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[366 Days of Monsters] Days 172-174 - Blood Lichen, Prototaxite, and Shoggoth

Added 2020-08-20 17:38:02 +0000 UTC

Blood Lichen

Blood lichen looks visually similar to reindeer moss except that it is dark red. While called blood lichen, the fungus actually consumes heat. When overwhelmed with intense sources of heat—such as that from fire—it ejects it as a method of self-defense. Thus, blood lichen is frequently surrounded by the charred corpses of creatures who dare to venture too close to their fields.

Prototaxite

Prototaxite are tree-like fungi common in the far, primordial north. These fungi thrive on decay and prefer to feast on invertebrates. The presence of prototaxite often suggest that developed aberrations and other dangerous amorphous creatures are near such as gibbering mouthers, shoggoths, and oozes.

Shoggoth

The nightmare, plastic column of fetid, black iridescence oozed tightly onward—a shapeless congerie of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and unforming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind swept so evilly free of all litter. Still came that eldritch mocking cry—"Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!"