Spore-cerer

There are tales of a certain, particularly pernicious type of funglet that has recently, and quite literally, grown in the jungles of the Underworld as a response to the manifold threats the mushroom folk face. These funglets, in some kind of deep communion with the strange flora of their homes, have developed strange spores that can alter the minds of those they encounter, forcing them to leave the kind funglets alone…or else. More troubling to other races would be the rumor that these strange shroom-folk ostensibly are capable of projecting their psyche through their spores. There are quite a few curious spellcasters out there, hoping to cheat death…and most would most certainly be intrigued by this seeming transcendence of bodily limitations. Justifiably paranoid races, meanwhile, fear the obvious uses of such talents in espionage, let alone the troubling thought that funglet psyches may evolve past the limits of the physical body to turn into something utterly strange. These fears seem to be not entirely unfounded, as oddly, at one point or another, all spore-cerers seem to grasp that some strange metaphysical event lies in their future, an event both frightening and wondrous, one they know only by a name that may be promise or curse: Rhyzalla.

As Varied As Funglets

If you’re an audirefunglet spore-cerer, you use Wisdom as spellcasting ability for sorcerer spells and to determine the saving throw DCs for sorcerer spells you cast. You also replace the reference to Charisma modifier with your Wisdom modifier once you gain the Careful Spell and Empowered Spell class features. If you’re a fantasfunglet spore-cerer, you use Intelligence as spellcasting ability for sorcerer spells and to determine the saving throw DCs for sorcerer spells you cast. You also replace the reference to Charisma modifier with your Intelligence modifier once you gain the Careful Spell and Empowered Spell class features.

Maculosfunglet spore-cerers use Charisma as spellcasting ability for sorcerer spells and to determine the saving throw DCs for sorcerer spells cast and do not modify the Careful Spell and Empowered Spell class features, since they already are based on Charisma.

Compelling Scent

At 1st level, the barely perceptible spores you constantly emit help to make creatures more compliant to your demands or more likely to overlook your wrongdoings. You gain your choice of proficiency in either Deception and Persuasion or Sleight of Hand and Stealth. When you roll a natural 1 in the chosen skills, you can spend 2 sorcery points to reroll the check.

Spore Cloud

While you constantly exude barely perceptible spores infused with your spore-cerous might, you can also focus and pump an impressive cloud into the air. As an action, you can emit a 20-foot-radius sphere of thick spores that surrounds you. Your spores do not move with you, but spread around corners, and the area covered is heavily obscured.

Your spores last for 1 minute or until a wind of moderate or greater speed (at least 10 miles per hour) disperses the cloud. You can see through your own spores; your sight is not impeded by your spore cloud. Additionally, you have a latent psychic connection to your spores. You can see invisible creatures while they are in your spore cloud. Your spores are fine enough to work unimpeded under water. You may spend 2 sorcery points when creating your spore cloud to increase its radius by a further 20 feet for a total of 40 feet. Once you have used this feature, you can’t use it again until you have finished a short or long rest. You may spend 1 sorcery point as a bonus action to regain a use of this class feature without resting.

Hungry Spores

Beginning at 6th level, you learn to channel your spore-cerous power through your spores as a bonus action, sending a pulse into the cloud created by your Spore Cloud feature. The pulse agitates your spores and makes them your choice of either acidic or poisonous. Each creature that is completely within the cloud must succeed a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, the creature takes 4d6 acid or poison damage, or half as much on a successful one. Any creature that ends its turn in your spore cloud must make the saving throw. You are immune to the effects of your own Hungry Spores class feature. Your spore cloud remains acidic or poisonous for its duration. However, you may use your bonus action and expend 1 sorcery point to change the damage inflicted by your Hungry Spores class feature from acid to poison or vice versa.

Counterspore

Also at 6th level, you learn to use your spores in a highly specialized manner. You can concentrate your spores and lace them with potent abjuration energies, which make them extremely short-lived, but also very potent in countering magic assaults.

You may expend 3 sorcery points and use your reaction, which you take in response to seeing a creature within 60 feet of you cast a spell, to use your Spore Cloud class feature and fire a burst of concentrated antimagic spores at the incoming magic. If the spell you attempt to counter is of a spell level that is lower than your currently highest unexpended spell slot level, then you successfully negate the spell and it fails. If the incoming spell’s spell level is higher than that of your highest unexpended spell slot, then its effects are resolved as normal. Counterspore does not generate the effects of your Spore Cloud class feature. You can only use Counterspore if you have a use of your Spore Cloud class feature remaining.

Mind-Control Spores

Beginning at 14th level, you learn to command your spores to infiltrate the bodies of creatures within your spore cloud. As a bonus action, you can expend 7 sorcery points to send a pulse through your spores. One humanoid that you can see within your spore cloud must succeed a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC or be affected by dominate person, as though you had cast the spell on the creature at the highest spell level you have access to. You must maintain Concentration (as if you were casting a casting a Concentration spell) to retain control of the target, as usual. When you choose to end the effects of your Mind-Control Spores class feature, you may elect to have the target forget the duration while you controlled the target, as well as everything the target did during that time—such is the extent of your spore-cerous might. You may not erase the target’s memory if you are forced to prematurely end the effects of your Mind-Control Spores feature.

Mobile Spores

Also at 14th level, you gain a measure of control over your spores. Your spore cloud becomes mobile.

You may, as a bonus action, direct your spores to move up to 30 feet in any given direction, provided you can see the target area. The spore cloud can fly in three dimensions and ignores magical and nonmagical obstructions, with the exception of walls of solid material that would not even allow your microscopic spores to pass. If you do not direct the cloud or can’t see it anymore, it simply stays in place. You may spend 3 sorcery points as part of moving the cloud to increase the speed of the cloud by +20 feet for its duration.

Project Conscience

At 18th level, you are truly one with your spores. As an action, you can shut down completely, rendering your body paralyzed, as it crumples prone to the floor, like a marionette that had its strings cut.

Your conscience is projected into your spore cloud.

You may move your spore cloud body at its speed and you can see, hear, smell and taste as though you were your spore cloud. You can talk while in spore cloud form—the cloud generates an eerie face-like facsimile that speaks in whispers. You can catapult your conscience back to your body as a bonus action. Additionally, you can use your spore-cerous power to cast spells while your mind inhabits your spore cloud. You may not cast spells that require material components, and you must expend sorcery points equal to twice the spell’s spell level to cast it while your conscience is within your spore cloud.

Alternatively, you can expend 5 sorcery points to project your conscience into your pre-existing spore cloud as a reaction to an attack or effect that would incapacitate, paralyze, petrify, render you unconscious or stun you. You may also do this as a reaction to dying, in spite of being unconscious.

Your conscience remains for as long as your spore cloud does, allowing you to expend your final sorcery points, say your goodbyes or leave instructions—your body remains dead, petrified, etc. and once the cloud disperses, so does your conscience. You cannot use a reaction to project your conscience if you do not have a spore cloud to project into.

Sidebar: A New Seed Grows

The project conscience class feature is narrative gold; the mysterious cloud that appears with an important task before fading, speaking of the proximity of an incredibly powerful evil; the hurried last ditch-efforts of a slain PC, expending his final power to aid his allies, though his body lies slain… But beyond the obvious, the projection of conscience offers some interesting themes to explore: If a spore-cerer can inhabit his spores, what happens when they grow? Are perhaps all spore-cerers the seeds of the same funglet? If so, what does that say about free will, about personality development?

Are all funglet subraces hailing from the same origin? Are the seeds beholden to their progenitor? Is the spore cloud the next step of funglet evolution, the state to aspire to? The questions of life, transhumanism, transcendentalism, nurture vs. nature and many, many more can be examined through a distinctly fungal perspective here!

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Occult Secrets of the Underworld Copyright 2018, AAW Games, LLC; Thilo Graf and Jonathan G. Nelson.