Editing Myconid (section)

==Myconids and magic==
===Myconid potions===
In A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords, the king has a collection of potions stored in bottles made from the heads of giant ants. They are extra-healing, growth, healing, invisibility, speed, and water-breathing. The myconids in Dungeon #20 have made potions of clairaudience, clairvoyance, delusion, diminution, growth, poison, speed and vitality. In The Gates of Firestorm Peak, the myconids make their potions of extra healing from the distilled essence of their hope for peace, and store them in stoppered plant pods.

The myconid entry in Monstrous Compendium Volume Two details five new, unique potions that can be brewed by a myconid king. These include a potion of fungus growth which causes a single myconid to grow rapidly, gaining a Hit Dice and size, and a potion of fungus healing which is a healing potion that only works on fungoids. The rarely brewed potion of decay infects someone with the purple fungus the king uses to animate bodies; a cure disease spell is needed to prevent the imbiber from dying. Powders of hallucination are a back-up form of the myconids' hallucinatory spores, and are sometimes combined with spider silk to form a trap. Each myconid community keeps one potion of anointment ready. This is used on the largest myconid in the event that the king dies, and triggers immediate and painful growth. It is poisonous to non-myconids.

The undead myconid king in Dungeon #67 creates potions of decay, oils of timelessness and paralytic goo, in addition to powders of hallucination and potions of enhanced fungal growth.

In 3rd edition, the list of potions brewed by the myconid sovereign is a little more vanilla: bull's strength, cure light/moderate/serious wounds, delay poison, endurance, endure elements, greater magic fang, invisibility to animals, lesser restoration, magic fang, negative energy protection, neutralize poison, protection from/resist elements, remove blindness/deafness/disease/paralysis, and resist elements.

===Myconids as components===
In Better Living Through Alchemy in Dragon #130 the typical ingredients for incense of meditation are given as 1 oz. of hallucinogenic spores from a myconid, and one holy/unholy symbol". Dragon #137 sets the going rate for collecting and selling one-pint jar's worth of myconid spores as 100 gp, but in the adventure The Dark Forest in Dungeon #22, Randal the Alchemist is prepared to pay 300 gp for "each handful" of spores they bring back. He also clarifies that the spores must be given voluntarily by the myconids, because they disintegrate if the myconids carrying them are killed.

There is obviously quite a retail mark-up, since the price of spores as an alternative spell component is given as 1,000 gp in Dragon #147. The article Variety, the Spice of Magic notes that myconid spores can be used for the illusionist's dream spell, and must be inhaled prior to sleep. It doesn't specify how much must be inhaled (just a handful or a whole pint jar's worth?), but doing so reduces the time the spell takes to function by half. There is a risk though, since 10% of the time a twisted nightmare results instead.

According to Secrets of the Magister, a remnant of myconid (fresh or dry, spores or body part) is one of the components for the 7th-level wizard spell obliviasphere. One of the spell's possible effects is to turn someone into a myconid. Monstrous Compendium Volume Two confirms that myconid spores are useful in poisons and in potions of delusion.

In the Living Greyhawk adventure PAL4-05: Possessions in the Dust, there is a vial of myconid spores, which, when inhaled, grants the ability to communicate telepathically within 30 feet. The effect lasts for one hour. Another adventure, URC3-01: Brotherhood of the Oath mentions powdered myconid jelly. This is a moderate narcotic which allows its imbiber to resist pain.

It is possible to animate creatures using an alchemical powder with similar properties to those of the myconid king's animator spores. In the the adventure Ex Libris in Dungeon #29, there are gnoll zombies created in this fashion. It isn't clear if the animating powder uses myconid spores as a component, or if it just works in the same way.

A magic location known as a garden of resplendent hues can sometimes grow where a myconid king and his entire tribe are killed (Drow of the Underdark). When this happens, the spores the dying myconids release settle on the rocks and grown into a forest of colourful but immobile mushrooms, puffballs and molds. These gardens may harbour a desire for vengeance. If a ranger or druid champion willing to avenge the tribe's destruction visits the garden, it has the power to transform him or her into a myconid-like plant creature for a period of a month.

The 4th Edition supplement Into the Unknown: The Dungeon Survival Handbook describes pacification dust which svirfneblin create using spores harvested from nearby myconids. Dragon #429 describes myconid essence as an oily substance with an earthly tang. It is harvested from the core of a dead myconid sovereign and saps strength from those who consume it. Drow use it on dangerous slaves and have been known to keep living myconids from whom they painfully extract the essence.

===Magic items to use against myconids===
The cloak of symbiotic protection from FR4: The Magister and Dragon #112 provides special protections against molds and fungi, including a +4 bonus to saves against myconid spores. This is because the cloak is made, in part, from a living substance which feeds upon spores and microscopic airborne life.

The Bazaar of the Bizarre column in Dragon #224 details the bane toadstool. This toadstool gives its wielder a number of powers including the ability to pacify fungoid creatures, a poison touch which also putrefies food, and detect poison. However, secretly, each time a character handles the toadstool, there is a chance of contracting a progressive disease. The disease initially causes only aversion to sunlight, but progresses to hair loss, the appearance of thread-like mold over the skin, and eventually complete transformation into a fungoid entity.

===Spells and rituals===
Since D&D mostly treats fungi as plants, spells like Protection from Plants, 10' Radius will work on myconids. According to the Wizard's Spell Compendium, Volume III, the spell needs to be cast at 7th-level or higher, in order to affect them.

In Out of the Abyss, the appendix notes that a myconid sovereign can create an awakened zurkhwood mushroom by performing a lengthy ritual. Zurkhwood are enormous fungi growing thirty to forty feet in height.