Mushroom Man
A type of fictional creature resembling a humanoid mushroom.
Typical traits of this creature include:
- A mushroom-like cap at the top (usually either as the creature's head, or as a growth on top of the head).
- Some sort of face. Noses are not required, however, most variants will at least have eyes and a mouth.
- The ability to walk, usually on two small feet. An alternative is to have it hopping around on its stalk.
These critters can be good or evil, and may or may not be sentient. If they are competent fighters, expect them to use poison or spore-based attacks. Also, do not confuse them with Plant People. Ever.
Examples of Mushroom Man include:
Anime and Manga
- Kinoko Nasu of Type Moon fame depicts himself as a talking mushroom whenever he makes cameo appearance in a manga. That is because "Kinoko" means "mushroom" in Japanese.
- In Slayers the Motion Picture a hypnotist makes a minor character see mushroom guys dancing with help of some extras costumed as these.
Film
Literature
- The Cthulhu Mythos has the Fungi from Yuggoth.
- In Endless Quest 6: Revenge of the Rainbow Dragons, the mushroom men. It's not clear whether they are Myconids or a separate race, but some are apparently creatures that have been transformed into mushrooms while others have always been that way.
- The mushroom people from Eleanor Cameron's The Wonderful Flight To The Mushroom Planet and its sequels do not look like mushrooms, but are biologically related to them.
- Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris-books prominently feature Gray Caps, also known as Mushroom Dwellers that live underneath the titular city. They seem to be mammalian humanoids rather than real fungus creatures, but they have developed Organic Technology to such heights that it seems like magic, and live in symbiosis with their fungus, allowing it to grow inside their bodies for various positive effects - most notably that almost all their wounds regenerate almost instantly, flesh replaced by mushroom tissue. They also wear wide-brimmed gray caps, but their function is unknown.
Tabletop Games
Card Games
- The Yu-Gi-Oh card game has "Mushroom Man" and "Mushroom Man #2 - the latter's Japanese name is even Matango!
Tabletop RPG
- Dungeons & Dragons has Myconids, which are a race of subterranean mushroom people.
- Campestris are smaller, swamp-dwelling relatives of Myconids who were introduced in Dungeon #41, in the Module "Old Man Katan and the Mushroom Band".
- Pathfinder has myceloids, which are similar if quite a bit more sinister.
Video Games
- Several characters from the Super Mario franchise, including Goombas and Toads.
- One of the fusions in Breath of Fire 2 turn Spar (an androgynous plant man) into a cute mushroom girl.
- The Black and White Fungus Heartless in Kingdom Hearts.
- Several Pokémon: Shroomish, Breloom, Foongus and Amoongus.
- In Katamari Damacy, one of the Prince's Second-Cousins, Kinoko looks like a mushroom with arms and legs (no face).
- In Ragnarok Online, there are various monsters, the Spore and Red Spore monsters, which resemble mushrooms with faces and their caps pop open to reveal a huge mouth full of teeth. players can also get a hat that resembles a mushroom cap and look like one themselves.
- Humanoid fungi appear as monsters in both Dragon Quest and The Legend of Dragoon.
- Funguy from Chrono Cross. He was originally a normal human, but became a humanoid fungus after eating an enchanted mushroom.
- The Wii platformer titled Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars.
- Dwarf Fortress has plump helmet men (plump helmet is a fungus, one of dwarven crops).
- The Shrieker enemies from Star Ocean: Till the End of Time.
- Dark Souls has a group of enemies simply named Mushroom People.
Webcomics
- Masha Kinoko from Touhou Nekokayou is a Moe Anthropomorphism version.
Web Original
- The Rumi creature family in UniCreatures.
- This Dungeons and Dragons-inspired video seen here adapts The Smurfs to game terms, suggesting Smurfs are a type of Myconid.