Moulderbloom Fungaren Gallery and Lore (Patreon)

Every month Battle Yak Miniatures will release a new Battle Pack, featuring 3D printable miniature files! The July Battle Pack is the Moulderbloom Fungaren, a horde of mobile mushroom monsters! This pack includes modular weapons, tons of customization options, sexy fungus ladies, and more!

Become a Patron now and gain access to the Moulderbloom Fungaren here!

Enjoy this gallery of the Moulderbloom Fungaren miniatures and a glimpse into the story behind the faction!

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Glory in our oneself
Glory in our unity
Pity the life not like us, scratching beasts with lonely minds
Faint shadow of an idea, the words that struggle to convey it

-Psionic imprint derived from study of Fungaren specimens
Academy of Biomancy, Syn'Sanglothyr

The subterrane of the world of Jerra contains as diverse an array of life as any of its surface environments. Deeper than the magnai mining clans and the burrowing skitterkin, the cavern-dwelling tribes of the krog and grotkin, and the ancient buried glories of the eldarch, there are other, older, stranger kingdoms in the low places of the earth. One of the oldest and strangest of them all are the fungaren, a species of mobile, varied, sapient fungal colonies united by a single, overriding intelligence known as the Moulderbloom.

The Moulderbloom intelligence that is manifest in the fungaren is so named for the very nature of its fungal physical incarnation. The fungus feeds down in the darkness, spreading and growing until it sprouts into a dizzying variety of mushroom growths, releasing clouds of spores in a great fungal bloom that repeats the cycle. From decay to growth to spread, the crawling fungus that forms the Mouderbloom's physical self spreads in vast tides throughout the caverns of the underworld, carpeting subterranean leagues in forests of fungal growth. The sapient mind of the Moulderbloom spreads along with the fungus, its alien intellect present in every cap, stalk, and spore.

The Moulderbloom is no helpless observer to its own fungal spread, but has scrupulous and terrible agency over its physical essence. Mushrooms and fungal growths can take on an endless array of forms dictated by the Moulderbloom, mimicking the traits of any other form of life that the fungus has ever fed on. Mushroom growths can be made to sprout limbs and develop mobility, existing as fungal monsters that move and take action at the command of their group mind. These fungal creatures are the fungaren, extensions of the Moulderbloom, fulfilling its desires and carrying out its alien, unknowable plans.

As the Mouderbloom spreads throughout the subterrane, its fungal groves creep ever closer to the surface world, and instances where the fungaren come into conflict with other races are on the rise. Most races have no idea that the fungaren are even possessed of any kind of intelligence, seeing them as a minor verminous threat or unwelcome infestation, some even taking them for harmless mockeries of true races. Any forces that undertake hostilities against a fungaren outbreak soon find that they are not simply mindless shambling mushrooms, but a scheming and intelligent adversary that exists in a thousand different bodies, each one varied and capable of deadly, coordinated action.

The most common expression of the Moulderbloom's fungaren are dubbed Sporriors, humanoid fungal colonies formed in mimicry of other races that the Moulderbloom has encountered. Capable of wielding weapons and tools, all of which are also grown from fungal matter, they form a fearless and effective fighting force, acting in meta-concert and responding instantly to changing directives from their ruling intellect. The Moulderbloom's proficiency in guiding its growth is such that it can compact fungal matter into metal-hard densities, allowing its fungal blades and bludgeons to strike as effectively as any steel-forged weapons. Some Sporriors can even make use of their fungal nature to spread clouds of fungal spores, dealing hideous death to their flesh and blood foes as poisonous mushrooms sprout in their eyes, noses, and throats, every agonizing growth guiding consciously by the pitiless Moulderbloom.

Even more terrifying and monstrous fungaren forms can be unleashed by the Moulderbloom should the situation require it. The gargantuan Shrumak Sporeggoth is one such form, a fungal behemoth the size of a small house that can tear its way through solid rock or deep-set fortress walls with its mighty clawing hands. Bellowing in fungal fury and shedding clouds of deadly spores with every thunderous step, a single Sporeggoth can annihilate an entire division of soldiers, leaving a carpet of twitching corpses in its wake that will be sprouting with ravenous fungal growths before they have grown cold.

Not all of the Moulderbloom's fungaren avatars are intended for purely offensive actions. The Moulderbloom is wily and creative, and can undertake tactics of misdirection, subterfuge, and ambush. The Oodbloom strain of fungaren are the expressions of these more guileful methods, of which the Fungal-Nymph is perhaps the most insidious. Taking on different forms depending on the nature of the enemy the Moulderbloom seeks to deceive, the Fungal-Nymph will fill the air surrounding itself with clouds of psychotropic spores, a fungal bloom that lowers inhibitions and alters perceptions in those who incautiously breathe it in. Convinced that they are safe and in fine company, the enemy is soon seduced into lowering their guard, even lying down to rest among the soft fungal carpeting underfoot. Soon they are dead, their flesh feeding that very fungus, rejuvenating the Fungal-Nymph in preparation for it to entertain further victims.

Even should the fungaren become overwhelmed in combat, the Moulderbloom rarely suffers any kind of lasting defeat. If outright victory is impossible, the ruling mind will simply allow its fungaren colonies to fall apart, each one decomposing rapidly into piles of fungal mulch. Immediately, the fungus will begin the cycle of growth once again, seeking to spread its spores into every crack and crevice of the environment. Even if every effort is made to clear away the fungal remains with tools, fire, chemicals or even magic, should a single fungal spore remain it will thrive with but the smallest amount of heat and moisture, sprouting into more mushrooms and spreading further spores. New carpets of mushrooms and fungus will grow in dark and untended corners, filling the deep tunnels of mountain holds or the dungeons of great castles, and one day new hordes of fungaren will erupt from the fungal growth to once again carry out the designs of the Moulderbloom, delayed but never thwarted.

The origins of how such a monumental and bizarre entity came to be are a mystery, with few who dwell on the surface world even aware that the Mouderbloom exists as the ruling intellect of the fungaren. Mystics and scholars amongst the eldarch have discovered the Moulderbloom's presence and conducted experiments on captured spore samples, striving to understand that terrible alien mind.

Efforts involving psionic arts have yielded strange clues that only raise further questions - visions of vast underworld architecture, vaulted halls taller than mountains and subterranean thoroughfares that could encompass entire cities, all buried in endless fungal growth. At the heart of this strange underground city can be glimpsed enormous petrified mechanisms, like some colossal stone clockwork, likewise choked in fungus. And before the great unmoving machine is a stone figure, a giant thing, its body carved in sprawled repose like a fallen corpse. It's head and chest are rent open by a great crack, and from within it, as if it were the statue-thing's blood, pours an endless fluid like liquid light, effervescing with bright colors, radiant and wondrous. And growing about the wounded statue, soaking in the bright blood, are the ever-present mushrooms...

The eldarch psions who probe deeply into this final mysterious vision soon regret it, as the full terrible intelligence of the Moulderbloom turns against them, outraged by the effort to steal its deepest kept secrets. Often the unwary seekers drop dead, their skulls bulging and bursting from within as fungal growths sprout inside their very brains.

The Moulderbloom Fungaren are carrying out an ancient and unfathomable design, one that will shake the very foundations of the world...

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