Melfesh Monster

Melfesh Monster
(Creature)
Unique NE Medium Fungus Level 6 Alignment LG NG CG LN N CN LE NE CE Source: Monsters of Myth, pg(s). 70 Type Plant (extraplanar) CR 6 Environment Any (Varisia) Alignment LG NG CG LN N CN LE NE CE Source: Shards of Sin, pg(s). 84

The Melfesh Monster is a cryptid said to dwell in the woods near Melfesh, Varisia.

Appearance

The Melfesh Monster resembles a towering, twisting mass of creeping vines. Its back and shoulders are covered in mossy growths and trumpeting fungi, its face in dampened bark and thick moss. Its eyes glow red, its jaw is crusty wooden, and its limbs can shoot flame jets. The Melfesh Monster is surrounded by a stench of burning manure.

Ecology

The Melfesh Monster is the fruiting body of an ancient fungal superorganism that dwells beneath the forest near Melfesh. When reproducing, the fungus pushes a primordium upwards, which becomes a Melfesh Monster, detaches itself from the mycelium, and starts hunting for prey. Victims are deposited on the forest floor and covered in fungal threads, and decompose within days, leaving behind only a scorched scar.

Most people who encounter the Melfesh Monster are solitary, suggesting that it prefers lone prey, but stories also tell of a trio of teenagers or a wagon full of farmers being attacked.

Near the end of its lifecycle, the Melfesh Monster loses control over its flammable gases, then combusts, spreading its spores. The fungal superorganism cares little about a Melfesh Monster's death, since it can simply produce another within a few years. It is possible that the superorganism can offer an inhuman bargain to someone who knows about the Melfesh Monster's true nature, in exchange for using its spores to grow another of its kind.

Habitat

The superorganism that creates the Melfesh Monster lives in a cave hundreds of feet deep that spans most of the forest outside Melfesh. Over centuries, the fungus slowly carved out this cavern and created a support structure made out of hundreds of feet of growth, which is the only thing that keeps it from collapsing. The air in the cavern is riddled with spores, which are fatal to most animals that breathe them, and cause hallucinations and strange growths in those who survive. The superorganism likely can only be destroyed if completely eradicated; otherwise it can simply regrow over decades or centuries.

External links

• Flatwoods monster (real-world cryptid) on Wikipedia