Myclea

Discussion on game mastering Earthdawn. May contain spoilers; caution is recommended!
Slimcreeper
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Joined:Mon Nov 28, 2016 11:44 pm
Myclea

Post by Slimcreeper » Mon Mar 01, 2021 10:24 pm

Myclea

We entered what could only be described as a feasting hall, like the ones my family would raise up in my youth. The walls were lined with the trunks of trees roughly hewn and torn into ribs supporting the vaulted ceiling. Boulders and dirt had been wedged into the gaps to block out the sky, although I couldn’t imagine the ramshackle construction would do much to keep out rain. Long boards were spread with the mockery of a feast of Jaspree. Lumps of meat and vegetable matter were shaped into the forms of food we had traditionally eaten, but desiccated and smothered with the growth of the stalks and caps of stinking mushrooms. The stag loomed at the head of the hall, hissing and gibbering rhythmically. It took me a moment to recognize that the gibberish had meter of the chant of the blessing of Jaspree. The stag’s flesh and skin was stretched tight, as it’s flesh was being slowly hollowed out by the fungal growths that sprouted all over its shoulders. Its pose was an awkward mockery of an elf’s, its anatomy unsuited for the makeshift throne. Its head had been nearly completely consumed. Only its antlers and one eye emerged from the mass of fungal fruit. It gestured for me to come closer. A dozen elven corpses turned as one to watch my response. They, too, had been mummified, and were puppeted by the same cruel intelligence that animated the stag. I stepped forward and steeled myself. I felt pressure at my mind, and the myclea put its words inside my head.

“You come to negotiate for the return of the food vessels I have claimed. What can you offer in return for the bodies?”


Myclea are a communal fungal organism. Intelligent and cunning, myclea colonies are effectively immortal. Every myclea has weathered more than one burning, in which people believed that they had destroyed it. Myclea spread by colonizing corpses. Once their spores settle over the corpse, fungus grows rapidly, mummifying its flesh. It does slowly digest the corpse, but in the meantime it animates it for its own purposes.

In addition to feeding on the physical flesh of the host, it also siphons magical energy from living things. In the interest of doing so, they seek out and attack living things with sophisticated magical patterns. They are intelligent and will plan intricate traps so that they are not overwhelmed, and will negotiate if potential victims can offer more interesting prey. They also have the discretion to not take on a dragon, for example, as scrumptious as it might look. A single colony may possess up to a dozen corpses. When not hunting, the colony seems to act out a strange society, an amalgamation of the behaviors of the beast and Name-giver corpses that feed its colony.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XUP ... sp=sharing

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