Medium
Plant
CR 11
Neutral Evil
Mycoriarch
Puppeteer of the Spoilhalls
A writhing, loathsome knot of fungus and sinew, the Mycoriarch puppeteers corpses like marionettes: pale, hollow-eyed adventurers stumble and fight as if alive, while the true predator—an oozing crown of fungal tendrils—remains in the shadows, feeding on their minds. Its presence chills the air with spores and the metallic tang of iron, and those who see it rarely forget the sight of a once-heroic body jerking to unnatural commands.
Armour
17
natural armor
Hit points
204
24d8+96
Speed
30ft
30 ft., climb 20 ft.
Challenge
11
7,200 XP
STR
18
+4
DEX
14
+2
CON
18
+4
INT
12
+1
WIS
16
+3
CHA
12
+1
Saving throws
CON +8, WIS +7
Skills
Perception +7, Stealth +6, Athletics +8
Resistances
poison
Condition immunities
poisoned
Senses
darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 17
Languages
understands Common and the last language spoken by an animated puppet but can't speak
Multiattack. The Mycoriarch makes two Tendril attacks and may command one Puppet under its control to make one attack.
Tendril. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8+5) bludgeoning damage plus 10 (3d6) necrotic rot damage. A creature hit by a Tendril must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or gain a parasite seed (see Mycelial Parasite trait).
Animate Puppet. The Mycoriarch targets one corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid within 60 feet that it can see. The corpse instantly rises and is animated as a puppet under the Mycoriarch's control for up to 1 hour or until destroyed. The puppet uses the corpse's statistics, but its attacks deal an extra 7 (2d6) necrotic damage and its actions are commanded by the Mycoriarch. A puppet cannot regain hit points and collapses into an inert corpse if reduced to 0 hit points. The Mycoriarch can have up to three puppets animated at once; animating a fourth causes the oldest puppet to collapse into a corpse.
Consume Will (Recharge 5-6). The Mycoriarch targets a creature it can see within 60 feet that it can sense is under 50 hit points (after damage from the Tendril attack, if applicable). The target must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or take 36 (8d8) psychic damage and be stunned until the end of its next turn as the fungus floods its mind with overwriting commands. On a success, the target takes half damage and isn't stunned.
Fungal Parry. When a creature the Mycoriarch can see hits it with a melee attack, the Mycoriarch can use its reaction to thrust a tendril between attacker and wound, imposing disadvantage on the triggering attack roll. If the attack still hits, the attacker takes 7 (2d6) necrotic damage from ruptured mycelia.
The creature can take 3 legendary actions per round, choosing from the options below.
Tendril Strike. The Mycoriarch makes one Tendril attack.
Spore Burden. The Mycoriarch releases choking spores in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that cone must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the end of its next turn and take 9 (2d8) poison damage (half damage and not blinded on a success). The Mycoriarch is immune to this effect.
Command Puppet. The Mycoriarch issues a single command to one puppet it controls. The puppet immediately takes its reaction and one action (if available) obeying the command.
Scholars of decay debate whether the Mycoriarch began as a hallucinatory footnote in the journals of a frontier mycologist or as a deliberate experiment by a guild of necromancers seeking a more efficient corpse-reuse. Most agree, however, that its ecology blooms in long-abandoned strongholds, collapsed guildhalls, and the damp lower stories of ruined monasteries where dead bodies and damp stone lie undisturbed for months. The Mycoriarch spreads slowly through spores that prefer humanoid flesh; it infects the dead and extends a web of mycelial nerves into muscle and bone. Local legends—such as the ledger of the watchman council at Terrenford and the notes of the field naturalist Mirek Vossel—tell of whole patrols turned against their fellows when a Mycoriarch took root. The Order of Glass Lanterns, a tomb-clearing guild, keeps a treatise titled 'On Spoilhalls and Their Warden' that details crude but effective measures: burning the mycelium, severing the spine of hosts to break neural links, and sealing entrance halls with lime and salt.
A Mycoriarch looks like a clutch of pale, glistening mushrooms and pale leathery flaps fused to a blackened tangle of rootlike tendrils that spread beneath floors like a carpet. Its central mass is roughly the size of a small ox—about 4 to 5 feet across—and crowned by a halo of cap-like growths mottled in sickly yellow and gray. From that crown extend dozens of long, jointed tendrils tipped with sucker-like pads and filigrees of spore-bearing nettles. Mycelial threads run like veins into the corpses it puppets; these threads pulse faintly with bioluminescent spores. Textures vary from wet, slimy membranes to brittle chitin-like scales on older tendrils. For scale reference, a human corpse stands dwarfed beneath its crown when it controls more than one puppet; the creature is often half-concealed behind rubble, the tendrils reaching into corridors and chamber doorways.
Made with the free LoreKeeper Monster Generator · D&D 5e-compatible stat block · Free to use at your table · Licence
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