Mushroom Vira
Mushroom Vira — The Encounter
Spore-cloaked scout of the deep-wood fungal tribe · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Mushroom Vira
Of the Ashitake folk, who rise where the deep-wood floor turns soft with rot, the vira are the watchers and the spears. They are born from a single fruiting body, knit of cap, stem, and the memory of every creature whose decay fed their growth. A vira speaks no word aloud; it pulses scent into the air, and its kin understand. By night they patrol the boundaries of the colony's great mother-stalk, spear-tips dipped in the colony's own toxic spores, and woe to the boar or bandit who tramples the wrong ring of toadstools. Slay one and it does not die quietly: its cap splits and the breath of the colony erupts, a choking veil that buys its fellows time to close in. They feel no hatred and no greed. They feel only the slow, patient hunger of the forest, and the duty to feed it what wanders too deep.
Run Mushroom Vira in Sixty Seconds
- Skirmisher, not a duelist the vira wants range and cover. Open hidden, throw the spore-spear from 30 ft., and Skitter back the moment a PC closes.
- Death is a trap Spore Burst fires when it drops to 0. Don't let melee PCs cluster around the killing blow or they all eat a DC 13 Con save and get poisoned.
- Kill-priority the poison stacks fast in numbers, so target the healthiest vira first; a wounded one is about to spore-burst anyway.
- When bloodied have it back toward its allies so its eventual death-cloud lands among the party, not its own kin.
- Three ways to run it a hidden ambush picket in fungal terrain; a ranged poison-support line behind a bigger stalk-creature; or a single bound scout that fights at the party's side.
Mushroom Vira
Small plant, neutral
CR 2 · 450 XP · GUIDELINESpore Burst. Signature. When the vira takes damage that reduces it to 0 hit points, or as a reaction when a creature it can see within 5 ft. hits it, it releases a cloud of choking spores in a 10-foot radius. Each creature in the area must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned until the end of its next turn. The spores then disperse.
Forest Camouflage. The vira has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide in fungal, swampy, or heavily forested terrain.
Actions
Multiattack. The vira makes two Spore-Tip Spear attacks.
Spore-Tip Spear. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 10 ft. or range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8+3) piercing damage plus 4 (1d8) poison damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Skitter. Reaction. When a creature ends its turn within 5 ft. of the vira, the vira can move up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks.
A small, hooded fungus-person stands ready behind a spear taller than itself, glowing green eyes peering from beneath a spotted cap-cloak. Its body is woven mycelium and damp earth, smelling of rain and rot.
Mushroom Vira, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINESpore Ward (signature). Once per short rest, when an ally within 10 ft. takes poison damage, the bound vira can halve that damage by exhaling a filtering mist.
Actions
Spore-Tip Spear. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 10 ft. or range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8+3) piercing damage plus 4 (1d8) poison damage.
Reactions
Skitter. When a creature ends its turn within 5 ft., the bound vira moves up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks.
A lone scout cut off from its colony, it has bonded its scent to your party, treating you as a strange new ring of the forest to guard.
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 from cover at 30 ft. with thrown spears, using Forest Camouflage to stay hidden. If the party clusters, melee the front line so the death-burst Spore Burst catches the most targets. Run viras in packs of three-plus around a larger fungal threat; they are skirmishers, not a solo fight.
Use Skitter to dance away from melee and keep flinging poison spears at squishy casters. When bloodied, bait the party into a 10-ft. cluster before dying so Spore Burst poisons several at once. Pair a hunting party of these with a bigger lair-bound stalk-mother as ranged poison support.
At this tier the vira is a flanking harasser, never the centerpiece. Spread several across the battlefield to poison-lock backline PCs while the real threat presses the front. Kill-priority for the party is whichever vira is healthiest, since each death sprays spores into nearby allies.
Put Mushroom Vira 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 Mushroom Vira?
Its home build is CR 2 (450 XP) at Tier 1: AC 14, 45 HP, +5 to hit, save DC 13. Scaled stat lines for Tier 2 (levels 5-10) and Tier 3 (levels 11-15) are in the tier table, where it serves as a poison skirmisher rather than a boss.
Can Mushroom Vira be a companion or ally?
Yes. As 'Vira, Bound' (AC 14, 27 HP) it fights beside the party with its Spore-Tip Spear and Skitter reaction, and can shield an ally from poison once per short rest with Spore Ward. A lone scout cut from its colony makes a natural recruit.
Is the vira's spore burst dangerous to my own monsters?
Only to those within 10 ft. that fail the save, and viras are immune-friendly to their own kind in flavor but use standard rules in play. Position viras so a death-burst lands among the PCs, and keep other minions a step back when one is about to fall.
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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