Muscarid
by Cab DavidsonArmour Class: 5
Hit Dice: 3**
Move: 120’(40’)
Attacks: 1 weapon or special
Damage: By weapon+1 or special
Number Appearing: 1d8 (30d10)
Save As: Fighter 3
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: Zero (M)
Intelligence: 7
Alignment: Chaotic
XP Value: 65
While most Myconids are typically quite placid and, in their own way, friendly, the Muscarid is entirely different. They stand around 5’ tall, with white bodies with a frilly veil around their bodies, beneath their stocky arms, with feet almost in the shape of half egg shells lying on the unbroken end. But it is their big, meaty, red cap specked with raised white spots with white gills on the underside that they are most known for.
Muscarid Myconoids are found in the darkest and dankest of all woodlands, where they grow in twisted, misshapen rings around great old trees. Myconids grow from this typically only in late Summer and Autumn, and after around a week or so growing they are ready to stalk the woods and find their prey. That prey is literally anything that moves, and hunting as a pack they can unleash terrible harm on to the fauna of the woodland in a very short time. This prey is taken back to the Myconoid, stripped of anything of worth, and buried within the circle, where its decomposition feeds the Myconoid.
What makes the Muscarid dangerous is that they both produce and are infected by certain compounds that affect perception. When a Muscarid is provoked to combat it will not back down, slow down, stop or surrender, and it will continue to fight well past when it has 0 hit points. It must be reduced to -12 hit points (its constiturion score) before it stops fighting, it must quite literally be cut apart. But every time a Muscarid is wounded it releases some of the same compounds into the air. Anyone in melee combat with a Muscarid must, when the Muscarid is first wounded and every subsequent round, make a save vs. poison or fall under the influence of potent hallucinogenic compounds for 1d6 turns, during which time they can move at only half speed, and all attacks, saving throws and armour class are penalised by 4.
Muscarids do not make allies of other woodland creatures, considering anything that move therein to be fair game. It is, however, fair to say that some of the darker fey races view them favourably.
Muscarids bury their treasures in hidden locations in the forests, and they value weapons above all other things.
Muscarids are, thankfully, rare, but increasingly common in some parts of Mystara. They were almost unknown in Canolbarth before the Shadow Elf invasion, but have become a serious pest since then. They are also among the more unpleasant predators of Blackheart in Alphatia, and are known to sporadically appear in the great forests of Northern Norwold.
The Science Part: Like, what else needs to be said about the beautiful looking but dangerous and hallucinogenic fly agaric?