Fungal infections

The infectious spores of a brooding azurepuff, jadepuff, and rosepuff

Fungi are crucial participants in the peculiar Qud ecosystem, and play a central role in the game's main quest.

Fungi are perhaps most notable for their infectious spores, which may spread to the player and other creatures.

Carrying a fungal infection endears the host to fungi across Qud, significantly improving their reputation with the Fungi faction. Infections may be considered symbiotic or parasitic depending on the scenario. For example, a fungal infection on the main weapon hand could prevent a snapjaw warlord from attacking as effectively as they previously could and provide little benefit. However, a mumble mouth infection on the arm might be considered a valuable asset to a player that desires to learn new secrets about the world of Qud.

Common Varieties of Fungal Infection

Fungal infections are spread by the spores of the brooding azurepuff, brooding goldpuff, brooding jadepuff, and brooding rosepuff.

There are four common fungal infections. Each infection is spread by a particular color of brooding puff, but the association between puff and infection is randomly determined for each playthrough, so there is no easy way to know ahead of time which type of infection one will get from a particular brooding puff.

• fickle gill
• glowcrust
• mumble mouth
• waxflab

Methods of Transmission

Fungal infections are obtained by contact with fungal spores.

When a player or creature that has less than 250 reputation with the Fungi faction enters any of the 8 tiles surrounding a brooding puff, the puff will spew its infectious spores into the air. The spores act similar to a gas, and will generally linger in the air for around 60-100 turns. Any creature or player that is in the same tile as fungal spores must make a toughness save each turn (difficulty 10) or become afflicted with itchy skin, which eventually leads to the fungal infection.

Fungal spores can also be expelled by any creature that hosts a fickle gill infection, and those spores may in turn infect other creatures.

Fungal Habitats

Fungal grass, dandy caps, and spotted shagspook

Fungi spawn in zones that are randomly generated with a fungus patch, fungus grove, or fungus forest postfix. These zones can appear in any biome, including under ground, though they are somewhat uncommon. When such an area spawns in the world, it is typical for multiple connected zones to each be populated with fungi.

Fungal zones have a recognizable type of blue grass. They are also filled with dandy caps and spotted shagspook, which, though harmless themselves, can often obscure the visibility of nearby brooding puffs. It is also common for fungal zones to include creatures that are infected with one or more fungal infections. These creatures often have the and friend to fungi postfix on their name.

Curing Fungal Infections

For a player-focused guide about how to gain and cure fungal infections, refer to Fungal Infections/Guide.

The Corpus Choliys contains the cure to many known diseases and infections in Qud, including fungal infections.

The fungal infection cure recipe is randomized for each playthrough, but will always have the same general structure. To cure a fungal infection, one must:

1. Eat a raw corpse of a random worm-like creature.
2. Spray a random unctuous liquid onto the infection.
   • This step must be completed within 100 turns of consuming the corpse.

The worm-like corpse required to initiate the cure will always be one of the following:

Creature	Corpse Drop Chance	Where to Find
electric snail	100%	A somewhat uncommon creature found in the ruins and jungles biomes or underground.
knollworm	10%	Very common in the waterlogged tunnel. Also found in similar low-tier underground areas.
plated knollworm	15%	Very common in the waterlogged tunnel. Also found in similar low-tier underground areas.
leech	25%	Commonly found in hills, jungles, ruins, and the Rust Wells.
bloated leech	100%	Commonly found in hills, jungles, ruins, and the Rust Wells.
segmented mirthworm	50%	Very common in surface and underground zones near Grit Gate. This is a self-replicating "breeder" creature that will multiply into a larger group.
worm of the earth	5%	Found in mid- to high-tier ruins and in the Tomb of the Eaters. This is a self-replicating "breeder" creature that will multiply into a larger group.
seedsprout worm	10%	A rare solitary creature with a low corpse drop rate. Finding a corpse will be difficult. They are most commonly found in levels 1-5 underground beneath non-ruins biomes (such as hills, mountains, salt marshes, flower fields, salt dunes, jungles, and banana groves). Even in these areas they have a very low spawn rate. If you go deeper than strata 5 underground, they are found only in low-tier cave areas, such as the south-western parts of the world map where the player begins the game, so focus your search on strata 1-5 for the best chance of finding them.

The liquid required by the cure will always be a 1:1 mixture of gel and one of the following randomly chosen liquids. The mixture must be put into a spray bottle and applied to the infection.

cider	slime	putrescence
honey	acid	asphalt
sap	convalessence	oil
wine	primordial soup	blood

Additional Methods of Losing an Infection

In addition to completing the cure described in the Corpus Choliys, a creature may also lose a fungal infection by:

• Having the infected limb dismembered.
• Cooking a recipe that temporarily grants a mutation which equips a natural weapon into the infection's body slot.
  • For example, cooking with flamebeard gland paste can grant fire breath, which temporarily equips ghostly flames to the face and will remove any fungal infection from the face. Burrowing hands, flaming hands, freezing hands, and ice breath will all have a similar effect on the hands or face.

Relevance to the Main Quest

Klanq is a unique fungal infection that the player contracts during the game's main questline. As part of the Pax Klanq, I Presume? quest, the player is given a choice of which body part they would like to be infected with Klanq. Unlike other fungal infections, Klanq cannot be cured by using the recipe in the Corpus Choliys. It can only be cured by completing its associated quest.

Benefits and Detriments

This section is opinion-based. Your mileage may vary.

There are many benefits to hosting a well-placed fungal infection on the body. However, there also some notable drawbacks.

Benefits

• waxflab acts as a 2d3 unarmed weapon with unlimited strength bonus when it is contracted on a weapon hand.
  • This is the most powerful unarmed damage available to mutants (equivalent to the damage of a carbide hand bones implant).
• mumble mouth provides a constant source of secrets, including rare and sought-after secrets such as the locations of legendary merchants. Hosting multiple mumble mouth infections at once can result in a vast amount of new knowledge, and open up interesting opportunities to explore lairs and ruins.
• glowcrust provides a continuous supply of luminous hoarshrooms. These can be used as healing tonics, sold for profit due to their high trade value, or preserved into useful cooking ingredients.
• Significantly improves one's reputation with the Fungi faction.
• Grants bonus armor (AV), and in some cases, additional elemental resistances.

Detriments

• Prevents a host from equipping items to the infected body part.
  • For creatures that prefer to fight with a weapon, an infection on the weapon hand can be particularly problematic.
• Seriously harms one's reputation with the Consortium of Phyta faction.
  • Several notable NPCs that the player will encounter during the |main quest are part of this faction and may become hostile if the player's Consortium reputation is too low.
• All fungal infections have a low AV bonus compared to the AV (or DV) bonuses granted by high-tier equipment.
• waxflab has a particularly notable penalty to DV and quickness.
• fickle gill can spread between a host and the host's companions or Temporal Fugue clones, which can lead to many infected body parts over time.