Talking some stuff over with my players before a horror game so I can proper scare them and all.
Mushrooms. Fungi. Apparently, there's something scary about them. People definitely seem to find them scary on some level.
Can't for the love of me understand why. Is that a random phobia? There's got to be some kind of logic behind that.
Why are mushrooms scary and how can use them for the scare factor beyond a. myconids b. the boring old cordyceps zombie meme?
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>how can use them for the scare factor
make them grow out of the PCs
Wouldn't that be equally scary if a plant did that? I'm trying to figure out what is it about mushrooms that makes them inherently scarier than, say, bacteria, or moss, or whatever.
Mushrooms aren't quite plants and aren't quite animals. They're in an alien grey area that makes them creepy. That's along with the fact that they have odd, soft textures, strange smells, and often pallid colors. They grow in the moist dark and on dead things. They can be poisonous, deadly, or even cause madness.
The spookiest thing I can come up with is what they did in Wasteland 2. Make mushrooms spray players with spores. They might burrow into skin and start growing like said, or act as an infection and change them into mushroom mutants or some shit. Time pressure of being infected gives additional scariness (unless it doesn't fit your campaign).
Airborne spores are creepy.
You are thinking of normal portabelliws or shit. The fungal world gets way scarrier than that.
Fungi run the gamut for horror. Grow on dead things and signify rot? Check. Deadly? Check. Weird body horror? Oh my, yes. If fungi could do to humans what it does to insects, you would be fucking terrified of them.
And when we say poisonous, we mean it. There is a type of white mushroom that apparently tastes like chicken. It is so deadly that you can eat it in a hospital and still only have 50/50 odds of survival, because the only treatment is to throw it up before any of it gets absorbed by your digestive system. Otherwise, you have a bunch of fun little chemicals bouncing around your body that prevents any cell it contacts from performing celluar respiration, without being absorbed by any of them so it just keeps going and hitting more cells until it eventually kills you. Essentially, it makes chunks of your body starve to death in minutes with no way to stop it.
This! I think the scariest thing about shrooms is the tiny insoluble babies that they shoot into the air. They could be hallucinatory and make the players see things, they could be infectious and spread from creature to creature, or even just be poison that makes the players really sick and weak
The "zombies" of Last of Us were all mushroom people too.
They also pop up suddenly, unasked for, and in great amount in the least predictable places.
(Okay, maybe still predictable, moist, dark places etc. But there were never fungi there for years and now there's a fucking mushroom shrub there!)
Mold or Bacteria wouldnt be quite as scary to me because I can't very well characterize them. I can understand them intellectually and why they could be bad, but the unique shapes and packages that fungi can come in gives something for my monkeybrain to latch onto.
Like having a name and a particular form factor that the fungus takes, now I can be paranoid about anything that remotely matches that silhouette or color and let it haunt my thoughts.
Unlike just being scared of the symptoms of a disease, for example.
I think the horror from mushrooms doesn't come from flashy shit like suggested.
To me, the horror in mushrooms comes from what said, how they grow in damp places and on decaying matter. They have spores flying through the air, your players are breathing them in and covering their equipment. If you're in a place where there shouldn't be mushrooms growing and you see them, that's an instant cue that something is messed up. If it's fantasy, you could change that from "it's damp and generally unclean" to something like "there's an overly heavy field of magic here" that causes them to grow.
Does it always have to be "le spooky magic field juice" for it to be fantasy? Can't they just be big fuckoff poisonous mushrooms, but drying the place out and getting some light in the area would fix the shroom problem, just as well as fireball would?
Why do fantasy problems always have to devolve into "It was magic!" when plenty of problems can still be interesting and "magical" without requiring the direct cause and effect be some highly abstract idea about power and planar forces?
Oh they don't have to be "regular zombies but with mushroom hats this time". Let players retain control, but make changes to their bodies.
>guy gets sprayed
>his manual skills start decreasing
>after some time his hands noticeably change into some gruesome pic rel.
You could try making them dumber when infection hits the brain, but that could be hard to play off gameplay wise and might annoy the player too much.
Yeah I can see that, with mushrooms being more of an sign of danger than danger itself. I just went with that train of thought because op mentioned zombies and walking mushroom dudes so I assumed he wanted something more dynamic with mushrooms playing the main role while not being too cliche.
>They're in an alien grey area
Not really, they're Opisthokonta, like animals.
They're the closest to us (as animals) living beings that exist.
they can be whatever you want user, it's all make believe. you don't have to get so mad.
I think Matango hit it on the nose. Playing on the strange hallucinogenic aspects of mushrooms, as well as making them something that functions unlike a plant or animal but in some ways both (The mushrooms being addictive when eaten, and then causing the slow and horrific transformation into a fungal mutant) work for it.
Mushrooms really bring these ideas of rot and ruin and delirium and in some cases, poisonous death. There are a lot of stories of people picking what they think are edible mushrooms, only to die horribly after eating them, sometimes hours after the fact without warning.
Even without cordyceps, mushrooms can really bring these themes of decay and madness in a really fun, unnerving way.
Fun fact: Matango was almost banned in Japan because the makeup used in the finale to show that poor whatshisname has eaten the mushrooms looked too much like the disfigurements characteristic of Hiroshima/Nagasaki nuke survivors.
Motherfucking Cordyceps.
I feel like cordyceps really are a peak for mushroom related decay and madness. First they get disoriented and probably delirious, then they try to maneuver into the best place for spores to spread from, then they get a deathgrip on whatever's convenient in that area, and then they die, sprouting cordyceps fruit that then starts sporing. Even if they aren't zombies and are "only" deliriously trying to reach a high exposure spot to die in, that's all kinds of scary.
I dunno, a tendency to ooze black ichor after feasting on the bodies of those killed in battle isn't that scary, is it?
New mushrooms grow from tiny particles much better than plants grow from tiny particles. Insects are mobile & tend to have more 'active' connotations than the above.
That said, any sort of loss of bodily autonomy is Big Horror. Brain worms. Zombie fungus. The trees in Evil Dead. Hell, one of the most popular kids book franchises in the 90s/00s was all about alien puppeteer brain slugs.
Fungal horror's a little overplayed in its niche (like the term ICE in cyberpunk) but it's effective for a reason. It's more visual than bacteria or any similar contagion, but retains that classic 'everything in this place is coated in invisible poisons that will eat you alive if you're not careful' atmosphere.
>Apparently, there's something scary about them
Nigga wut? Mushrooms are delicious
Mushrooms think you're delicious.
I mean really, all creatures outside microbes are essentially from the same genus thanks to the shared ancestor deal.
To think, life as we know it exists thanks to one really successful bacteria.
Seeing a whole mass congregation of cordycept infected thri-keen fighting their clumsy way up a dwarven held mountain, slaying any dwarf that tries to protect their mountain home from the sudden invasion.
All up and down the slopes, the bodies of freshly killed dwarves jerk to life as the infection spreads through them, driving them incoherently up the mountain while their muscles slowly degrade.
Eventually, through sheer persistence, the horde reaches the top of the mountain, where the fierce winds on the leeward side blow spores across the fertile plains that the mountains seperated from the arid desert the fungus was borne in, causing any recently killed animal or person to jerk back into motion and attack the living to spread itself more.
Thus does the Evil Goddess of Life grow her flock after centuries of being imprisoned in the desert
I have a theory that mushrooms in general make people in uncomfortable. I think this is because children learn about mushrooms as being food (and healthy food at that), but then only having negative experiences with mushrooms, if you pick mushrooms outside or try to eat them your parents may panic and tell you to wash your hands. If there are mushrooms growing in your house you have to leave while the cleaning crew gets rid of them. Even if you don't experience this directly, you'll hear about from friends and teachers growing up.
Tl;dr the duality of mushrooms (dangerous/causes fear vs looks cool and is supposed to be food) makes people uncertain and uncomfortable subconsciously
If it's like real cordyceps, then they won't be hostile, just singleminded. If they get caught, you can just cart them away and dump them somewhere safe (Ants do it all the time, nab 'em and toss them far away before they spore). The threat comes from the fact that there might be too many to catch, and they aren't loudly announcing their presence. It only takes one to make it up and stay isolated for it to start sporing, and then it's all over because you can't easily avoid breathing.
I have a mycophobia.
Fungus are scary because:
>Disgust
They’re closer to animals than plants. They’re fleshy growths. Blobs of something vaguely animal-like, but utterly alien.
>Uncouth
They exist off of rot. No mushroom produces their own “food” like plants. They require something not only dead, but rotting.
>Safety
They can actually grow on and in you no problem. A plant needs sunlight and soil. A fungus just needs your flesh and moisture. There’s a good chance you have several grams of fungus in and on you right now. There’s a very real safety factor. People die from fungus by the thousands every day and it’s an awful way to go
>Brain Control
>They exist off of rot. No mushroom produces their own “food” like plants. They require something not only dead, but rotting.
Not strictly true. Plenty of fungi can grow feeding off of living organisms.
>They don’t know Cordyceps doesn’t control your brain, but your muscles
>They don’t know they’d be conscious and a prisoner in their own body as it’s hijacked by an “not-quite-an-animal”
>They don’t know they’d feel it spreading it’s tendrils so jam packed that they feel like they’ll rupture from the inside as they’re stumbling to higher ground towards their death
>They’re closer to animals than plants.
that doesn't really matter - they're "closer" in the sense that they lack a bunch of cellular mechanisms that plants evolved, but they're really agnostic about what they eat or infect or meld with - take lichen, for instance: It's a fungus that consumed but doesn't digest a photosynthetic algae, instead giving it light and water enough to feed it a steady diet of sugars, and packaging excess algae off into its spores and daughter cells.
Who knows, maybe if humans weren't so squimish about being "infected" (such a negative term!) by funguses, maybe the fungus could let you borrow some of the sugars its algae passengers have, and you'd never need to worry about hunger or working again, just drink lots of water and gets lots of sunlight and you'd be free of all your worries, maybe on some large building or skyscraper, so you have a nice view and you can stay cool due to the breezes and winds you get high up.
>There are people who are such massive pussy they're actually scared of this
Go away, Cordyceps
Did you know that the largest living organism on earth is a fungus in Oregon?
they're quite happy with poop even, really what the "grows on corpses" thing is from is that most organisms only release their nitrogen after death and the ultimate limiting factor on fungus biomass is generally nitrogen sources; pretty much every other chemical neccesity they need is in excess in nature.
So eat lots of onions and grow lots of mushrooms.
Fuck you user, my mouth is actually watering and now I feel hungry.
Is that Brad? I heard he's a fun guy.
Did you know the heaviest living organism is a plant that pretends its a fungus by making a mycelium out of roots?
I thought it was an entire forest that shares it’s roots? It’s name is Pando.
Do you need to bring up your mother in every discussion?
So fungi, needing dead and rotting things to live, still manages to live in our bodies while we're neither, and never mind things like yeast happily existing off of nothing but starch and water.
Well, it isn't like we aren't symbiots as it is. We need a few pounds of assorted bacteria spread all over and throughout of our bodies to function properly, and the central powerplant in our cellular metabolism, the mithocondria, are an old infection that turned out to be a lot easier to live with than without. Who knows, maybe there's a few fungi (some kind of yeast for example) that would serve well in our gut culture.
Ah, yeah, whoops. Largest living fungi, not organism.
Still, 2,200 acres and 2400 years ain't nothin' to sneeze at.
Mushrooms are neat
This. Cordyceps is way more horrifying even than people think.
>imagine feeling it growing throughout your body, probably very painfully, controlling your actions as it drives you towards whatever location will spread more deadly spores to the most people.
Long, eerie strands, growing out of anything that's in an airapace with them, consuming stuff from the inside
I've never seen anyone afraid of them. In fact, I think they're tasty
*airspace
yup!
That isn't a mushroom.
Yeah that's a contagious bone cancer that spawned the jackarabbit myth.
>contagious skin cancer
ftfy
At least they're not wasps.
They kinda look like penises a little bit.
Now that you mention it...
Well it's a "skin cancer" in the same sense that varruccas are - things that grow "out" of your skin are generally fine and won't metastasise and kill you, it's stuff that grows IN that's cancerous.
(papilomas are generally cool anyway, a great way to learn about the mechanics of skin cell organisation and general epiphelial cell behaviour)
...
I’m terrified of fungus, but Zangarmarsh (pictured, World of Warcraft), Blackreach (Skyrim) and the Underdark (D&D) are my favorite landscapes in fantasy. I don’t know why.
OF course, I’ve been eating mushrooms for years.
The best part is, taking from real underground tunnels and dungeon like structures, fantasy dungeons would be SMOCK FULL of fungi, spores, mycelium and all kinds of bacteria harboring goop threads. With the air burning brightly around your torches and theres more spores in the air than air, chocking you.
Most people can't walk in old maintenance tunnels or mines anymore without a gasmask or seperate air supply.
>Fungus sprouting its genitalia
youtu.be
optimalprediction.com
>Found inside the Chernobyl reactor.
Isn't the stuff that glows in all fantasy settings dungeons and tunnel systems a fungus?
But yeah, "Adventurer's Lung" should be a thing, just people who've got lungs full of mushrooms and cough up Duxelle every so often from doing too much dungeon delving.
Drow and other underdark critters are naturally immune.
That rad-eating fungus is going to be critical for humans going forward.
No, they don't and I will never understand this nip meme, do nips just have some really fucking mutated penises or something?
>tfw I have jock itch
I feel like mushrooms look a lot more living than plants in general. Also, their textures and structure can be very off-putting, like trypophobia or something
Eating mushrooms is like playing Russian Roulette. They are probably good food, but there is a small chance they instantly kill you or cause you to hallucinate for hours. It can be very difficult to tell the difference between poisonous and non-poisonous and poison mushrooms are very potent. This is why it is a fantasy/horror/medieval trope.
I would avoid the reddit cordyceps zombie meme.
livescience.com
Give them a nice kawai pet ant. Then this happens. Get them invested in the ant, let them buff it, then it turns.
t.fungus
and: what appears to be a multiplicity of mushrooms is actually one. i think that secret truth is something frightening about mushrooms
That actually looks pretty tasty, like vanilla ice cream with syrup.
Fungus are the things wasps have nighmares about.
For some strange reason, I want to fry that with some salt and olive oil.
In a recent campaign, my GM employed a poisonous mushroom type which spat up spores of an awful sort. Any characters that died of the stuff would gradually have their organs rot out as mycelium would line the insides of their bodies. The stuff would reanimate them, like a lame puppet of themselves, pretending to be fine until these infested could find new targets to infect with their own spores.
This was inspired by that fungus that makes zombie ants.
I've heard it's actually super nauseatingly bitter
Dude, you need to get some Destroying Angel. infection by spores causes fever and chills. This lasts s couple hours. Then your F#CKED. Destroying Angel has killed your bodies ability to use your DNA cellular blueprint. Every cell that dies is now irreplaceable. You feel nothing, the walking dead phase. Check it.
en.wikipedia.org
Fungi are bullshit. It’s prions that are fucking terrifying.
Prions are just self replicating nano-machines created and spread via cannibalism, nothing particularly creepy about any of that.
>prions becoming an issue because of industrialisation of farming
>HIV becoming an issue because of colonial exploitation of the Congo
There's a hamfisted social critique in there somewhere
The things I'd do to Sucy...
And if you fail her she feeds you potions until you cease to be a failure.
Which may not end well for you, but there you go.
That's nothing. One of the USSR space stations found fungus growing on the *outside*. It had spread from the inside and showed no signs of being even slightly impaired in the vacuum of space.
Things?
>tyranid bioforms ALREADY on holy terra in the 21st millenium
scienceblogs.com
huffingtonpost.com
>up to 10 percent of the active genes in microscopic bdelloids comes from bacteria and other organisms like fungi and algae
>RL Tyranids
>tfw they completely ruined her character by making her a Flip
Have fungi that partially gain energy from accelerating the rust reaction. This can be employed only a couple ways to terrifying effect. Suppose your players get a car, and they've stopped for the night and spent an hour wrapping their car in plastic so no fungi get in, but they miss a spot (inevitably), and while they're sleeping, in creeps the fungi and eats away all night long, and during the night they're woken by an attack and they all dash for the car and try to start it...but it won't start, and they try again, nothing, so one of them pops the hood and is drenched in spores as a colony has settled around the engine block....
Her name is Filipino, how could she not be a flip?
Well, does she yell "Putang ina" when she curses? Or playing online games?
When one doesn't know a lot about mushrooms or fungi I guess it's easier to think of them as an "other" type thing
In a fntasy setting I came up with a a group of thaumavoric (magic eating) fungi that had a variety of ways of controlling emotions to feed some would cause elation in people so that they want to stay nearby while they are infected with spores, while others make groups increasingly more volatile and on edge until they break out into a fight and then eats the magic from their corpses.
Parties would notice that the enchantments they have on gear would start to fade while they were nearby and such.
>guy gets sprayed
>his manual skills start decreasing
>after some time his hands noticeably change into some gruesome
Make it all go on in their own head while they sit in the corner babbling and shrieking like retards.
Or just give them athelete's foot or crotch rot, or something.
Don't they look kind of cute?
I chuckled.
>Mushrooms. Fungi. Apparently, there's something scary about them. People definitely seem to find them scary on some level.
I always thought it was just me.
When I see a mushroom growing on the side of the street while walking a feel a slight panic response. I try to avoid ever eating any mushrooms but for some reason they are on so many foods. I am able to eat them if I eat quickly and try really hard to not think about what I am eating, but it isn't ever a pleasant experience. I'd prefer if fungi didn't exist.
The thing that also gets me is that they have no nutritional value. Like, none. They only taste good, and not even all of them.
Fuck shrooms
Don't lie. They have some nutritional value.
en.wikipedia.org
And besides, they get a whole lot better if they get to grow on soy.
en.wikipedia.org
I feel like you could get some mileage out of making the fungus part or a tool of some greater entity. You don't have to do the whole Cordyceps thing with actual mind control, or even have the fungus be all that active.
Instead, the fungus, and to a lesser extent its spores, is merely the herald of this entity. Where the fungus grows, or where the spore-clouds are thick enough, the entity has awareness. Get enough of it in you, and it may start affecting your dreams. However, beyond this, it doesn't actually DO that much... except spread, and spread, and spread. Fungus-cults inspired by the dreams spring up in infested areas, and in true cult fashion set to converting or eliminating everyone around them.
Soon, all shall be covered. Soon, all shall be safe under the spore-eyes.
And you just found a small mushroom growing in your ear.
