MushroomCore

A mushroom might not sound threatening, but the MushroomCore is one of the more dangerous bosses you'll fight.

It boasts the greatest health and Strength of all the bosses and inflicts Poison, but the real danger lies with its passive abilities that stacks with its summons, making it the king of attrition warfare.

This boss encounter comes with four smaller mushroom enemies called Spores. They can't move or attack, but they similarly inflict Poison and make copies of themselves with SpawnSpore. They don't have a lot of mana but it has a low cooldown, and the boss can make more with SporeStorm. This alone makes this fight a nuisance, but the real problem is the passive abilities they share.

First is LustAura that increases the lust of nearby characters at the end of every turn. Even if one of your characters ended a turn next to just one mushroom, since they make more they could have three around your character at the end of their turn. If you can't maintain control of this fight you'll quickly find your party lust-locked. This can be avoided entirely by using units that are unaffected by Lust entirely, but the other passive is worse.

MushroomPresence restores 1 hp/mana to every mushroom at the start of turn, while doing 1 dmg/Ldmg to everyone else. Not only is this a field-wide effect with no range, it also amplifies the Poison and Lust effects mentioned above.

All of that together means it becomes a race against time. You must be able to dish out enough damage to clear out the mushrooms as fast as they appear. Failure to do so results in a cascade of mushrooms. Each mushroom healing every other mushroom, including the boss, while you take damage and lust. Being able to hit multiple targets are a must, even if you're clearly stronger than the boss.

Upon defeat the boss drops two MushroomVest armors, which grants the wearer the LustAura passive the boss had, two uses of MushroomEssence, a consumable only usable in Town that spawns a Shroom Girl which takes on the unit's genetic values and traits, as well as a one time reward that unlocks the Mushroom Farm, a house upgrade that provides lots of food.

It should be noted that any boss fusion or offspring lose the Giant trait, so if you wish to obtain a boss in all its glory you need to capture them.

The MushroomCore itself has very questionable use as a unit. It's powerful enough to solo much of the game, but it's just as harmful to your party. The only exceptions are Shroom Girls, which appear to count as mushrooms, so Evolution could transform into one.

Upon being spawned using boss bait, the text "You feel spores of a new giant in this world" will appear.