The Mycelist: A New Class of Decay and Rebirth for D&D 5e

The Earth Remembers

A complete new class for Dungeons & Dragons 5e: the Mycelist, a serious, horror-infused class of decay, memory, and transformation. Includes two unique subclasses, new spells, relics, and rich lore rooted in the soil and shadows of the old world.

"There is a lattice beneath the world.. endless... unseen... alive. It threads through every grave, every bog, every forgotten ruin. It feeds, listens, remembers. Those who commune with it are called Mycelists."

The Mycelist is an original full 5e class of rot, rebirth, and fungal horror, designed for players who crave something older, stranger, and more grounded in the soil. They draw power from the cycle of decay, commanding spores, merging with the ground, and reshaping life from death.

What You’ll Receive:

The Mycelist Class: A complete 1st–20th level class with its own spellcasting and Spore Point resource system.

Two Subclasses: 

• Circle of the Hollow Root: Guardian of the deep soil, commanding fungal roots, living terrain, and ancient ground spirits. 
• The Blight-Born: Melee combatant whose flesh has fused with fungus, fighting with necrotic claws, sporeburst attacks, and regenerative mutation.

New Spells & Relics:  Fungal and decay-themed spells, plus unique relics and equipment like The Bogheart and Crown of the Hollow Bloom.

Lore & Mythology: In-world myths, prayers, and histories of the Mycelists, written in the tone of forgotten scripture and earth-horror.

Gameplay Balance: Fully compatible with D&D 5e, ready for table play or digital platforms.

What is a Mycelist?

A Mycelist is a mortal who has heard the slow, patient voice of the earth and chosen to answer it. They draw the Rootmind: the ancient fungal network that threads beneath the world, digesting everything that falls back into the soil. Through this communion, they learn that decay is transformation, and that every corpse, every crumbled ruin, and every forgotten name exists faintly beneath their feet.

A Mycelist channels this truth as power. Their magic seeps and spreads like rot, reshaping the ground, healing through corruption, and calling life from what should have stayed dead. Some become quiet guardians of the land, merging with the roots and defending what is buried. Others surrender more fully, letting the fungus claim their flesh until they are half-human, half-memory, a walking echo of the earth’s hunger.

"To meet a Mycelist is to stand in the presence of the natural order made flesh: calm, unhurried, inevitable. They are the living reminder that everything - stone, blood, and bone - will one day feed the dark beneath the roots."

Inside the Field Guide

A Recovered 50 page Journal

This book is a reconstruction of Dr. T. Caerwyn’s lost field journal, pieced together from waterlogged pages and parchment. Notes scrawl across the margins, sketches of spore blooms blur with ink stains, and pressed samples stain the pages in pale rings. Every spell, ability, and discovery is presented as though observed firsthand. This is equal parts scientific study and quiet horror.

A Complete 5e Class of Decay and Rebirth

Within these pages lies the Mycelist, a new 20-level class for Dungeons & Dragons 5e. The Mycelist is a practitioner of fungal magic who draws strength from the slow intelligence of the soil. The guide contains full unique mechanics for:

• Spore Points: The Mycelist’s living reservoir of power, drawn from their communion with the Rootmind. Each point represents a pulse of fungal energy that fuels their abilities, allowing them to heal, corrupt, or command the slow will of the soil.
• Symbiotic Form: A temporary merging of flesh and fungus in which the Mycelist’s body becomes a living spore host. Their skin hardens with fungal plating, spores swirl around them, and the line between human and growth begins to blur.
• Rotcraft Magic: The art of shaping decay itself into spellcraft. Through Rotcraft, the Mycelist channels the processes of decomposition and rebirth, commanding spores, roots, and the memories of the dead earth as tools of both ruin and renewal.

Also included are two complete subclasses: the Circle of the Hollow Root, defenders of sacred decay, and the Blight-Born, fungal warriors of living armor and infection.

Field Notes, Sketches, and Discoveries

Throughout the guide, Dr. Caerwyn’s marginalia adds texture and story: strange field observations, unearthed corpses entwined with living equipment, spores that breathe when handled. His gradual descent from curiosity to reverence can be read between the lines in a chilling chronicle of what happens when study turns to worship.

Two Paths of Decay

Circle of the Hollow Root

There are those who listen to the rain, to the rivers, to the songs of birds, and then there are those who listen downward. The Circle of the Hollow Root communes with what sleeps beneath the forest: the slow, dreaming lattice of decay that binds all things after death. To its druids, rot is ruin renewed.

Members of this Circle sink their roots deep into the soil’s memory, calling upon the strength of ancient decay to heal, shield, and reshape. They can merge with the ground, animate the dead roots beneath their feet, and summon the fungal guardians of the deep. In battle, they are still and immovable, their skin bark-like, their breath thick with spores. Outside it, they serve as keepers of the quiet cycle, ensuring that nothing dies forgotten and nothing grows unearned.

Those who meet a druid of the Hollow Root often remark on their serenity, their calm, their certainty. For they know what all life eventually learns: the earth is patient, and everything falls to it in time.

The Blight-Born

Some Mycelists surrender to the Rootmind. The Blight-Born are those whose communion has crossed the final boundary, their flesh and armor fused into living fungus, their blood thick with spores. They are the Rootmind’s champions in the waking world, weapons of decay.

In battle, they transform: veins glowing, skin hardening into plated hyphae that deflect blades and bleed poison. Every strike spreads infection, every wound closed by regeneration. They fight with rage mixed with inevitability, advancing like the slow crush of roots beneath stone.

The Blight-Born see beauty in dissolution. To them, every fallen foe is a seed, every death a bloom waiting to open. They are feared even among their own kind, but not for their cruelty, but for their devotion. When the Rootmind calls, they do not hesitate. They kneel, and the world grows quiet around them.

Spore Points are the core resource of the Mycelist: the living current between their flesh and the Rootmind beneath the world. They represent the energy of decay and rebirth that flows through every fungal thread, powering the Mycelist’s rotcraft abilities and symbiotic transformations.

Each Mycelist begins with a number of Spore Points equal to their level + their Constitution modifier. These points are spent to fuel class features, trigger spore-based powers, and channel the latent will of the deep earth . You regain all expended Spore Points after a long rest, or half your total after a short rest, as the network rethreads itself through your body.

Spore Points can be used to:

• Extend your Symbiotic Form, keeping your fungal armor active for longer.
• Release a Spore Burst when struck in melee, damaging or hindering nearby foes.
• Infest Terrain, turning ground or walls into living fungus that slows and wounds enemies.
• Reclaim Flesh, drawing vitality from decay to restore your own hit points.
• Empower Spells that deal necrotic or poison damage, amplifying the corruption spreading through your magic.

When your final Spore Point is spent, the bond falters. The whispering network falls silent, leaving the Mycelist pale and exhausted. This state - called Spore Fatigue - weakens the body and dulls their communion until rest restores the link.

Add-On: South lie the Woods...

Backers of The Mycelist can now include our previous project "South Lie the Woods…" as an optional add-on. This Southern Gothic bestiary delves into haunted folklore and monstrous faith - a perfect companion to the fungal dread of the Mycelist. Within its pages lie twenty unique horrors, richly written lore, and dark tales from the heart of the American South.

Check out the Kickstarter Page here!