Ephraim Scheben FUNGUS MANIFESTING RECLUSE 8 (24)

The Origin

Noted mycologist Ephraim Scheben was a popularizer of fungal medicines. Considered an intellectual and industry leader for medicinal use of mushrooms, he regularly developed new fungus-derived cures.

With the Crash, Ephraim not only lost himself, but also his entire world. Though he sees it otherwise, the world he hails from was a firefly flicker of a divergent timeline. Only a fraction of it remains, tenuously connected to Unit 21 of Meridian Storage. He refuses to believe it. Now as a vaguely human-shaped growth of fungus, he plots in a crumbling fragment of a dead dimension, trying to work out how he can reverse things so it's his world that dominates. Or if not that, then at least extend his domain into his new home by growing more and more fungus in the remains of animals and people of the base timeline.

Motive: Find or reconstruct his lost timeline

Environment: Anywhere fungus grows

Health: 30

Damage Inflicted: Major wound (8 points)

Armor: 5

Movement: Short

Combat: Ephraim can batter nearby foes with fists covered in unbelievably strong fungal armor plating. As part of the action of making a physical attack, Ephraim can also release a new variety of dangerous spores affecting every creature within short range on a failed Might defense roll.

• Fruiting Spores: Living, non-fungal targets suffer Speed damage (ignores Armor) from invasive mycelial growth that insinuates into their flesh. If a target dies within an hour after taking damage from this attack, new fungal growths sprout from the body within the day.
• Hallucinating Spores: Living, non-fungal targets are treated to a burst of hallucinatory vision so intense, they lose their next turn to the experience.
• Reanimating Spores: Recently deceased bodies within range are animated by invasive mycelial growth that insinuates into their flesh. Ephraim can animate two such bodies as level 5 creatures under his command at one time.

If Ephraim is killed, even a single spore he generated before his death is enough to bring him back. This means that if an area in which Ephraim was active is not completely treated (such as with fire or acid), one or more particles sporulate within ten days, at which point Ephraim completely regenerates within another ten.

Interaction: Talkative but morose, Ephraim explains to his victims that he must treat their bodies as a fungal food source to make the world a little more sensible.

Use: Pets in a growing radius around a particular location are turning up dead, each one's body a veritable garden of strange mushroom growth.

GM Intrusion: The hallucinating character doesn't lose their turn, but instead attacks an ally.