MORTASHEEN

STAPHOBIA - "Crypt Creep"

CLASS: FECTOID

MACROFORM:This frighteningly intelligent, telepathic Fectoid's colorful, pulsating cap transfixes most biotypes capable of visual perception, rendering them helpless as its tendrils drill through the body, secreting digestive enzymes and absorbing nutrients like the mycelia of a parasitic fungus. This monster's favorite meal, however, is soil freshly enriched by a decomposing corpse, and it will often bury expired prey rather than continue feeding. A Staphobia may even entomb itself alongside a cadaver or deep below a graveyard, emerging only when it knows it can feed in privacy.

MICROFORM: Forming more macroscopic tendrils throughout the host body, the microbial Staphobia causes mottled tissue necrosis as it feeds, during which the host suffers ravenous, uncontrollable hunger for any healthy flesh it can obtain. When a host body perishes, the Staphobia may continue to puppeteer the corpse even after returning to its macroform, though these bodies lose much of their original functionality.

REPRODUCTION:Unlike many Fectoids, a Staphobia cannot reproduce directly out of the infectious stage. Assembling its slave corpses into a swaying tower, it releases pheromones to lure one of its own kind from afar, exchanging genetic information and eventually giving live birth to a clutch of identical young. It may take many weeks, even years for the monster to attract its mate, and it may need to continuously refresh and protect its lair. It often enlists the help of Plaguemen, who seem to hold it in a sort of reverence, though the creatures themselves are immune to all known Fectoid microforms.

PERSONALITY: the Staphobia is a philosophical and introspective being, interested in the nature of life and death and its place in the scheme of the universe. It views most other creatures as relatively unimportant if they do not offer an immediate, practical purpose or at least an engaging conversation partner.

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