To the vulture, the body of the lion down below seemed to be a tasty morsel. It appeared to be slightly swolen with the beginnings of decay, but that was to be expected. He dived down, landed beside it, and bit deeply inside it.And the body exploded, showering him with entrails, blood, and a strange dust. He preened himself to get as clean as possible, ate his fill and flew off. And an hour later he fell dead to the ground, and his body began to swell with the spores and fibres of the Corpse's Revenge.
Full Description
The Corpse's Revenge is a kind of fungal parasite that kills it's victims within hours.In most cases the victims are vultures, hyenas and other scavanging beasts of the plain, but occasionly it can enter a human though accident or poisoning. A teaspoonful of the spores are enough to kill.
For between an hour and a day, depending on the size, health and strength of whoever has ingested the spores,
they do no harm. The first sign of trouble in a human, sentinent race or large animal is a raging thirst.Drinking water or other liquid will cause the fibres which have invaded the throat to grow and swell, choking off the airway. Eating raw grain or other *sharp* food will rip the fungus and in the short term will restore breathing, before it regrows tougher then before and blocks the throat totally, leading to death within three minites.
Most healing potions will actually make the fungus grow even faster, whilst acids will destroy the fungus but burn the throat as well.
Once the host is dead, the fungus fruits inside the body, like a huge puffball. Within a few hours it has in effect turned the body into a booby-trap, whilst inhibiting decay for up to six months. When something, be it a scavanger, grave robbers or people who tread on it by mistake, disturb the body, it bursts open, scattering body parts and spores into the air for several feet in every direction. By the time the victim/s are affected by the fungus, they have normally moved far from the scene of infection.The spores are tasteless and can be added to food or drink if care is taken by the poisoner to avoid inhaling them.
Additional Information
In the case of nobles who were buried in ornate tombs with great riches, the tombs were often robbed within weeks or months of the funeral.Certain cultures have poisoned criminals or sacraficial victims with the spores of the Corpse' Revenge and left them in the tomb passages as a deadly threat to would be grave-robbers.
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- Adventurous Plants Michael Jotne Slayer linked by Michael Jotne Slayer
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eh.
extra point for the vulture popping. Looks like a few good ways to kill the fungus would be to drink vinegar, its acidic, and should do a quick number on the fungus. All you gotta do is close your eyes and think happy thoughts about not dying. Alcohol might also disrupt the fungus in the airway. This fungus could have been created as a weapon to use against a rival kingdom, by a reckless mage or vengeful fungi-druid.
I like it! and I'm using them! I would have liked to have seen a little more 'oomph' on them though, like their environment for example.
I can't see this evolving naturally (parasites that kill their hosts tend not to survive very long), but as a bio-weapon (as Scras suggested) it makes perfect sense.
Very nasty, and just the sort of thing a vengeful druid might come up with.
4/5
If an already dead/undead corpse could be infected as well, this would allow a really nasty necromancer (are there any other?) to seed a zombie army before a major battle.
Simple zombies would become much more dangerous!
Conversely, it could be used to nasty effect against more powerful corporeal undead (unless the negative energy that animates them is strong enough to kill the spores.