![]() Let’s talk ‘shrooms. Not the mind-bending kind (unless you mean the energy giving, brain focusing kind you find at the health food stores), nor are we talking about hedgehogs (story for another time). Nope, we are talking fungi for visual and story art. You may have noticed a theme this week with our social media posts (#PromptThursday and #FactoidFriday): Fungi. This is mostly due to the fascination I have developed with fungi, lichen, and even moss. Not that I know much about the biology of fungi. Study of fungi? Let me check. Mycology. The study of mushrooms is called mycology (that’s a cool sounding word, imho). Why Mushrooms?![]() This fascination all started when Nickolas came up to me a long time ago and asked—horror and awesome astonishment transforming his face into a bit of a maniacal scientist—if I knew what cordyceps did to spiders? I did not. Now I do. And, yeah, it IS awesomely horrific. And great for story fodder—I have plans to use the idea in my fantasy novel I have only been thinking about for years. Then doing research for digital art class in college, I came across the Rhodotus Palmatus. It looks like pustules of strawberry jam are filling then popping and oozing from the stem of the fungus. The cap resembles pink alligator leather. It’s just plain friendly. Apparently, it doesn’t taste so good, though. As I researched, a whole world of beautiful plants—or is it animal? apparently, it’s both? or neither?--opened up. For the artistic eye, I found these (and so many more) inspirational: The cascading Coral Tooth Fungi: Hericium coralloides. I love the tendrils, like a plant version of Cthulhu on steroids. Competitor for granny’s doily, the lacy Phallus Indusiatus. I find the negative space interesting and think it would make a great inspiration for an elderly character’s clothing or face texture. Busy-body of the forest, the Jelly Ear Fungus: Auricularia auricula-judae. The ear immediately reminded me of the talking plants in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland—all gossipy and into everyone else’s business. Or the gothic Old Man of The Woods: Strobilomyces Strobilomyces floccopus. Dressed in black and pasty-face, this has a somber feel would be a great gravedigger character. ![]() None of this is unique to my mind though. If you play ESO, for example, and are traveling through the Vvardenfell, you will see spiders sporting mushrooms sprouting out their backs and legs, and the Inky Cap mushroom growing to tree-sized proportions. In Square Enix’s Chrono Cross, the creative team had a great time with all the puns for their mushroom character Funguy. And I think Olena Varenyk on Artstation must have thought the Rhodotus Palmatus looked as friendly as I did. Well, that is fine and GoodOk, the visual makes sense, but how can you use fungi to round out a story or play session? Maybe imagine a fantasy forest with mushrooms that are eavesdropping on your party’s plans. Or maybe have the fae squeeze mind-altering jelly from their mushroom onto their morning toast? Hmmm, that might explain the perpetual partying the fae are so well known for.
Go ahead, take a look, when you get a chance, at the world of fungi. It is a ripe territory for inspiration. For more inspiration, check out my Pinterest board dedicated to fungi images.
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AuthorDarcien Balog is the Chief Operations Officer for Twilight Tabletop Games, LLC. Archives
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