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Subclass Druid Circle of the Spores
The Circle of the Spores is a Druid subclass built around Necrotic damage and Wild Shape-powered buffs. At Level 3, Symbiotic Entity lets you expend Wild Shape to supercharge your spore abilities, gaining Temporary Hit Points and adding necrotic damage to melee attacks. Fungal Infestation at Level 6 animates slain humanoids and beasts as fungal zombies that fight for you. Spreading Spores at Level 10 extends your spore cloud into a persistent zone.
| LEVEL | FEATURE |
|---|---|
| 3 | Halo of Spores, Symbiotic Entity |
| 6 | Fungal Infestation |
| 10 | Spreading Spores |
Halo of Spores You are surrounded by invisible, necrotic spores. When a creature you can see moves into a space within 10 feet of you or starts its turn there, you can use your Reaction to deal 1d4 Necrotic damage to that creature unless it succeeds on a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC.
The damage increases to 1d6 at Druid level 6, to 1d8 at level 10.
Symbiotic Entity As a Bonus Action, you can expend a use of your Wild Shape to supercharge your spores. You gain 4 Temporary Hit Points per Druid level, and for the next 10 minutes, your Halo of Spores deals double damage and when you hit a creature with a melee attack, deal 1d6 Necrotic damage to it.
This benefit ends early if you have no Temporary Hit Points remaining.
Fungal Infestation Your spores now give you the ability to animate corpses. When a Small or Medium beast or humanoid dies within 10 feet of you, you can use a Reaction to animate it, causing it to stand up immediately with 1 Hit Point. The creature uses the Zombie stat block and it acts immediately after you in the Initiative order. It obeys your mental commands, and the only action it can take is the Attack action, making one melee attack.
The animated creature is animated for 1 hour, after which it collapses and dies.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum once), and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.
Spreading Spores As a Bonus Action while your Symbiotic Entity feature is active, you can hurl spores up to 30 feet away, where they swirl in a 10-foot cube for 1 minute. The spores disappear early if you use this feature again, if you dismiss them as a Bonus Action, or if your Symbiotic Entity feature is no longer active.
Whenever a creature moves into the cube or starts its turn there, that creature must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC or take your Halo of Spores damage; the creature can take this damage no more than once per turn. While the cube of spores persists, you can't use your Halo of Spores Reaction.
The Circle of the Spores is the necrotic-zone control Druid. It is unusual among Druid subclasses in that it doesn't use Wild Shape for transformation at all — instead, Symbiotic Entity converts Wild Shape uses into a buff state that enhances melee combat and spore damage. This makes the Spores Druid a melee-forward build that uses Wild Shape as a damage-enhancing resource rather than a defensive body swap.
Symbiotic Entity's Temporary Hit Points scale quickly — 4× Druid level means 40 Temp HP at Level 10 per use. Since Wild Shape recovers on Short Rest, you can activate Symbiotic Entity multiple times per day without depleting Long Rest resources. The double Halo of Spores damage during this state turns the passive 1d4 Reaction into 2d4, and the bonus 1d6 necrotic on melee attacks adds up across a full Symbiotic Entity window.
Fungal Infestation at Level 6 is highly situational but powerful in the right encounters — any fight that kills multiple humanoids gives you Reaction-speed zombie reinforcements. With Wisdom modifier 4, that's 4 uses per Long Rest.
Spreading Spores at Level 10 converts the single-target Halo reaction into a persistent zone. Place it on a chokepoint or on top of a grappled enemy for repeated forced saves each turn — no Reaction required from that point on.