Homebrew Fungal Species (based off of cordyceps and tiefling) Species Details
I'm going to be completely honest, this species came out of a bit where I wanted to play 3 badgers in a trenchcoat for a Way of the Drunken Master monk. It's a stupid idea, prone to many changes as my DM needs it to happen (balance, thematic changes, lore, etc.). Do not play this species if you don't like fun.
This species is loosely inspired by the cordyceps fungus, and by that I mean about as loose as the song Footloose by Kenny Loggins. It's using the base of the 5e tiefling race, but I'm only using one corner of the race as a framework, the rest is my mind goop.
Trans rights, free Palestine, don't be racist, ask for consent in your games, yes this is leftist propaganda.
No I haven't made introductory flavour text yet, I have things to do.
Fungal Species (based off of cordyceps and tiefling) Traits
You are now a fungus. Go wreak havoc on the local small wildlife to build yourself a body.Ability Score Increase
Your Wisdom score increases by 1, and your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age
(Filler name) come into existence fully physically mature, but initially lack life experience to make good decisions, gained as they age. The lifespan of (Filler name) is unknown, but likely no more than 120 years.
Size
(Filler name) vary in size, depending on their current form(s). The largest size that (Filler name) reaches is Medium. Consult your DM as needed if you are divided among multiple Splits or have a low Creature Count.
Speed
Your walking speed (or tumbling speed) in your Natural Form is 25ft, and your walking speed in your Built Form or Splits is 30ft.
Blindsight and Tremorsense
Due to you being a fungal hivemind possessing a posse of petit and peculiar creatures, you do not have eyes, and perceive the world around you differently to species that enjoy sight and a localized nervous system. While you can view the world around you out of your small critter friends eyes, this is difficult and requires steadying yourself. You can sense and notice things with "hearing" and "feeling" your surroundings (even if that's a gross oversimplification of complex fungal body anatomy) for 5ft, and can "feel" (again, gross oversimplification) tremorsense up to a range of 30ft.
- This does not mean you have 35ft total of blindsight and tremorsense, your characters blindsight overlaps their tremorsense, and their radii do not contribute to each other.
- Your character can still use vision through animals they've possessed, though with its downsides, to the range that weather permits (such as fog, rain/snow, or looming enchanted darkness).
- Despite having blindsight for 5ft, your character can still be surprised, frightened, sneak attacked, or otherwise caught off gaurd.
Natural and Built Forms
Natural Form: without possessed wildlife, your form resembles a mushy but elastic tumbleweed of greenish-greyish tangles, with a singular amorphous glowing dot in your centre. This glowing dot doesn't shed enough light to see, and you can suppress the glow at will. In this form, you gain/suffer from these specific effects.
- You are considered as size small, weigh a quarter of your Built Form weight, and have a movement speed of 25ft.
- You have disadvantage on attacks, disadvantage on constitution and strength saving throws, and can only cast cantrip level spells.
- You only have access to blindsight and tremorsense. You can still feel, smell, hear, and taste.
- You have hit points equal to your level.
This form does not limit your communication, interaction with objects, abilities, or ability scores. Additionally, if you are reduced to 0 hit points in this form, you outright die instead of going unconscious. If a Split in its Natural Form dies, you do not die outright, instead taking an exhaustion point.
Built Form: while this isn't your form at default, this is a form more suited to survival. In this form, you are comprised of up to 20 creatures that must have an intelligence of less than 5, and must be of size small or tiny. You must keep track of the number of creatures under your possession, and may optionally keep track of the types of creatures under your possession. The number of creatures under your possession is known as your Creature Count. Using a bonus action, you may "break off" your Built Form into Splits, resembling tightly-knit packs of small creatures rather than tiny humanoids. You can reincorporate Splits into your Built Form at will.
- These Splits share all of your player attributes.
- Each Split has its own movement and reaction, and you can move multiple of them in a turn equal to your movement speed.
- Each Split has hit points equal to your current hit points divided your Creature Count and multiplied by the number of creatures within each Split, rounded down. For example, if your character has 30 hit points, a Creature Count of 8, and breaks off into Splits of 3 and 5, the two Splits will have 11 and 18 hit points respectively.
- You as a player control all of the Splits, can use your action and bonus action on any of them, but do not gain additional actions or bonus actions as you gain Splits.
You cannot intentionally create Splits of your Natural Form, but if a Split of your Built Form reaches 0 hit points and changes into its Natural Form, it is still vulnerable and can die.
In this form you can take the Use Possessed Creature Vision action, reducing your movement to 0ft until the start of your next turn and allowing your player to use sight through the eyes of one possessed creature of your Built Form until you next move. If your Built Form or a Split are reduced to 0 hit points in this form, half of the creatures making up your Built Form or Split scatter, the rest of the creatures die, and you are returned to your Natural Form.
To possess a creature, you puff a cloud of intoxicating spores in its direction, where it must make a DC10 intelligence save or be fully under your control as a part of your body. This creature is then incorporated into your body, but can only controlled as part of a Split or your Built Form. Alternatively, you can spend 1d4 hours searching for the necessary creatures to reach a count of 20 creatures. You can shed these creatures at will.
Spore-adic Abilities
You know the poison spray cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the disguise self spell as a 1st-level spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the suggestion spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Languages
You can speak, read, and write Common and Umbral.
Previous Versions
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