Shrumgiglorbb

[Erol of Backford]

So this this gentle drake is a Sord Sage of Lhankor Mhy and is carrying the sword Shrumgiglorbb which is magical but made of rotten wood and has a mushroom pommel. It was retrieved from a sacred mushroom grotto (a black elf temple). Unlike most swords, this isn't very sharp and doesn't keep an edge well.

It is also noted as allowing its bearer to communicate with the voralan group-mind, which can be an unsettling experience, it has worms and beetles?

I am thinking it has powers like sprout mushrooms (some sort of itching rash), instant mucormycosis (mind blast) and maybe blastomycosis (smother).

On the other hand would it via the voralan group-mind would it be able to communicate via micro organisms so the wielder knows and sees things others cannot? Do they have dark-sense and dark-scan via mold spores underground, maybe it needs to be damp for this feature to work and the sword must be grasped so the voralan group-mind is able to give the wielder information? Maybe it's some sort of moldy soul sight?

Would it be able to detect air movements no matter how slight, sense plant life somehow?

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis may also be a power which is strangely related to the undead of the Upland Marsh and could be used to generate a platoon of undead to do Shrumgiglorbb's master's bidding or maybe it only works on giant insects? Oh, that might be good when messing with troll giant insects. Ophiocordyceps unilateralis is cast at a giant insect and the insect over time becomes a zombie under the control of Shrumgiglorbb's weilder?

Any thoughts on this?

(Sord Sage written by Stew Stansfield Rule1 Issue 8, p.25 Spring 2011)

[Squaredeal Sten]

If it was originally a Voralan tool then remember that they would not need it to give them contact with the group mind.  They already had it all their lives.  So why waste the POW to enchant it?

Fungus infections sound about right, and amusing too in a practical jokey way.

[Erol of Backford]

23 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Fungus infections sound about right, and amusing too in a practical jokey way.

Was actually thinking they'd be quite deadly, good old Gloranthian high rate of mortality! I think we had one week where most of our 6-8 member gaming group had at least one PC's die, 2 of us had 2 deaths.

If anyone recalls the game Boot Hill it seemed about the same related to body count, mold or not.

[EricW]

He he - you could give Glorantha its own "Cordyceps" plague, like "The last of us" - the sword can infect and enslave whoever it strikes, who can then go on to infect others if commanded to do so. 

And I don't see why keeping an edge would be a problem - the fungus could manifest sharp barbs or fruiting bodies through the rotten wood. 

There is precedent, one of the Dorastor books, I forget which, has an example where Hellwood elves would infect humans with a plant which takes over their nervous system, forcing them to do the bidding of their master. 

Of course the legitimacy of such magic is highly questionable - infecting an enslaving others is a morally dubious act which would be looked upon as chaotic by most people who worked out what was happening. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by EricW

[Sir_Godspeed]

On 10/29/2023 at 6:42 AM, EricW said:

Of course the legitimacy of such magic is highly questionable - infecting an enslaving others is a morally dubious act which would be looked upon as chaotic by most people who worked out what was happening. 

Now I'm imagining Dark Elves using subtle spore magic to make people more inclined to help them out, vouch for them, give them gifts, protect them, etc. Very subtle.

Now, granted, the regular elves might already be doing this, tbh.

[mfbrandi]

8 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Very subtle.

Fungal infection is not always subtle, of course. Don’t take my word for it, ask a cicada.

• A cicada-infecting fungus produces drugs that make the insects literally mate their butts off.
  
  Massospora fungi make either a drug found in hallucinogenic mushrooms or an amphetamine found in khat leaves, plant pathologist Matthew Kasson of West Virginia University in Morgantown reported June 22 at the ASM Microbe 2019 meeting.
  
  The fungi may use psilocybin, which causes people to hallucinate, or the amphetamine cathinone to suppress cicadas’ appetites and keep the insects moving and mating even after they lose big chunks of their bodies. The finding marks the first time that researchers have discovered a fungus, other than mushrooms, producing psilocybin, and the first organism outside of plants to make an amphetamine.
  
  — Tina Hesman Saey, Science News (June 25, 2019)°

I like to think of it as Mee Vorala thumbing her nose at Uleria.

 

—————————————————————————————————————
° See also the Guardian and Kew sites (and doubtless many more, but you get the idea).

[Erol of Backford]

3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

A cicada-infecting fungus produces drugs that make the insects literally mate their butts off.

Sounds like with FDA approval you be a billionaire "butt" you'd be blamed for over exacerbating the world's overpopulation problem!?

Maybe the sword also has the ability something like a harmony spell but it becomes reproduce like a berserker? This would make some game session quite funny... imagine Wolfhelm on your leg like a dog in heat... LOL.

Edited October 31, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[mfbrandi]

17 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

you'd be blamed for over exacerbating the world's overpopulation problem!

IIRC, the fungus “eats” the cicada’s reproductive apparatus — the back end of the cicada is just fungal spores on a stick, but the bug is so high it doesn’t notice — so only the fungus gets reproduced. Wolfhelm won’t live to look back and laugh about it … and now maybe you are infected, too. It definitely has Treehouse of Horror potential. 😉