Bringing Monsters to Life

I run a weekly game of Dungeons and Dragons and am always looking for new ways to augment my story telling. This week, I wanted to use an underappreciated duo of creatures in an encounter, the carnivorous Violet and Shrieker Fungi; however, having recently exposed my adventurers to ruthless harpies and battle-hardened orcs, I was worried they might find the idea of hacking up a bunch of overgrown mushrooms to be a bit of a letdown.

My Solution: Give them a real reason to want to smash the giant toadstools into the ground by having the shrooms not only attack the fictional characters, but also attack the actual players sitting in my living room, or at least, attack their senses.

I compiled and combined sounds from my neighbor's angry cat, a heavy chair being dragged across a tile floor, two balloons rubbing against each other, my toes in mud, and even Saturday's storm, to give the shrieker fungus an organic and piercing voice that would leave the players' ears throbbing and their neck hairs permanently erect. Then, to give the creatures an extra foul dimension, I threw some boiled cabbage into the blender along with a bit of spoiled milk, some cider vinegar, an active yeast culture, and an assortment of wild flowers. I mixed it all together, poured it into a jar, added a touch of air freshener and one good old fashioned stink bomb, and sealed and shook the concoction of floral putrescence, saving it for the moment when the adventures would encounter their foes. When they finally did, the imaginary adversaries unleashed their all-too-real sensory attack on the real world players, turning these mutant mushrooms into oppressive opponents they would never forget.