267 - Fungal Telepathy

Supernatural Identity: Fungal Telepathy

Forests are underpinned by vast hidden blankets of fungi, hiding just beneath the surface of the Earth. As a reflexive adaption this blanket chemically signals to the plant life attached to it when other parts of the forest are damaged, subtly firing off warnings which go unnoticed to human eyes that allow other plants to change their growth or release chemicals that are poisonous to predators. Time begets a system of emergent, idiot self-interest as this symbiosis favours those who the mold is best able to extract food from - the strains that do not are less likely to survive. Eventually a type of supraorganism develops from the interaction of these parts.

Occasionally, deliberately or through happenstance, a person becomes a carrier for something similarly adapted to humans, a spore-ridden mule of magickally charged mutuality. It's not good for you, you'll look terrible and feel worse. Hacking cough, bloodshot eyes and odd sugar cravings are all symptoms of an infection that will kill if left untreated. Complete cures once it has set in take months of treatment with steroids and surgical debridement. Those trying to take advantage of it drink a variety of anti-fungals to keep their condition in check, cycling between poisons fast enough to limit the damage to their bodies and keep their passenger under control without killing it.

The reason they do this is simple: the fungus signals to the host, hijacking the nervous system with impulses that favour those whose breath reeks of higher concentrations. By slipping someone a little primer culture of spores this can act as a form of primitive mesmerism. Like a parasite altering a host behaviour to ensure its own survival, hosts can in turn use mutual infection to subtly influence one another. People vying for control by deliberately skirting the boundaries of manageable levels of infection has led to clusters of deaths. The fungus doesn't prevent it, a live host is only marginally different to a dead one.

Supernatural Identity: Fungal Telepathy
Feature: Influence.
Feature: Casts Rituals.
Feature: Use Gutter Magick.