Liber de Monte Domini - New Horrors For Call of Cthulhu: Kal-Yithid, the Fungal Walker

Hello, and welcome to the popular-but-rarely-seen TK Nyarlathotep's new article series, New Horrors for Call of Cthulhu! These articles will focus on new and terrifying entities to put into your Call of Cthulhu games, with breakdowns of the entity similar to Pelgrane Press' Trail of Cthulhu. This time, we meet Kal-Yithid, the Fungal Walker! Is he a scientist on an observational mission? A malicious torturer inflicting his terrible spores on anything he meets? Or is he something even greater, more unknowable?

The following stats are presented for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition, but can easily be reverse-engineered to previous editions. Just divide by five!

Art credited to Anonymous.

KAL YITHID, the Fungal Walker

Kal Yithid appears to mankind as an impossibly large, semi-human fungus, a cross between a mushroom, a mold, a moss, and many more, all covering a gigantic humanoid form with a sunburst-shaped head. Its limbs are exceedingly long and awkward, and its body is so thin it doesn't seem like it should be possible to support its massive head. Kal Yithid lives in Barry Lake, a freshwater lake in the Ozark region, where he inhabits and lurks among the numerous underwater caves.

STR: 85

CON: 60

SIZ: 285

DEX: 110

INT: 300

POW: 115

HP: 35

Damage Bonus: +4d6

Build: 5

Magic Points: 23

Move: 7

ATTACKS

Attacks Per Round: 1

Fighting attacks: Kal Yithid brings its gigantic fists down on the enemy, hoping to crush them or swat them away.

Fighting 50% (25/10), damage bonus

Armor: 10 points of supernatural fungus, muck, and grime. If hit points reach zero, Kal Yithid will attempt to flee back into Barry Lake and its underwater caves.

Spells: Kal Yithid can mentally communicate with all of its servants. In addition, it has most mental/“psychic” powers.

Sanity Loss: 1d6/1d10+3 to see Kal Yithid.

The following is a series of speculations, rumors, falsehoods, and facts about Kal Yithid. Which is true, if any of them, should be left for the Keeper to decide.

•  Kal Yithid is an interstellar scientist from a far-off world, visiting Earth on a mission to research and report on the strange lifeforms there.
• Kal Yithid is a torturer for the infamous Mi-Go, the Fungi from Yuggoth. He poisons his prey with various fungal infections and reports the level of distress caused by its cruel tortures to its savage masters.
• Kal Yithid has always lived beneath Barry Lake, him and his servants being a natural evolution of the fungi that have grown untouched by humanity since the species' dawn.
• Kal Yithid landed in the lake during the extinction of the dinosaurs, and some of those prehistoric creatures may even lurk in the caves, preserved and allowed to breed and roam freely unseen by humanity since time immemorial.
• Kal Yithid is a mutated Old One or Elder Thing, twisted and malformed by the malevolent bacteria at the bottom of Barry Lake.
• Kal Yithid is a naturally evolved Old One or Elder Thing, adapting to his environment by adapting the look of the natives and the fungi in Barry Lake to survive in his new environment.
• Kal Yithid is a Spawn of Cthulhu who found its way to Barry Lake. His dreams affect not human targets, but the plants around Barry Lake twist and mutate in response to its signals from beyond.