Vegepygmy

Vegepygmies, also known as moldies, mold folk or mold men, are fungus creatures that live in dark forests or underground, hunting for sustenance and spreading the spores from which they reproduced. They are spawned from dead humanoids or giants or beasts that are killed by a type of mold commonly known as russet mold.

Description
Vegepygmies stand between 2 and 4½ feet (0.6–1.4 meters) tall with muscular frames covered in plant matter skin. Their coloration depends on their environment, ranging from brown and green skin in wooded areas, gray and black skin underground, or sometimes a moldy blue and white. Their eyes are normally white, lidless, and do not appear to have pupils, and naturally grow a dull brown topknot. They have heavy wrinkles and lack noses. Lengthy lines of tendrils, similar to hair cover the creatures, ending in a topknot at their head and flowing regardless of the presence of wind. Their hands end in thorn-like claws.

However, at least one vegepygmy, Kupalué, had healthy looking green skin, yellow eyes with pupils, and had a noticeably taller yellow topknot than other vegepygmies.

Combat
Vegepygmies' claws can be used as natural weaponry. They show great resistance to electrocution, as currents run through them and dissipate into the earth, and their physiology grants them resilience in the face of piercing attacks. Coupled with their physical resistances, vegepygmies naturally regenerate most damage, recovering even from life-threatening injury. However, this regeneration can be canceled by extreme heat, cold, or rotting. Their skin easily blends into terrain surrounded by plant life, and their eyes can see easily in darkness. Due to their primitive, plant-like brains, they show some resistance to enchantment.

As vegepygmies age, spore clusters collected on their bodies and their skin grow tougher and harder to damage. They can disperse clouds of spores that act as russet mold spores, infecting non-plants who breathe them in, and possibly killing them, causing them to give rise to more vegepygmies.

Thornies are stronger and tougher, if less intelligent than vegepygmies. They are quadrupeds that acted as animals for the vegepygmies. Their bodies are covered in sharp barbs, which injure creatures that tried to grab hold of them.

Vegepygmy hunters employ primitive clubs and spears, with any other technology being acquired from other races, or copied directly. The extent of their tactical ability lies in ambushes and maneuvering enemies towards thornies.

Reproduction
Vegepygmies do not have sexes or reproductive organs. Typical vegepygmy reproduction involved the infection of other creatures. Whether via russet mold or a Chief, vegepygmy spores are toxic, and can be used to infect animal life via inhalation. Once killed, the corpse becomes a new vegepygmy according to its size, with beast corpses resulting in thornies. The process is painful, and slowly weakens a victim until death. This is not required however, as the death of a sufficiently old vegepygmy will create two smaller individuals. Memories from an ancestral line are passed down through generations, with even ancient memories resurfacing in new vegepygmy.

Russet mold itself is created when vegepygmy spores gathered into patches on nearby terrain.

Physiology
Vegepygmies are omnivorous, capable of eating meat and blood regardless of its state of decay. They grow moss and fungi to subsist on, and in particularly hard times, they can absorb nutrients from the soil itself and from almost all organic matter, including as bone. Despite the ability to vocalize through hissing, they lack the ability to properly speak, although a highly rare few are born with the ancestral ability to do so.

Culture
Vegepygmies are organized into simple tribal units, led by their elders, whom outsiders referred to as "chiefs". They are highly tribal and territorial, and are generally of low intellect. Mold-folk culture centered around the harvesting of food and the spread of the tribe, even at the cost of their individual lives. Veneration was offered to those who propagate the race, whilst those who refused to grow the tribe are treated as pariahs.

Culture also varies based on location. Forest vegepygmies are more aggressive and predominately hunters, while underground vegepygmies are vegetarians, preferring to scavenge, and more likely to ally with other plant-based races. Due to a reliance on different resources, vegepygmies of different tribes are less likely to fight.

Relations
Vegepygmy have generally positive relations with other fungal or plant creatures possessing an instinctive feeling of kinship with them. Myconids view them as rustic and less enlightened kin and would ally with them, if warily. Vegepygmies employ shriekers and violet fungi in their lairs as living alarms and security, with only native mold men knowing how to avoid them. Vegepygmy have tense relations with other races, many of which viewed them as monsters. They were known to establish neutral zones in order to engage in mutual unimpeded worship.

Language
Vegepygmies were likely once capable of a spoken language, as some with ancestral memories were capable of speech, and metals bearing carved inscriptions were found within their treasure pits. Lacking this, vegepygmy language consisted of hissing, grunting, chest thumps, gestures, and rhythmic taps.

Religion and Magic
Vegepygmies hold strong reverence for ancient relics and sacred objects. Many are of unknown composition and origin, and others are powerful weapons. They also worship constructs such as golems as lesser deities, giving them offerings. Other tribes might engage in ritual sacrifice of sapient beings. Ritual dances are also done, with some even killing themselves by accident in reckless performances. Some vegepygmies are born with supernatural abilities based on their ancestral memories. These vegepygmies become witch doctors capable of druidic and shamanistic magic, such as the ability to empower plant monsters and to rapidly grow nearby plants for offensive purposes. They can also inherit cultural knowledge and the ability to vocally communicate.

History
The origin of vegepygmies is ultimately unknown. It is speculated that vegepygmies originated outside of Toril, and were brought there by a falling star infested with russet mold. Other reports notes their presence in a mountain dungeon containing a strange metal substance.

Numerous vegepygmy tribes were known to dwell in the Chultan wilderness in the late 1480s DR.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Tomb of Annihilation


 * Fiction
 * Dragon+ #15, 16: "Qawasha & Kupalué"