Fungi (sage study)
Fungi is a sage study in the field of Plant Life, encompassing the knowledge of mushrooms, yeasts, lichens and other fungal lifeforms found in the world. Unlike true plants, fungi lack roots, leaves and flowers, instead growing in damp and dark places where they absorb nutrients from decaying matter, symbiotic relationships or, in some cases, living hosts. The study of fungi extends beyond simple identification, encompassing their culinary, medicinal, alchemical and magical properties, as well as their use in poisons, warfare and even necromantic practices.
Mushrooms serve as both a staple food source and a source of great peril, as the same environments that produce edible species also produce those that are deadly. A character trained in this study understands the subtle distinctions between varieties, knowing which mushrooms are safe for consumption, which can be used to cure ailments and which bring sickness or hallucinations. Some fungi, when prepared correctly, offer remarkable medicinal benefits, serving as natural antiseptics, painkillers or stimulants. Others carry strong magical potential, with properties that range from visions and heightened awareness to madness and fatal intoxication. Many cultures rely on mushrooms and their fungal relatives in religious rites, oracles and secretive alchemical preparations, believing them to carry divine or arcane significance. Scholars of fungi recognise that the underground world holds the most remarkable and dangerous varieties, flourishing in deep caves, abandoned ruins and subterranean caverns, where they grow in strange, luminescent patches or form vast mats of creeping mycelium.
Beyond those that can be safely consumed, fungi serve as one of the most insidious sources of poison in the world. Many of the deadliest fungal toxins require only the smallest ingestion to cause irreversible damage, while others release airborne spores that infect the lungs, growing within the victim's body over time.
This study extends to the most unnatural of fungal entities — those that display a degree of intelligence, mobility or malign will. The character learns to recognise and understand gas spores, shriekers, violet fungi and yellow musk creepers, as well as sentient forms of fungus such as beholders. These fungal beings thrive in the darkest corners of the world, sometimes living in harmony with their surroundings, but often spreading unchecked, corrupting everything they touch. Those who understand fungi recognise the signs of their presence, whether in the form of spore-laden air, oddly pulsating growths along cavern walls or the husks of creatures consumed from within.
Sage Abilities
The sage abilities below are those acquired by a character through the study, according to status.
Amateur Status
- Cultivate Mushroom: allows the growing of any natural fungi, with understanding on how to prepare a suitable growing environment, providing the necessary moisture, darkness and organic material to sustain mushroom development. This ability allows for the controlled propagation of mushrooms in natural caves, underground chambers or damp, shaded areas, ensuring a steady supply for food, trade or further study.
- Know Fungi: identifies different types of fungi on sight, distinguishing edible and medicinal varieties from those that are toxic or otherwise dangerous. The character can recognise fungal growths in forests, caves, marshes and subterranean environments, correctly determining whether a mushroom is safe for consumption, useful for alchemical purposes or laced with harmful properties.
- Mushroom Hunt: know when and where to search for edible or poisonous mushrooms in a wild environment. The character understands the seasonal cycles and preferred habitats of various fungi, allowing them to locate mushrooms in forests, marshes, caves and other damp, shaded areas. This ability ensures efficiency in foraging, increasing the likelihood of finding useful mushrooms while avoiding barren or dangerous locations.
Authority Status
- Brew Curative: enables the preparation of a mushroom-based concoction with the potential to reduce the lethality and chronic nature of a disease; the brew requires 12 hours to make.
- Detect Fungus: recognises the odour given off by dangerous fungus-based creatures, forewarning the character when approaching within 120 ft.
- Fermentation: provides knowledge of yeast and fungus in creating safe-to-consume femented alcoholic beverages and in food processing (the pickling of vegetables and making of yogurt).
- Hallucinogenic: gives knowledge of how mind-altering psychotropic substances can be prepared from mushrooms that produce these effects; enables calming and comfort to those suffering from fear and madness.
- Prepare Vexation: gives knowledge regarding the mixing and making of vexation poison, an ingestive poison designed to kill the imbiber.
- Find Truffle: enables the finding of a truffle within 1-4 hours, minus the number of minutes equal to the character's knowledge. Combined with goodberry, a freshly found truffle can heal 1d4 hit points.
Expert Status
- Find Magic Fungi: provides knowledge of mushrooms that serve as ingredients in potions, inks and ointments, enabling the pursuit of these into enchanted forests, forgotten ruins or the deep underground where raw magic seeps into the earth. This ability enables the character to recognise subtle signs of arcane fungal growth, ensuring they do not overlook rare and powerful specimens.
- Scour & Purge: employs fungi to consume and eradicate the evil that's invested itself in structures and around graves, cleaning the ground so that it's wholesome once more. Fungi must be cultivated and require a month's time to scour an area of 36 combat hexes.
- Shamanism: from hunted mushrooms, the character is able to produce a powerful, chewable ball that grants both hallucinogenic effects and the ability to see into the ethereal plane — and to speak with intelligent creatures there. The practice requires the employment of a drum, rattle, gong or pipe, as well as a brief period of dancing and singing (10 rounds), following an hour of meditation. Once accomplished, the character can speak directly to a companion that has recently died, but remains within the time span of being raised from the dead (a period of no more than 29 days). The shaman may also ensure fertility in a woman for a period of one day, or relieve a curse for the space of one week (whereupon the curse will reassert itself).
Sage Status
- Cultivate Truffles: ensure the proliferation of easily located truffles with the planting of truffle-yielding trees. A successful harvest will require three years, but beyond selecting trees to plant and ensuring the proper soil, no additional care is required. Up to ten acres may be managed, with each acre producing one useful truffle per day.
- Monstrous Fungi: enables the breeding of monstrous forms of fungi from ordinary-sized hosts. Requires laboratory, hallowed ground, monument, pens large enough for breeding and a space of 3-12 months to create a growth bed that begins to spawn random fungus-creatures with 2-7 hit dice. From 2-8 such creatures will emerge per month once the growth bed is established. Does not allow any special control of what sort of fungus are bred.