Hilum - Fallen Sporebound

Hilum

When a spore falls from the fruiting of its parent mushroom, it is no longer part of its parent. It is set adrift, to find its own place to plant itself. On the spore is a scar, showing where it connected to its parent and does no longer. A Hilum.

Sporebound may be more powerful than humans, may have their own goals, but they’re still human. They still have friends and families, hopes and dreams. Despite everything, every awful thing they’ve done to stop the Blight, they’re still human. A Hilum is a former Sporebound that has lost all of their connection to what it means to be human. They’ve lost their reason for being human.

A Hilum can walk and talk like a Sporebound, but they’re … off. Different in the way that reminds you that humans evolved feeling the Uncanny Valley when someone’s not quite human for a reason. Much like a Blight Consumed, looking like a human is not all there is to being human.

Though Hilum are unable to live in the human world (the physical world damages them in the same way the Undergrowth damages Sporebound), the Undergrowth is their home, not their prison. Over time, a Hilum can manipulate part of the Undergrowth into being their own place. Their Domain; their fortress; their Stroma. The bed on which their plans will bloom.

Sporebound can enter a Hilum’s Stroma, and unlike the rest of the Undergrowth, it won’t harm them over time. However, a Hilum controls even the laws of reality within their Stroma. Their reality has rules, which a Sporebound must learn. Each Stroma is different, formed in the image of its maker. Entering one is much like Alice entering Wonderland, or Charlie Bucket entering a certain chocolate factory. As long as a Sporebound obeys the rules of the Stroma, the Undergrowth will not harm them.

If a Hilum manages to establish themselves in the Undergrowth with a Stroma, sometimes they take on a goal of their own in the war of the Mycos. This is usually a goal of the Mycos they’ve fallen from, but this one goes up to 11. If they manage to get followers among the Sporebound, the Hilum can form a Bloom.

Blooms have their own goal, and joining a Bloom gains one access to a new Sporebound power. Unlike most other powers, this power is not attached to the Sporebound’s Anchors.

Blooms can often seem to provide a Sporebound with even more meaning than their Clade can. For some Sporebound, a Hilum’s creation of a Bloom signifies that becoming a Hilum is the natural evolution of what a Sporebound is supposed to be. When pursuing the more radical edge of the Bloom, a Sporebound can usually find all the ingredients to becoming a Hilum themselves.

A Sporebound is the Ship of Theseus - how many pieces of the original can you lose before you’re no longer the same person? A human person? Each crime, each killing, each act that pulls on your human morals pulls you away from them, and away from being human. It’s your Anchors that keep you connected, keep reminding you of why you’re fighting the Blight for the sake of humanity. The sooner you no longer care about humans, the sooner you will cease to be human.

Storytellers, if possible, should warn players who are getting dangerously close to losing their human connection and becoming Hilum … if the trajectory can be predicted. Sometimes it’s not straw, but lead bricks that break the camel’s back, sending the Sporebound tumbling from humanity.

When a Sporebound reaches the breaking point, Storytellers will give them a choice: become a Hilum, or try to claw back. If they try to stay human, they’ll need to spend multiple sessions attempting to repair their connection to their humanity, to their Anchors. During that time, the only thing that can refresh their card pool is a new session. If the Sporebound performs or accepts a Refresh, even once, before healing their connection, they will fall to a Hilum. The surge of Mycos energy will destroy what little humanity they had left.

PCs that are becoming Hilum get another choice - go out in a blaze of glory, or descend into the Undergrowth. The player can continue portraying their character for the rest of the session; afterwards, their character becomes a Hilum, and an NPC. They may later return as antagonists, or they may simply fade into the background of the Undergrowth. In some cases, they may someday return as the head of a Bloom.