saving Throw: DC 16, the triggering creature. Failure: 14 (4d6) Piercing damage, and the target gains 2 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only, and the target gains 1 Spore Load.

Running it. Spall grants Spore Load on a successful save — Challenge Rating 8 is where the brood’s success rule first lands on a party — so every melee round costs contamination however the dice fall, and Armor Class 18 with Resistance to Piercing and Slashing makes for many melee rounds. Immovable at a Speed of 20 feet means it fights where it stands: a doorway, a stair head, a bridge.

Nave

Gargantuan Plant, Neutral Evil

A whole building — a chapter house, a granary, a drowned chapel — grown through until fabric and fungus cannot be told apart. The doors work. The stairs hold. The windows still let light in, which is the one thing about it that is not deliberate.

AC: 19
Initiative: +7 (17)
HP: 198 (12d20+72)
Speed: 0 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	24	+7	+7	INT	14	+2	+2
DEX	4	−3	−3	WIS	18	+4	+9
CON	22	+6	+11	CHA	16	+3	+3

Resistances: Piercing, Slashing
Immunities: Poison; Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Exhaustion, Frightened, Grappled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Poisoned, Prone, Restrained
Skills: Perception +10
Senses: Blindsight 120 ft., Tremorsense 120 ft., Passive Perception 20
Languages: Common, Undercommon, telepathy 1 mile
CR: 15 (XP 13,000; PB +5)

Traits

Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If the nave fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

Mycelial Chorus. The nave is the center of its colony. It knows the direction and condition of every member of that colony within 5 miles and can speak through any of them.

Sporing. A creature that ends its turn within 30 feet of the nave makes a DC 19 Constitution saving throw. Failure: The creature gains 1 Spore Load. Success: No effect, and the creature is immune to Sporing until the start of its next turn.

Sun-Withered. While in sunlight, the nave can’t regain Hit Points, the Difficulty Class of its Sporing and Spall decreases by 5, and it takes 3 (1d6) Radiant damage at the end of each of its turns.

The Building Itself. The nave’s space is the interior of the structure. Creatures inside it are within reach of its attacks regardless of where they stand, are in contact with the nave for the purposes of Sporing and Spall, and doors, shutters, and stairs within it are part of the nave rather than objects it controls.

Immovable. The nave can’t be moved against its will.

Actions

Multiattack. The nave makes three Masonry attacks. It can replace one attack with a use of Settle.

Masonry. Melee Attack Roll: +12, reach 15 ft. Hit: 26 (4d8 + 8) Bludgeoning damage plus 10 (3d6) Poison damage.

Settle (2/Day). The whole structure drops half an inch at once. Dexterity Saving Throw: DC 19, each creature in a 40-foot Emanation originating from the nave. Failure: 36 (8d8) Bludgeoning damage, and the target has the Prone condition. Success: Half damage only. Failure or Success: The area becomes Difficult Terrain from fallen masonry until the end of the nave’s next turn.

Reactions

Spall. Trigger: The nave takes damage from a creature within 30 feet of it. Response: Constitution Saving Throw: DC 19, the triggering creature. Failure: 21 (6d6) Piercing damage, and the target gains 2 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only, and the target gains 1 Spore Load.

Legendary Actions (3/round)

Immediately after another creature’s turn, this creature can expend a use to take one of the following actions. It regains all expended uses at the start of each of its turns.

Close. A door, shutter, or hatch within the nave shuts and sets. It cannot be opened without a successful DC 20 Strength (Athletics) check or 30 damage. The nave can’t take this action again until the start of its next turn.

Shift. A 20-foot square of floor, wall, or stair within the nave rises, drops, or cants. The area becomes Difficult Terrain, and each creature in it makes a DC 19 Dexterity saving throw, falling Prone on a failure. The nave can’t take this action again until the start of its next turn.

Shed. Constitution Saving Throw: DC 19, one creature within 30 feet. Failure: 10 (3d6) Piercing damage, and the target gains 1 Spore Load. Success: Half damage only. The nave can’t take this action again until the start of its next turn. Settle is the only area effect in the line and it is not a spore effect. It contaminates nobody. The Sporing radius is the other thing worth reading carefully. Every other reredos sheds at 5 feet, and the nave sheds at 30, which looks like the line breaking its own rule. It is not. The Building Itself makes the interior of the structure the nave’s body, so a creature standing anywhere inside it is touching the nave — the radius is larger because the creature is bigger, not because the rule changed. The same reasoning is why Shed reaches 30 feet: it is contact contamination, delivered by a wall the target is already inside.

Running it. The Building Itself makes the structure’s interior the creature’s body — which is why its Sporing and Shed reach 30 feet: contact contamination, delivered by a wall the target is already inside. Close and Shift carry the encounter: the nave is not trying to kill the party quickly, it is making sure that leaving takes longer than they have. The windows still letting light in is the fight’s solution — Sun-Withered is written into the architecture.