Ascomoid

I was just preparing to go down into the catacombs, perhaps have a word with the dragon ghost, when I recalled this highly melodramatic entry from one of the many journals of visiting scholars that had been collected.

From Journal of Thalion Underleaf, Sage and Adventurer

An Entry Dated: The 17th of Eleint, or the 21st of the Fading, the 264th day in the Year of the Wandering Wyvern, in the reckoning of the Calendar of Harptos.

"Today's foray into the hidden depths beneath the venerable library of Candlekeep has etched an indelible mark upon my soul, an adventure teeming with peril and wonder that shall linger in my memory like the haunting echoes of an ancient chant.

My journey began with the descent into the catacombs, a labyrinthine network of forgotten passages where the air is thick with the scent of musty tomes and the weight of bygone eras. Guided by the flickering light of my trusty lantern, I navigated through corridors lined with the silent sentinels of knowledge; their stone faces veiled in shadows.

Yet, not the lure of lost lore that tested my mettle that day but the crossing of an ancient rope bridge, a precarious span over a yawning chasm so deep, its bottom lay cloaked in impenetrable darkness. The distant roar of the Sword Coast's tumultuous waves and the tang of salt air rising from the abyss served as my only companions as I approached the bridge, its timeworn ropes and weathered planks a testament to the countless souls who had dared its passage before me.

With a heart both heavily cautious and buoyant that I was further into the depths than I had ever been before, I set foot upon the bridge, each step a whispered prayer to the traveler. Midway, a plank gave way; my heart may have stopped there for a moment, yet I pressed on, driven by the unquenchable thirst for discovery that had drawn me to Candlekeep's incredible collections.

Having conquered the bridge with limbs trembling yet spirit unbroken, I was scarcely granted a moment's respite before the shadow of a new adversary loomed large. From the depths of the catacombs, a creature most foul and wondrous emerged: the Ascomoid, a behemoth of fungal origin, its leathery hide a tapestry of pocks and spores.

Rolling with deceptive grace, this puffball monstrosity confronted me with the full measure of its alien might. Its first approach was a slow, deliberate advance, gaining speed like a storm gathering fury on the horizon. The air grew thick with a steamy mist that puffed from the pores. The inside of this ten-foot ball of fungus was actually fairly warm, and I could feel the waft of toxic spores in that dank air. 

I readied myself for the onslaught with no recourse but to stand my ground. The Ascomoid attacked, not with the brute force I had anticipated, but with a cunning use of its spore jets, targeting me as if it understood my intentions. The jet, a narrow stream of death, barely missed me, its spores exploding into a cloud of poison.

I leaped aside, drawing upon every ounce of my agility, and countered with a barrage of spells, though I knew its mindless nature rendered it immune to charms that would sway creatures of intellect. My arcane and physical attacks seemed to scratch its formidable hide barely, or perhaps they did, but without blood spilling out of it, there is often little sign it has been badly injured.

With a combination of wit, will, and desperation, I managed to outmaneuver the creature, using its momentum against it and leaping out of the way of the spore attacks.

As I pen these words, the echoes of my encounter with the Ascomoid and the memory of the bridge's treacherous span mingle in my thoughts, a reminder of the fine line between folly and bravery. Yet, it is in the heart of danger that we often find our truest selves, in the shadow of death, that we grasp the fleeting beauty of life.

Thus, I close this entry with a heart both weary and exultant, for today, I have danced with the dark and emerged into the light, my spirit enriched by the trials endured and the mysteries unveiled. Let this account serve as a beacon to those who would follow in my footsteps, a testament to the enduring allure of the unknown and the unquenchable flame of curiosity that burns within us all."

Now, for those unfamiliar with how the Monks of Candlekeep operate, this is a fluffed-up personal journal handed over to the Monks to gain access to the Library; the scholar obviously failed to bring back any books from the catacombs. The scholar went into the forbidden passages below the library, perhaps on the way to the old smuggler's cove connected to the sea caves; you can find a lot of old cargo crates down there, and some books I suppose, but the sea caves are too damp to keep books in good condition, no wonder they all got riddled with fungus and produced an Ascomoid eventually. It could have been some of the more illegal and unethical cargo that smugglers trade in, spices, narcotics and toxins. I know of one the Drow manufacture, perhaps the second most dangerous poison they make, and not just for the victims. 

You see, two hundred and eighteen years ago, deep below the land of Vaasa, V'elddrinnsshar was a drow city located on a mile-wide island in the center of the Moondeep Sea, actually a lake some 250 miles wide, one of a few in that region of the Underdark. V'elddrinnsshar translates roughly into the city of Secret Thoughts or something similar, it was a center of Lolth worship, as one might expect, and it was also a dystopian nightmare of plots, feuds, sabotage and assassination where the Dark elves used any means they could find to inflict pain, suffering and either swift or lingering death on their enemies. One infamous and as it turns out, highly dangerous toxin was a serum containing the active spores of a type of predatory fungus called the Ascomoid. I don't know exactly how it happened, but I suspect it started out as an attack on a rival House of Drow nobility in the city, which transformed suddenly into a virulently contagious Ascomoid Plague.

Victims of this plague developed large blisters across their bodies that would rupture at the slightest touch, releasing a cloud of fungal spores into the vicinity that would potentially infect more people. In the end, Lolth was no protection from the rampant fungus spread, and the entire city population either fled or died so suddenly that it was ten years before the city was investigated by the local Grey Dwarves and word spread to the surface realms.

The sparse details of these events can be found in the pages 'Storm of the Dead' a novel by Lisa Smedman published in 2007.

In its alchemically suspended serum containing the hibernating spores, the Ascomoid toxin can be delivered into the body via food, drink or coating a bladed weapon or dart; only a tiny amount of spores entering the bloodstream will see them spread through the victim's circulatory system, quickly sprouting and starting to devour them from the inside, eventually producing spore fruiting blisters that burst on contact to spread the deadly organism further. Blistering in the lungs is among the final symptoms, and I suspect this is how the invasive fungus managed to wipe out the whole city; in fact, two of the four most deadly fungi to humans on Earth both attack the lung tissue of the victim, leading to death.

Ascomoids grow quickly from a carpet of fungus that has devoured some sort of corpse, taking only a few weeks to grow from spores if water, warmth, and flesh are available. After which, they will break off from their stem and begin to roll around their environment, actively hunting after carrion or opportunities to infect a living creature.

The numerous pore holes lead to more complex structures in the spongy flesh of the Ascomoid; they serve as some sort of sensory organ that is highly sensitive to vibrations so that they can hear and feel the movement around them through the ground, any object floating silently in the air is invisible to them. They grow to between five and ten feet wide; the big ones weigh 500 pounds. The leather outer skin is thick and resistant to bludgeoning damage, they move by rolling along the ground and can keep going for quite some distance as they wander around.

Ascomoids attack by roiling into their opponents, but they can likewise use their spore jets to attack dangerous enemies. Large opponents, or those who have inflicted damage upon ascomoids, will always be attacked by spore jets.

The stream of spores is about 1 foot in diameter and 30 feet long. Upon striking, the spore jet puffs into a cloud of about 6-foot diameter. The subject creature must save versus poison or die from infection and severe system shock. Even those victims who make saving throws are blinded and choked to such an extent that it will require 1-4 rounds to recover and rejoin melee. Meanwhile, such victims are helpless, and all attacks made upon them have advantage (or +4 to hit in older editions).

It is possible to train an Ascomoid kind of.  if frequently fed either fresh or rotten meat by a creature, they would learn to detect the feeder and regard them as a creature that they shouldn't attack. also, receiving a steady supply of food will cause them to stop wandering around randomly, a fact long exploited by clans of Hobgoblins and other goblin kin, who capture them and keep them as sentinels and guard beasts.

They can be found more frequently in the High Moors area of Faerun, or just about anywhere in the Underdark. Its a fairly common predatory evolution of many fungus species from other planes and dimensions, including the 222nd layer of the Abyss, the Slime Pits, home to the demon queen of fungi.

My name is AJ Pickett, I included a 5th edition stat block for the Ascomoid in the video description, I will be back with a few more nasty fungi found in dragon magazine number 68, thanks for listening and as always, I will be back with more for you, very soon.