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Zygomind

Zygomind CR 18

This enormous fungus looks like a cage, and a strange glow emanates from within.

XP 153,600
N Colossal plant
Init +3; Senses blindsight (vibration) 100 ft., low-light vision; Perception +31
Aura fascinating aura (300 ft., DC 23, 10 rounds)

DEFENSE HP 375

EAC 32; KAC 34
Fort +21, Ref +19, Will +16
Defensive Abilities all-around vision; DR 15/magic and slashing; Immunities plant immunities; SR 29
Weaknesses vulnerable to cold

OFFENSE

Speed 5 ft., climb 5 ft.
Melee tentacles +32 (13d6+29 B plus grab and soporific spores)
Space 30 ft.; Reach 30 ft. (50 ft. with tentacles)
Offensive Abilities constrict (2d8+10 B), create undead, entrap (DC 23 plus soporific spores, 1d10 rounds, hardness 5, hp 10), seamless reality, soporific spores

STATISTICS

Str +11, Dex +3, Con +8, Int -, Wis +2, Cha +0
Skills Athletics +36, Survival +36
Other Abilities mindless, spore explosion

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Create Undead (Su)

A helpless body lying prone in a zygomind’s space takes 1 point of Constitution drain each day. A body that dies in this way rises as a mindless, corporeal undead (typically a skeleton or a zombie). Undead created by the zygomind wander forth from the plant, carrying its insidious mindscape within them. Their slam, claw, and bite attacks gain the zygomind’s soporific spores ability, and any creature that falls prey to the mindscape is compelled to walk toward the zygomind, regardless of its distance away. Undead retain this connection as long as they remain within 10 miles of the zygomind.

Undead beyond 10 miles of the zygomind become free-willed undead, losing their connection to the mindscape and the soporific spores ability.

Fascinating Aura (Su)

Creatures within 300 feet of a zygomind must succeed at a DC 23 Will save each round or become fascinated by the plant’s soothing mental commands. Since in most cases a known zygomind is an obvious threat (thus breaking the fascinated effect), this ability mainly assists an undetected zygomind, though even creatures who know of the zygomind’s threat are still exposed to the zygomind’s seamless reality ability if they fail the saving throw.

Seamless Reality (Su)

Any creature that enters a zygomind’s space, fails its save against the zygomind’s fascinating aura, or is subjected to the zygomind’s soporific spores must succeed at a DC 23 Will save or be sucked into the zygomind’s mindscape. The zygomind’s mindscape is veiled and harmful, and time moves quickly for creatures inside it. It otherwise acts in all ways as the plane from which the affected creature entered the mindscape. Unlike the bodies of creatures whose consciousnesses are stuck in other mindscapes, the bodies of creatures whose minds are stuck in a zygomind’s mindscape are able to move; they invariably approach the zygomind at rate of 5 feet per round. Once within the zygomind’s space, the victims lie prone, allowing the zygomind to slowly absorb the bodies’ nutrients as their minds wander a false reality. A creature caught in the zygomind’s fascinating aura must succeed at a saving throw to avoid entering the mindscape each round it remains fascinated. A creature is not aware that it has entered the mindscape.

Soporific Spores (Ex)

A creature that comes into physical contact with a zygomind must succeed at a DC 23 Will save or fall asleep for 1d4 days.

Such creatures take a –5 penalty on saves and checks to realize they are in the zygomind’s mindscape. Creatures that succeed at their saves are immune to the zygomind’s soporific spores for 24 hours.

Spore Explosion (Su)

When a zygomind is destroyed, it explodes in a cloud of ethereal spores that typically find their way back into space, sometimes floating along the solar winds for thousands of years before gravitating back toward a new bastion of intelligent life.

ECOLOGY

Environment any
Organization solitary

These massive fungi float through space as ethereal spores, spreading their cloying mycelia wherever creatures of intelligence thrive. The presence of a young zygomind is at first innocuous and difficult to detect, as animals and other creatures of low intelligence begin to disappear.

Eventually, more intelligent creatures track their prey to the site and become lost themselves, wandering back toward civilization days or even weeks later as infected undead, dominated with the instinct to bring ever greater intellects into the zygomind’s power. Over the course of only a few months, a growing zygomind can decimate a small city, rapidly accelerating its growth into a 500-foot monstrosity.

By the time a zygomind becomes visible above the treeline, it is likely too late for the intelligent life of the region; the zygomind’s insidious psychic trap defeats any resistance that most such creatures can mount. Frequently, those investigating the zygomind slip seamlessly into an alternate reality without realizing that they’ve fallen under the power of the very thing they sought to destroy. A zygomind’s mindscape only becomes more convincing as it subtly enslaves more and more minds—the fungus can reconstruct whole cities, even as the real-world inhabitants of those settlements proceed somnambulistically into the zygomind. Entire armies have marched upon mature zygominds, intent on ridding the region of the scourge, only to halt their assault mid-charge and plod calmly, rank by rank, into the zygomind’s physical and psychic grasp.

The cruel irony of the plant’s trap is that these soldiers likely live the rest of their lives believing themselves victorious, forming memories of defeating the insidious fungus, returning home to their loving families, and eventually dying after a long and productive life, while in the real world the zygomind’s mycelium sucks the nutrients from their helpless bodies and transforms them into undead minions.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Alien Bestiary (Starfinder) © 2018, Legendary Games; Lead Designer: Jason Nelson. Authors: Anthony Adam, Kate Baker, John Bennet, Eytan Bernstein, Robert Brookes, Russ Brown, Duan Byrd, Jeff Dahl, Robyn Fields, Joel Flank, Matt Goodall, Robert J. Grady, Jim Groves, Steven T. Helt, Thurston Hillman, Tim Hitchcock, Nick Hite, Daniel Hunt, Mike Kimmel Marshall, Isabelle Lee, Jeff Lee, Lyz Liddell, Jason Nelson, Richard Pett, Tom Phillips, Alistair J. Rigg, Alex Riggs, Wendall Roy, Mike Shel, Neil Spicer, Todd Stewart, Russ Taylor, Rachel Ventura, Mike Welham, George Loki Williams, Scott Young.