Shroomplenthead Necrostalk

The shroomplenthead necrostalk split from its ancestor and specialized in a specific type of victim, plents of the shroom eating plents family. It now greatly resembles the head of a shroom eating plent, a fact that helps it lure them. The coloration of the ears, eyes, and face are all fake and are only used to attract and have no other function. Like its ancestor it reproduces by mimicking a plent and luring its victim using plent pheromones to mate with it. When the shroom eating plent meets with it, it gets confused from its deceiving looks and great amounts of pheromones and tries to mate with it using the mouth, their reproductive organ. As they start false mating the shroomplenthead necrostalk releases their spores inside the victim’s mouth and chokes it. The poor confused victim will die from the toxic spores in a few minutes but will first try to run away seeking water to ease its pain.

Once it will die the spores inside its body will grow into a new plant that will use the nutrients from the dead body. As the spores are so toxic it will rarely be eaten first by scavengers, if it would they might get infected themselves. Its root bulb is slightly out of the ground usually as it grows partly in the host’s corpse. It is also usually massive as it contains all the nutrients the young plant gathers from the corpse. The ear-like spikes near the top chamber are also used when the plant is still a sprout in order to dig its way up through the corpse.