Psilocybe Dragon
The Psilocybe Dragon is one of the more bizarre mutants roaming the post-P-Day landscape. For the most part it looks like a typical Western-style draconic form, except that its substance is fungal rather than fleshy. Gilled mushrooms - all of them psilocybin-containing members of various related genuses - grow from its back and head like the horns and spikes of typical dragons. It has no proper teeth or claws. Instead, its jaws have hardened beaky edges and its thick toes just draw out into sharp, hardened tips.
A feral Psilocybe Dragon has one major concern - reproduction. For most ferals, that would mean sex, but this mutant reproduces in a more... visceral manner. Specifically, its sole object in combat is to seize an opponent in its jaws and swallow them whole. To observers this appears to be a feeding behavior, but the swallowed victim is not sent to the Psilocybe Dragon's actual stomach. Instead they go to a different organ, one situated a bit further down in the gut. Zephyr scientists have dubbed this organ the inoculation pouch, but agents in the field are liable to refer to it as the 'second stomach'. In any event, swallowed victims are held in the pouch until the Psilocybe Dragon's nanites are able to infect the victim thoroughly. Once the victim has been infected, the Dragon will take itself to a safe place and regurgitate the newly infected victim. Unless treated, the victim will soon develop into a Psilocybe Dragon themselves.
An interesting phenomenon is that the Psilocybe Dragon is not concerned with the size of its victims. They will gladly attack even the largest kaiju. If the Psilocybe Dragon manages to get the better of an opponent that is larger than itself, a fascinating thing will happen. Although this mutant shows no interest in size-shifting otherwise, when confronted by prey that is too large for it to swallow normally, the Psilocybe Dragon nanites will actually grow their host until it is large enough to consume the victim. Then, once the victim is swallowed, the nanites shrink both Dragon and prey, until the Dragon is back to normal size and the prey is small enough to fit within the Dragon's belly at that size. Although not a supernatural phenomenon, and well-documented by many reliable observations, agents report that this size transformation can be very disconcerting, even disorienting, to observe. The phrase "reality ripple" has been used by more than one agent in describing the phenomenon Zephyr and RSX scientists both emphasize that this description should be taken with a grain of salt, especially due to the proven hallucinogenic effects of standing too near a Psilocybe Dragon in combat for too long. Still, the actual size-changing behavior has been independently verified.
TLDR? It's a dragon made out of shrooms. It will confuse you and debuff you. Then it will eat you. It doesn't matter how big you are - it will eat you. Later, it'll puke you up and leave you in a puddle of slime and spores.
Psilocybe Dragons are known in the wild only from Xanadu Gardens, in Fairhaven Park. It is possible that they may be discovered elsewhere in the future, however.
