Fungal Foraging
How hunting for mushrooms works in Downcrawl 2E.
When you think damp, dark, underground empires, you also inevitably think mushrooms. Downcrawl 2E carries over the original game’s rules that let you hunt for weird mushrooms with rare, surprising effects (think one-off mycelial potions), although the new edition has significant balance and fine-tuning to make foraging more interesting and fun.
How do you forage wild fungus? First, it can only be gathered on Journeys, expeditions between points of safety in the Down. While any character can attempt a foraging roll while Encamped on a journey, the results become more predictable as they gain new Forager titles (from Initiate through Master). An Initiate will most likely have no control over what fungus they discover, making each new mushroom an excitingly unknown quantity.
Every new foraged fungus is a separate species, with a random primary effect. These include helpful buffs like mild precognition (you can’t be surprised), an ability to sniff out lies, or turning shadowy and hard to perceive. The catch is that each species also has an unexpected side effect, which you won’t know until the first time you try it. A batch of wild fungus might also give you nosebleeds, make you incredibly alluring to undead, produce intense paranoia, or cause your skin to start brightly glowing. You’ll have to balance whether you can live with the side effect to gain the benefits of the primary.
Each species of fungus you discover has its own unique combination of primary and side effects. An important part of discovering a new species is naming it, which you can do via a die roll (generating names like shadow sludge, warty funnels, or prickly trumpets) or discoverer’s fiat.
Foraged fungus has a few other quirks. It’s always edible in addition to its other effects, providing the equivalent of a full meal (think of it as dinner and some light entertainment). Fungus is also ephemeral: it won’t last long in your pack before it will start to turn slimy and ineffectual, so you’re encouraged to find creative, MacGyver-y uses for it rather than hoard it and wait for the perfect opportunity. Foraged fungus can be sold for a modest profit, as long as you’re able to provide an accurate firsthand report on the side effects…
Serious foragers will log all species identified in a Fungal Record. With a high foraging roll, you can attempt to forage more doses of a previously discovered species, giving experienced foragers an occasional degree of predictability over what they find in those damp, shadowy corners.
One final wrinkle with fungus: it’s possible to become addicted to it. This is a rare occurrence with raw fungus, but becomes a more serious risk once it’s refined into more potent fungal drugs… of which I’ll have a whole other post about later.
Fungal Foraging is an optional part of Downcrawl—if it’s not your group’s speed you can ignore it entirely—but it adds a fun aspect to the game, and memorable stories where weird mushrooms get deployed to solve problems in surprising ways…
Thanks for reading! Subscribe to the Downcrawl Digest for more bite-sized sneak peeks every couple weeks.
Downcrawl 2E is coming to crowdfunding later this year: sign up to get notified at launch! This will be the best way to get the game and some lovely optional extras at a great price.
