Myciliac Priest Orn

The Myciliac Priesthood of the Mistwood is a sect that worships fungi and studies their many affects and uses. Little is known about the Fae who serve as part of this group but it is claimed that the Myciliac Priesthood is bound to a fungal king, and that they do his bidding and spread his spores from where he has taken root, somewhere within the dankest depths of the forest. Like many other Fae, Orn’s physical form reflects his nature and his place within the Mistwood. His skin is waxen and rubbery while mycelium burrow into his flesh, a mark of his favor. Like most other Myciliac Priests, his face is concealed by a mildewed hood upon which the patterns change depending on his mood and a wide-brimmed hat formed from the great, dripping crest of a rotcap. His spore staff is a gnarled stick of living wood said to have been plucked from the fallen tree that nestles the fungal king. It sprouts all manner of growths and mushrooms, acting as a focus for the strange brand of Fae magics and rites Orn performs. Orn is one of the oldest of the Myciliac Priests, and few know the fungal secrets of the forest like he does. His research carries him throughout the Mistwood, and he investigates everything from tiny mottle-stems on the trunks and boughs of the woodland’s edge, to the vast, tree-sized sproutings of the Mushroom Glen, a heartland of fungal activity in the ancient forest. Orn’s life is this alone, and so the very air around him is thick with poisonous spore clouds. The miasma surrounding him ensures he lives much of his life as a hermit, feared and shunned by those outside the priesthood, even Fae. In the Fae Court there are some who would see him, and the other Myciliac Priests, banished for the spreading of poisons. Orn however, remains within the Mistwood, mainly thanks to the growing influence of those Sylvan who feel the quickening, more aggressive tempo of the Rhythm, and believe that a time is coming when a range of terrible toxins will be needed in future expansion. Besides that, the creeping influence of the fungal king runs far and deep. Orn knows full well what power the fungi hold and has found ways to empower their attributes with Fae magic to spore his colonies and burrow it deep into enemy flesh. He has seen how blooms of enchanted fungus erupt from living bodies, ripping them apart as only a combination of Fae magic and fungal spite can. After the victim is dead, he claims its corpse as a rich and loamy bed for new growths, and it is in these experiments that his ambitions lie, for he hopes to create a strain of fungus capable of infecting the Undead, bringing them to life as protectors of the Mistwood and eliminating them as a threat in a single stroke.