The ascomoid is a dangerous fungus that may be encountered in a fantasy role-playing game.

They look like big white leathery puffballs, they move by rolling, and can roll as fast as a man can move (but it takes them quite a while to get up to that speed). They attack living creatures simply by rolling into them (they can grow as large as ten feet across, so this can be deadly).

The ascomoid has a second attack that it only uses when damaged. It will emit a thirty foot long jet of spores (that will puff out into a small cloud). This cloud will kill most men within minutes, those that survive will be incapacitated for at least several minutes (and will suffer from nausea for hours afterwards).

You can only harm an ascomoid with an edged weapon (or a piercing weapon, like a spear or arrow). Blunt weapons like maces and lucern hammers simply bounce off of its leathery exterior.

The best way to deal with one of these is to run. Eventually they will be able to speed up to be fast enough to catch you (and they never tire), but it takes them almost four minutes to get up to full speed. You can be long gone by then (assuming you are not in an open plain or something).

About my monster nodes. My monster nodes are usually based upon material in the various AD&D rulebooks. But they are my own work, as I often expand the information (and in some cases plain disagree with the source material). None of them are cut and paste. You are free to use my descriptions in any material of your own (even commercial material), as long as I am given some sort of credit.