Goosh, South Mushroom Guardian
Goosh, South Mushroom Guardian — The Encounter
Bloom-crowned warden of the southern spore-glades · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Goosh, South Mushroom Guardian
In the damp hollows of the southern reaches, where rot becomes garden and the air hangs thick with drifting motes, the Ashitake tribe whispers of the bloom-wardens. Goosh is eldest among the southern guardians: a thing grown rather than born, its sinew threaded with mycelium, its skull replaced long ago by a great fruiting crown. It does not hunger and it does not hate; it simply keeps. Trespassers feel the glade thicken around them, the spores settling in the lungs, the ground growing soft and grasping underfoot. Those who flee at once are usually let go. Those who cut, burn, or harvest the sacred caps are seized in petal-arms and seeded where they fall, so that in a season's turn the glade grows a little wider and a new pale stalk stands sentinel. Foragers who leave an offering of meat or bone at the glade's edge report safe passage, and the wise teach their children never to take from the south without giving first.
Run Goosh, South Mushroom Guardian in Sixty Seconds
- It is a wall, not a duelist. Goosh wants you adjacent so the Spore Crown poisons you every round. Hold it on a chokepoint or doorway and make the party pay to walk past.
- Open with Sporeling Lash + Multiattack. Reaction-pull a melee PC into the aura, then claw twice to knock them prone in the poison cloud.
- Kill-priority for the players is fire. Fire suppresses Rooted Vigor's regen and resets its slow attrition; a torch or fire spell is worth more than raw damage.
- When bloodied, Goosh stops chasing and roots itself over the densest cluster, dumping every recharged Spore Burst into the crowd to seed the ground in bodies.
- Three ways to run it: lone glade-warden tax (just the Crown and claws), warden-plus-sporelings (add the companion stat block as 2-3 minions), or lair finale (spore-thick terrain that grants it cover and difficult ground).
Goosh, South Mushroom Guardian
Large plant, neutral
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINESpore Crown. Signature. Goosh's bloom constantly sheds living spores. At the start of each of Goosh's turns, each creature within 10 feet must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or take 7 (2d6) poison damage and be poisoned until the end of its next turn. A creature that begins its turn poisoned this way has disadvantage on the save.
Rooted Vigor. While Goosh is in contact with natural earth, soil, or living fungus, it regains 5 hit points at the start of its turn if it has at least 1 hit point. Fire damage suppresses this trait until the end of its next turn.
Actions
Multiattack. Goosh makes two Rending Claw attacks. If both hit the same creature, the target must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Rending Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8+4) slashing damage plus 4 (1d8) poison damage.
Spore Burst (Recharge 5-6). Goosh expels a cloud of choking spores in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 14 Constitution saving throw, taking 21 (6d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. A creature that fails is blinded until the end of its next turn.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Sporeling Lash. Reaction. When a creature Goosh can see ends its movement within 10 feet, Goosh lashes out with a petal-tentacle: the creature must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be pulled 5 feet toward Goosh and take 5 (1d10) bludgeoning damage.
A hulking fungal sentinel, knotted with bark-tough muscle, crowned by an explosion of pink-and-violet petal-tendrils that pulse with a soft inner light. Goosh moves slowly but plants itself like a standing stone over the spore-glades it guards.
Goosh, South Mushroom Guardian, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEHealing Spores (signature). As an action, Goosh, South Mushroom Guardian releases restorative motes; one creature within 10 feet regains 7 (2d6) hit points and ends one effect causing it to be poisoned. Usable twice per long rest.
Actions
Cap Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8+2) bludgeoning damage plus 2 (1d4) poison damage.
Reactions
Bracing Mycelium. Reaction. When an ally within 10 feet is hit by an attack, Goosh, South Mushroom Guardian roots fungal threads through the floor, granting that ally resistance to the triggering damage.
A knee-high offshoot of the great warden, a waddling cap on stout legs that follows a chosen keeper and tends their wounds with the same spores it would use to bury a thief.
Guideline numbers — formula-tuned and read from the miniature's design, not yet table-proven. Tell us how it ran in the comments.
How It Fights — by Tier
Same creature, scaled threat. The traits never change; only the numbers move.
Open by planting Goosh in a chokepoint so the Spore Crown taxes anyone who closes. Save Spore Burst for two or more clustered PCs. At this tier it is a terrifying mini-boss; pair it with a couple of fungal swarms rather than running it alone against a fresh party.
Open with Sporeling Lash bait, dragging a striker into the Spore Crown aura, then Multiattack to knock it prone. Recharge Spore Burst on the tightest cluster. Kill-priority is anyone carrying fire or radiant damage, which shuts off Rooted Vigor. Best run as the glade's warden flanked by lesser sporelings, not as a standalone boss.
At high tier Goosh anchors a fungal lair: open by collapsing the party into the spore cloud, then grind them with Multiattack and constant Crown damage. It cannot out-act a full party alone, so pair it with a bigger threat or a swarm of bound sporelings that feed off its aura. Focus burst attacks on whoever is dispelling the spore terrain.
Put Goosh, South Mushroom Guardian on the table
Download the presupported STL and run the fight tonight — the model, and the encounter that comes with it.
Get the STL on MyMiniFactory →Clay Cyanide Companion Rules v1
How a bound creature acts
- A companion acts on its owner's initiative, immediately after the owner.
- It uses the Companion block above — roughly ×0.6 HP and damage, no recharge abilities, and at most one reaction trait.
- It moves freely; it takes its Action only while its owner is conscious.
- At 0 HP a companion is broken, not dead — restored on a long rest unless your table rules otherwise.
Original Clay Cyanide material © Clay Cyanide LLC — explicitly not the non-SRD official sidekick rules.
Questions, Asked at the Table
What CR is Goosh, South Mushroom Guardian?
Goosh is built as a Challenge Rating 6 plant (2,300 XP), a Tier 2 threat for a party of levels 5-10. Tier 1 (CR ~2) and Tier 3 (CR ~11) versions are provided that keep the same traits and only shift the numbers.
Can Goosh be a companion or ally?
The full warden is too dangerous to befriend, but its offshoot, the bound Sporelet, makes a fine ally: a sturdy healer-bruiser that mends poison and shields a chosen keeper. Use the companion block for a ranger, druid, or fungal-pact character.
Is Goosh a solo boss?
No. Goosh is a defensive add-on, not a centerpiece. It lacks legendary actions, so a four-player party will out-act it on its own. Run it as the anchor of a fungal glade encounter, flanked by sporelings or a larger threat, and let its aura and reaction make the terrain itself the danger.
Tell Us How It Ran
This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 ("SRD 5.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
Clay Cyanide Miniatures is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC. This content is compatible with the fifth edition of the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. Companion rules, lore, names, and original mechanics © Clay Cyanide LLC.
Technical Specifications
32mm, 75mm
STL, Pre-supported STL
Standard or ABS-like resin, 0.05mm layer height
Yes — ready to print, optimized supports included
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