I am game mastering a role playing game (RPG) named Pirate Borg made by Limithron. One of the player has a big thing with cheese. Last session, he just went all in on cheese throwing, cheese tasting, etc. CHEESE! This gave me the idea of making a mini scenario compatible with Pirate Borg in a zine format. By mini scenario, I mean a plot hook, an island with some sort of “dungeon/underground”, couple of monsters and a boss-like monster, and treasures.
The plot hook is a cheese maker, or a chef (or any equivalent) will pay very well players to collect and bring back a special fungus. A mushroom known to be dangerous if not handle properly but making the best cheese ever. The fungi are living symbiotically at the roots of a specific massive tree in a specific island. Many people went to the island for mushroom picking, but extremely rare are those who came back with some.
I made sketch of the zine. The title was a last minute idea, so it will probably change as I couldn’t come up with something good. I am bad at finding title. The only sketch missing from the zine is the map of the underground leading to the tree roots.
As it is fungus related, I am adding humanoid mushroom monsters. More precisely, it is previous adventurer who succumbed to the fungus spore and the fungus infested the almost dead brain of the adventurers.
I didn’t want to do the usual mushroom head, like a round cap style. So I browsed iNaturalist, which I used for fauna and flora observations, for fungus. Scrolling through mushroom, I remembered the Devil’s fingers! It is a mushroom with some sort of tentacles (thallus) and sticking rotten flesh by producing a stinking spore. I used the Devil’s fingers as the fungi infecting human brain once a human has succumbed to the fungus spore. The Devil’s fingers eventually grow out of the head of the person, as I sketched it above, “reviving” the body to attack and protect the big tree and the island.
I don’t think the fungus for making the best cheese will be Devil’s fingers, in contrary, it will be probably something more simple. Poisonous, but the part needed for cheese making would be some edible spots or filaments of the fungus.
I will carry on by thumbnailing other part of the zine. I will also put some stats based on Pirate Borg into the human-infested mushroom monster. Keep an eye in this blog for further update on the advancement of the zine.