Tendrophilus Fungus

"Our expedition was three days out from Praag, in Troll Country, when Bengt, who fancied himself something of a botanist, stopped to take a sample of some fungus of a kind he’d never seen before. It was bright blue and grew like long arms out of the rocks. He got sick soon after, coughing up phlegm with blue spots in it. During his worst coughing fit, he fell to the ground and started writhing about. I went to him and tried to hold him still, but I felt something moving under his skin. I flinched away in horror, and it was a good thing I did. The fungus burst from his guts and those long blue... things... rammed themselves straight down his throat and silenced his coughing forever. "We buried him under a cairn of stones and grimly carried on. And what he looked like when we next saw him... that's a story no amount of your gold will get out of me."

- Willem Jansz, Explorer

The Tendrophilus Fungus grows exclusively in the Chaos Wastes; only a place so unnatural could support such a creation. Growing between cracks in rocks, the visible part of the fungus are long, blue flagella covered in fine hair that wave back and forth as if in a breeze, no matter how still the air.

These flagella launch spores whenever touched that are small enough to be inhaled by anyone in contact with them. Those unfortunate enough to incubate the spores act as hosts; when they reach maturity the tentacle-like flagella burst from the torso of their victims and ram themselves down their throats, choking the host to death.

The worst part is that the fungus is capable of spreading through the host’s corpse and re-animating it as a kind of Zombie, which it then uses to travel further abroad to release more spores, preferably somewhere crowded.

Source

 * : Warhammer Fantasy RPG 2nd ED -- The WFRP Companion
 * : pg. 119
 * : pg. 125
 * : pg. 126

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