Lt. Dione married a witch because his Captain ordered him to. He raised her ornery kids because he promised to. His furtive trip into the woods had no justification beyond curiosity. His wife had warned him about the rorgoten, but what did a soldier have to fear from a mushroom? --- ## ANALYSIS I know I've written about fungus before — here's the [research overview](https://eleanorkonik.com/fungus/) %% ( [[2021-06-21 Fungus]] ) %% — but mycelium has a special place in my heart, mostly thanks to all the video games I play. First, what _is_ mycelium? It’s the part of a fungus that structurally resembles the root of a plant. It looks a bit like spiderwebs. Mushrooms (and other “fungus fruits”) sprout from mycelium. My favorite mechanic in the (free, Diablo-esque) ARPG game [Path of Exile](https://www.pathofexile.com/) involves a mycelium blight. I’ve enjoyed tower defense games since I first stumbled across them playing Starcraft back in the mid-90s. I never really cared much about the campaign and the nicest thing everybody ever said about my strategic skills in Starcraft was that I played about as well as a computer, but building up defenses against waves of enemies was always _fun_. The story behind Path of Exile isn’t really the reason anybody plays it — here’s a [hilarious summary of the plotline](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/osj12h/poe_hasnt_survived_for_9_years_off_the_story_the/h6pfdo8/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) from Reddit — but the way it works is pretty interesting. In Path of Exile, there’s a “blight” mechanic, where the player may encounter fungal growths that need to be purified. The purification pumps cause the growths to frantically spawn roots that spread throughout the area. Monsters spawn from the parasitic fungus, which controls the monsters via the fluid inside the growth. It’s fundamentally pretty similar to the [creep from Starcraft](https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Creep), the purple stuff the Zerg use. In Starcraft, spores and secretions spread the thick, slimy substance throughout the galaxy. A superorganism in its own right, its primary function is to nourish the Zerg. It also serves as a highway system by sensing the presence of Zerg and speeding their movement along via microscopic filaments. Finally, it’s an effective early warning system, as it has a neural network and is connected to the rest of its hive. Incidentally, Zerg & creep were a major inspiration behind my favorite fantasy series, the [Codex Alera](https://www.goodreads.com/series/45545-codex-alera) by Jim Butcher. [Wurm](https://www.wurmonline.com/) also has a mycelium mechanic. It's the precursor to Minecraft, I've played it for about a decade and the best description I can offer is that it's a medieval fantasy simulator (in all [the worst ways](https://www.themarysue.com/neopets-economy/), honestly, don't play it). Anyway, followers of the dark/evil god, Libila, are known as “blacklighters” because Libila’s bone altar emits a black column of light into the sky. According to the game’s lore, mycelium is the taint of Libila manifesting on land. It provides blacklighters who stand on it with nutrients and can even be absorbed for health. Ironically, the mycelium in Minecraft — which can spread, but reverts to dirt when given insufficient access to light, and can produce fungus and mushrooms — is the most realistic portrayal I’ve seen in video games. My goal with rorgoten was to have a mycelium-like magic blight that was simultaneously a bit more realistic and deviated from the increasingly common trope of “a fungus that spawns and nourishes evil zombies” because honestly, [blights suck](https://eleanorkonik.com/cat-and-wolf/) %% ( [[2021-07-21 Cat and Wolf]] ) %%, but it’s a bit much to keep painting them with the brush of literal evil. Especially since mycelium is a much _less_ evil alternative to plastics. Scientists think it might one day offer vegan alternatives to meat and leather, and organic alternatives for plastic packaging and synthetic fibers. Actually, scratch that, it’s _already_ a viable styrofoam alternative. So how does it work? Remember, mushrooms are basically fungus fruits, with the spores functioning as seeds. Mycelium functions like the body (roots, trunk, & leaves) of a tree, handling the rest. Fungi have external digestive systems, releasing enzymes to metabolize tough organic materials like cellulose and lignin, which invertebrates find difficult to digest. The mycelium — the main part of the fungus, sort of like the roots of a tree or plant — then absorbs the broken down bits. This allows them to play an important role in decomposition. What does that have to do with succoring evil monsters that spawn from the patches? I suspect it’s because of another natural phenomenon that has become popular fodder for zombie horror lore — think games like _[The Last of Us](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us)_ (which was incredible) and books like _[The Girl With All The Gifts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_with_All_the_Gifts)_ (which was so difficult to read as a new mom that I quit a quarter of the way through). I’m talking about parasitic fungi that control insects like ants and caterpillars in order to breed. They take over the nervous systems of their host animals, essentially eating them from the inside out, and then sends the body to high locations from whence spores can more easily spread. Remember: spores are the seeds. Mushrooms — like the stalks that emerge from the heads of ants and caterpillars and other creatures infected by these zombifying fungi — are the fruit. But the body, the roots, the underlying structures that nourish all that? That’s mycelium. It’s cool. And it’s definitely going to keep showing up in my stories. ## Further Reading - [The Mycelium Revolution Is upon Us](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-mycelium-revolution-is-upon-us/) via the Scientific American Blog Network has more information about how we can use mycelium for all sorts of nifty vegan materials to help the environment. - [Mycelium, The Future is Fungi via The Green Temple](https://thegreentemple.net/articles/mycelium-the-future-is-fungi) is similar but has a bit more detail about how mycelium really works and has some neat videos about how it can be used to make plastic decompose. - [The Tibetan Caterpillar Fungus Is in Trouble](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/10/tibetan-caterpillar-fungus-trouble/573607/) & [The Zombie Fungus Takes Over Ants’ Bodies to Control Their Minds](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/how-the-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants-bodies-to-control-their-minds/545864/) from The Atlantic both do a nice job of explaining how these related species of fungus work.