Mycoraiths

They drifted across the field like mist in a dream. Tiny figures with mushroom-stem bodies, their gills shedding spore-clouds that glittered silver in the lantern-light. One sang to itself in a language I did not know, and the crops rotted under its shadow

— Herbalist Velda Greenthorn, “Field Observations on Unseasonal Rot”

Mycoraiths drift silently through mist-choked hollows and abandoned fields, small fungal creatures that seem neither plant nor animal. They are faintly luminous, their gilled wings shedding clouds of silver spores as they dance. Farmers curse them, blaming Mycoraiths for sudden crop failures and strange dreams. It is said that they feed not only on decaying plants, but on forgotten hopes — whatever that once meant. Offerings of ashbeet and emberroot are sometimes left at old crossroads, though no one truly remembers why, only that it is tradition.

Habitat

• Underground veilgroves near moist, root-choked caverns
• Hidden in abandoned cellars and old wells overrun with fungi
• Mist-heavy fens and glades

References

Offer the first harvest to the unseen ones, lest the Rotkin dance through your fields and sow your seed in sorrow

— Traditional farming superstition