D&D 5E ...an invertebrate world?

[Dannyalcatraz]

Someone upthread mentioned mushrooms. Slime molds work too. Hell…ANY fungus!

I remember that DC’s Swamp Thing had a story arc in the 1990s where they expanded the main character into being a full fledged “plant elemental”, able to be in contact with “The Green”. The Green was a shared plane of consciousness for all plant life, as I recall, including other plant elementals.

But there was also “The Grey”, which was the same concept for all fungal life.

 

[J.Quondam]

You need some bivalve representation: clam people or oysterfolk or something.*
No idea what exactly such would look like, but you need them.

* Yes, I intentionally left out musselmen.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Focusing on invertebrates is a really interesting idea. Have you considered stuff like oozes in addition to the usual arthropods? Veering outside the animal kingdom more generally could also be cool, with creatures of the Plant type maybe.

Yes - this has been a bit of a stream-of-consciousness-type thing - but am not coalescing to the idea of a Mars-like planet with insects and slimes in a dark sun type setting, reachable by Gate from a wizardly kingdom (and alongside a Moon-like place)

 

[Tonguez]

Someone upthread mentioned mushrooms. Slime molds work too. Hell…ANY fungus!

I remember that DC’s Swamp Thing had a story arc in the 1990s where they expanded the main character into being a full fledged “plant elemental”, able to be in contact with “The Green”. The Green was a shared plane of consciousness for all plant life, as I recall, including other plant elementals.

But there was also “The Grey”, which was the same concept for all fungal life.

Matango emissary of the Grey (Fungal life), the story was that plant life had been seeded to Earth, Jupiter and a third world that had subsequently been destroyed. A fragment of that planet landed on Earth as a meteor introducing fungal spores, Matango had been a plant elemental who allowed himself to be overtaken by the Grey in order to learn from it - but the agenda of the Grey was to break down and consume life and so the Grey and the Green (plants) went to war.

After that the story got weird with elemental parliaments representing everything from fungus to animals (the Red) to waves (the Blue) to rot (the Black) and even machines (the Rithm)

Yes - this has been a bit of a stream-of-consciousness-type thing - but am not coalescing to the idea of a Mars-like planet with insects and slimes in a dark sun type setting, reachable by Gate from a wizardly kingdom (and alongside a Moon-like place)

I did a dense atmosphere alien planet that was dry but had shallow tidal basins from which sprouted towering microbial stromatolites, having slime-kin in the basins and anthropods in the drier uplands could create a natural demarcation between species, put mollusc races as the neutral nations caught in between

 

[Eltab]

The Basic D&D rules had giant ants, bees / wasps, and a few other insects.

IRL the Carboniferous Period (giant dragonflies and coal forests) can inspire other ideas.

And the ultimate pseudo-insect monstrosity: Rust Monsters!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I can see the future of running a game…

DM: So what are you guys playing for your PCs?

P1: A sponge.

P2: A starfish.

P3: A squid.

DM: Why does this sound familiar?