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Shrieker

Shrieker
Medium Plant, Unaligned
Armor Class5
Hit Points7(2d8 - 2)
STR
1(-5)
DEX
1(-5)
CON
9(-1)
INT
1(-5)
WIS
2(-4)
CHA
1(-5)
Condition Immunitiesblinded, deafened, frightened
SensesBlindsight 30 ft (blind beyond this radius), passive Perception 6
Languages--
Challenge0( 10 XP) Proficiency Bonus+2

False Appearance. While the shrieker remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary fungus.

Reactions

Shriek. When bright light or a creature is within 30 feet of the shrieker, it emits a shriek audible within 300 feet of it. The shrieker continues to shriek until the disturbance moves out of range and for 1d4 of the shrieker's turns afterward.

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A shrieker was a variant of the violet fungus known for the strange and loud noises it emitted to attract prey.

Description

Shriekers were human-sized mushrooms. They were similar in appearance to violet fungi, but they lacked the ability to move and did not have tentacles with which to poison prey. They could produce a loud, piercing, screaming sound that tended to attract curious creature (or adventurers) to the area.

They were immune to the poison of violet fungi.

Behavior

Shriekers could sense nearby motion or light and would respond with their namesake shriek. Each such screaming sound lasted between five and fifteen seconds. A patch of shriekers relied on violet fungi to kill prey with their poison, since a shrieker could not attack or move on its own. Like violet fungi, shriekers gained their nourishment from the breakdown of organic matter that had fallen nearby.

Ecology

Habitat

Shriekers thrived in dark underground environments. Besides being found in large numbers in the Underdark, shriekers also grew on the illithid homeworld. The Flooded Forest was a dark enough environment for shriekers to grow there as well.

Sub-Species

Hedgehog shrieker

Endemic to the caverns beneath the Storm Horns mountain range, these shriekers were distinct from the standard variety in three ways. First, their stalks were covered in fur similar to that of a hedgehog, which tasted like sugar. Instead of reacting to motion or light, they only elicited their namesake shriek in the presence of medusae. It was thought that hedgehog shriekers had evolved a natural defense against them as a result of the medusae's fondness for all varieties of fungi. Finally, hedgehog shriekers thrived equally as well in sunlight as they did darkness.

Uses

In the Underdark, shriekers were sometimes placed intentionally to act as intruder alarms. House DeVir planted a shrieker among every fifth mushroom surrounding its compound to ward off potential attackers.

Shriekers were poisonous to most creatures as food; however, the stomachs of hook horrors had adapted to digest them without issue. They were also known to be eaten by purple worms, shambling mounds, and medusae.

Some considered their spores to be a vital ingredient in brewing a potion of plant control. In Cormyr, mushroom hunters often glazed fairy caps with the fur of hedgehog shriekers, making the mushrooms fetch twice their normal price.

This article uses material from the “Shrieker” article on the Forgotten Realms wiki at Fandom and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.