Biogloom

Start-class article · First seen: s4 · Last seen: s21

Biogloom is the glowing, poisonous fungus of Umbrafall, and the toxins, resin and potions made from it. The DM calls it “the bioluminescent toxic fungus that is the trademark of Umbrafall” [2] and says it is why the city’s main export is poison [14]. The party met it in the Warrens (s5, s6), took toxins from Maelis Dirn’s remains and from The Broker (s7), and found a cultivated strain in the Eldwythe sewers (s16). Hugo holds seven normal and seven rare vials [35][67].

Overview

Biogloom is the fungus that glows across Umbrafall and its approaches, and the toxins, resin and potions made from it. The DM ties it to the wizards who broke the city’s sky [14]. The world brief describes the same growths, harvested for toxins, reagents, potions and darker trades (world brief). In play it has been scenery, an experiment’s raw material, vials in Hugo’s pack and, beneath Eldwythe, a cultivated crop.

Description

  • The fungus. It glows purple, green and blue and is deadly poisonous [15]. It pulses along walls, brighter in Umbrafall than elsewhere [16][17].
  • Resin. An alchemist makes it from the fungus “through a relatively dangerous process” [18].
  • Toxins. Vials of poison, found at Maelis’s desk and on her remains, paid by the Broker, and bottled by Hugo [19][4][20][21].
  • Potions. Alston mixes experimental brews with it [22][23].
  • The rare strain. The sewer growth is a cultivar whose aura “pulses just like something’s breathing through wet roots” [9][24].

Mechanics (as played)

  • The toxin. Alston lists blood-thickening, flesh-rotting and heart-stopping effects, and in mild cases death, all curable [25].
  • Detect Magic. The DM allowed Mike to compare Hugo’s two kinds “since they have magical origins” [26]. The normal one showed mostly necromancy and transmutation with a faint evocation; the rare one the same, with a pulsing aura and a taste of copper and rot [27][24].
  • Spores. A fungus that burst in Caelumn’s face did six poison damage [28], and Vasquez saved against a similar puff with a 23 [29].
  • In combat. Hugo calls the vials a powerful toxin for combat [30], and the DM said a spore gland, thrown, “would explode the spores” [31].

Open questions

  • What is it? Only the link to Umbrafall’s broken sky is given [14]. Hugo’s History check could say only that something there “could be behind” it [32].
  • Who grows the sewer strain, and who buys it? The DM named the buyers as “Talaward”, most likely House Tallow or Umbrafall’s Tallow Ward [9][33].
  • Where did the seven normal vials come from? Five are shown found or paid [19][4][20], yet Hugo’s player had entered seven by session 7, and Hugo counted seven in session 17 [34][35].
  • What did Hugo take back at Mike’s burial? That it was the two vials he lent Mike [36][35] is a guess, awaiting Hugo’s player [11].

History in the campaign

Session 4: The Still Current, the Black Mask, and Hugo’s Pact

Main article: Session 4

Entering Umbrafall’s fungal growth, the party saw fungi that “glow with a sort of purple and green and blue”, beautiful if the groves had not been “deadly poisonous” [15]. The DM added that “the main export of Umbrafall is poison”, possible only because of a fungus that grew after the wizards of Umbrafall broke their sky [14]. It has no name yet.

Session 5: Black Hollow Market Tunnels and the Hollow Guardians

Main article: Session 5

In the tunnels Harvo’s Detect Magic found “the entire area is soaked in a corrupted form of animation magic”, the fungi especially [37]. The DM named Biogloom on a fungal giant, an experiment “made out of the Biogloom fungus that grows in Umbrafall and necrotic magic” [2]. In the sludge-pit cavern the walls “sweat with violet Biogloom”, and corpses rose on “cords of Biogloom” [38][39].

Session 6: Maze of the Minotaur and the Titan

Main article: Session 6

The Maze’s great entry room was lit by Biogloom seeped into its foundations [40], and a storeroom held a buckler covered in Biogloom resin [41][42]. On Maelis’s desk a note read “Tri-cap Biogloom. Cultivar binds soul thread.”, beside a Biogloom Toxin and a jar holding a violet cap that seemed to be “trying to bind to you” when Harvo took it [43][19][44]. Her notes said she had spliced the Titan’s soul “With the Biogloom and the root network of the Biogloom in Umbrafall” [45]. An Arcana check found a node that drew on Biogloom and channelled inwards towards the maze [46].

Session 7: Maelis Falls, Vasquez Captured

Main article: Session 7

Two vials of Biogloom Toxin lay on Maelis’s remains, and the Broker added two more to the payment [4][20]. He read her papers as showing “her exporting Biogloom toxin over through Duskwatch and into Velkris”, and called them fakes [47]. At the Whisper Coil Vasquez drank a potion “mixed a bit with some Biogloom” and shed glowing bubbles [22][48], and Harvo traded his jar of cap, with creature samples, for five healing potions [49]. Hugo’s player entered the toxins on his sheet as seven [34].

Session 8: Bruise the Cellmate, the Succubus, and the Quarry Ghosts

Main article: Session 8

The Nightwatch jail’s walls showed “veins of faint violet fungus pulsing weakly”, and a guard “scrapes Biogloom residue off his boots with a dagger” [5]. Asked who held the Biogloom toxin, Hugo said it was in his own inventory [50]. On the road to the Black Vein Quarry the DM said “Even the Biogloom here pulses slower. Dimmer.” [51].

Session 10: Ruin Joins, the Aurelian Conspiracy, the Plate Armour

Main article: Session 10

Back in Umbrafall’s outer streets the party saw Biogloom “pulses softly along the walls” and “a cart of Biogloom sap rattles by leaking faint light onto the cobblestones”, while the city went on as if it had never noticed they were gone [16][52].

Session 11: Owlbears and the Soulbinder

Main article: Session 11

Starpoint Secrets hit the party’s noses with “concentration of Biogloom” [53]. At the Whisper Coil, Alston offered a potion “made out of concentrated Biogloom mixed with a little bit of secret ingredient”, his untested attempt to keep the glow and drop the poison [23][54]. Terry said “We’ve seen what this Biogloom stuff does”, and Caelumn gave it a skip [55][56].

Session 15: The Death of Ruin and Althea Joins

Main article: Session 15

At the sewer mouth beneath Eldwythe, thin blue growths clung to the mortar and pulsed in the dark [57]. Later a small fungus puffed spores at Vasquez, and the DM remarked that it seemed “very much like Biogloom toxin” [58].

Session 16: Through the Sewers, Onto the Skiff

Main article: Session 16

The tunnels dripped “relatively weak Biogloom”, and Terry’s Detect Magic found spores with a remnant of biomagic that he took for a diluted echo of Umbrafall’s [59][17]. After the flooded-chamber fight Hugo found the creatures were “a specific strain of Biogloom”, one to cultivate and sell for rare potions and remedies [9]. He bottled seven samples and took a spore gland [21][60]. A smuggler’s stash was said to hold Biogloom toxins [61].

Session 17: New Hands, the Black Mask’s Renegotiation, and the Rimeclaw

Main article: Session 17

In the skiff Hugo asked Mike to compare a normal and a rare toxin by Detect Magic, as a test of whether they matched what was in Hugo’s blood [62]. Mike called the rare one “like the other one, but more powerful, almost like it’s alive” [63]. Mike said he would take the two vials to study, and Hugo said he had seven of each kind [64].

Session 18: The Wyrm Falls, the Catfish Escapes, and Mike Dies on the Road

Main article: Session 18

Hugo dug a grave for Mike in a couple of hours, and at the burial he took back something of his own whose name is not clear, along with Mike’s holy water [65]. Whether it was the Biogloom vials he had let Mike keep is not established.

Session 20: The Man Who Was Always Here

Main article: Session 20

After a quiet night’s rest as the necromantic energy faded from their bodies, the party rode another day towards Umbrafall and saw “small patches of blue and green Biogloom” beneath the fallen logs as they neared the city [12]. On the third evening the road reached a settlement round a grey mill pond [12].

Session 21: The Hand That Points North

Main article: Session 21

In the cell-room fight with the living skin, Hugo spent his one free action handing Terry an anti-toxin. He had meant to try coating his sword with “one of the Biogloom toxins”, but with the free action gone he simply attacked and missed [66][13].

Status

As of session 21. Hugo counted seven normal and seven rare vials in session 17 and still had at least one in session 21 [64][13]. The spore gland is not mentioned again, and the fungus has reached the road from Eldwythe [12].

See also

References

  1. ^ Session 4, line 1436-1442: The approach to Umbrafall; glowing, deadly poisonous fungi, and the city's main export is poison.
  2. ^ Session 5, line 871: The fungal giant, "made out of the Biogloom fungus that grows in Umbrafall and necrotic magic".
  3. ^ Session 6, line 1226-1232: Maelis's desk, her notes on the Titan, a jar of cap and a Biogloom Toxin.
  4. ^ Session 7, line 633: Two vials of toxin on Maelis's remains, two more from the Broker (L719).
  5. ^ Session 8, line 472: The Nightwatch jail's walls and a guard scraping Biogloom residue off his boots.
  6. ^ Session 10, line 434-436: Biogloom pulsing along the walls of Umbrafall's outer streets and a cart of its sap.
  7. ^ Session 11, line 646-661: Alston's concentrated-Biogloom potion and what the toxin does.
  8. ^ Session 15, line 1779: Spores in the Eldwythe sewers seem "very much like" Biogloom toxin.
  9. ^ Session 16, line 769: The sewer strain: "a specific strain of Biogloom", cultivated for rare potions and remedies.
  10. ^ Session 17, line 1469-1473: Mike's Detect Magic on Hugo's normal and rare toxins.
  11. ^ Session 18, line 2414: At Mike's burial Hugo takes back something of his own whose name is not clear.
  12. ^ Session 20, line 1757: Patches of Biogloom beneath fallen logs on the road to Umbrafall.
  13. ^ Session 21, line 1955: Hugo thinks of coating his sword with a Biogloom toxin.
  14. ^ Session 4, line 1442: Inline citation.
  15. ^ Session 4, line 1436: Inline citation.
  16. ^ Session 10, line 434: Inline citation.
  17. ^ Session 16, line 217: Inline citation.
  18. ^ Session 6, line 971: Inline citation.
  19. ^ Session 6, line 1232: Inline citation.
  20. ^ Session 7, line 719: Inline citation.
  21. ^ Session 16, line 771: Inline citation.
  22. ^ Session 7, line 1152: Inline citation.
  23. ^ Session 11, line 646: Inline citation.
  24. ^ Session 17, line 1473: Inline citation.
  25. ^ Session 11, line 661: Inline citation.
  26. ^ Session 17, line 1464: Inline citation.
  27. ^ Session 17, line 1469: Inline citation.
  28. ^ Session 16, line 355: Inline citation.
  29. ^ Session 15, line 1777: Inline citation.
  30. ^ Session 17, line 1499: Inline citation.
  31. ^ Session 16, line 790: Inline citation.
  32. ^ Session 16, line 224: Inline citation.
  33. ^ Session 16, line 776: Inline citation.
  34. ^ Session 7, line 1526-1527: Inline citation.
  35. ^ Session 17, line 1497: Inline citation.
  36. ^ Session 17, line 1465: Inline citation.
  37. ^ Session 5, line 239: Inline citation.
  38. ^ Session 5, line 1570: Inline citation.
  39. ^ Session 5, line 1607: Inline citation.
  40. ^ Session 6, line 312: Inline citation.
  41. ^ Session 6, line 944: Inline citation.
  42. ^ Session 6, line 960: Inline citation.
  43. ^ Session 6, line 1226: Inline citation.
  44. ^ Session 6, line 1250: Inline citation.
  45. ^ Session 6, line 1230: Inline citation.
  46. ^ Session 6, line 1419-1425: Inline citation.
  47. ^ Session 7, line 736: Inline citation.
  48. ^ Session 7, line 1182: Inline citation.
  49. ^ Session 7, line 1196-1199: Inline citation.
  50. ^ Session 8, line 1513-1514: Inline citation.
  51. ^ Session 8, line 1644: Inline citation.
  52. ^ Session 10, line 436: Inline citation.
  53. ^ Session 11, line 464: Inline citation.
  54. ^ Session 11, line 659: Inline citation.
  55. ^ Session 11, line 651: Inline citation.
  56. ^ Session 11, line 662: Inline citation.
  57. ^ Session 15, line 719: Inline citation.
  58. ^ Session 15, line 1777-1779: Inline citation.
  59. ^ Session 16, line 169-170: Inline citation.
  60. ^ Session 16, line 790-792: Inline citation.
  61. ^ Session 16, line 1160: Inline citation.
  62. ^ Session 17, line 1461-1465: Inline citation.
  63. ^ Session 17, line 1474: Inline citation.
  64. ^ Session 17, line 1497-1498: Inline citation.
  65. ^ Session 18, line 2413-2414: Inline citation.
  66. ^ Session 21, line 1945: Inline citation.
  67. ^ Session 17, line 1498: Inline citation.