Shrooms

**Mushrooms**, often shortened to **Shrooms**, are the resident flora of the Tower of Barbs, presumably brought into existence along with the Tower from the "Earth Rage" tectonic disturbance of 2026. The Tower is filled with gas from the deadly spores of these mushrooms, which has mutated the Beasts that reside within. These spores can be toxic enough for lungs to rot or even cause immediate death with a single breath. They're so prevalent, spores will immediately grow over most corpses upon death, and many corpses can be seen disintegrating into a cloud of spores right before your eyes. Due to this, all residents of the Tower are equipped with a gas mask of some kind to prevent accidental inhalation. In particular, the Mushroom Magistrate is very fond of mushrooms, to the point of obsession, having been driven mad by the amount she's eaten. She has established her own Mushroom Club, where she creates Skill Decals via the compounded mushroom powder in her Mushroom Stews. For prospective Tower climbers, a proper understanding of shrooms and their effects can be instrumental to finding success, as their boosts only become more valuable the higher you go.

Mushrooms can be found in the Tower naturally growing on the ground, often in areas with visible spore growth/residue. They can also grow from the corpses of Screamers and Haters shortly after death. Specific shrooms will grow from killed Beasts, depending on which Beast it was. There are a handful of Quests that give certain shrooms as a reward, and Quests asking for the collection of shrooms are very common. Some shrooms are also given out through Uncle Prime and Login Bonuses. And shrooms may also be picked up through Fighters sent on Expeditions. Be aware that some mushrooms and beasts only appear in certain areas of the Tower. All the mushrooms you've found are listed in the Picture book section of your Underworld Rolodex.

When approaching a mushroom, you can press  and  for the "Eat" option, and eat the shroom directly off the ground. Press  and  for the "Death Bag" option, which will store the mushroom in your inventory. Consumable items in your inventory are displayed at the top-right of the screen in the Flick Box. By flicking the  to the left or right, you can cycle through the available items. Pressing the Right side of the  will make you consume the currently selected item. There is no way to cancel eating once it begins, not even from being hit. Pressing the Left side will put you in Throw Mode. While in Throw Mode, you'll hold the item out in your right hand, and pressing  will either Throw the item, or cook it over a nearby Fire, if close enough. Pressing any other button will exit Throw Mode.

The large majority of mushrooms can be cooked to strengthen their effects. This can be done with any Fire you find by using Throw Mode, or with any sources of Fire damage. Mushrooms growing on the ground or placed from your inventory cannot be cooked with Fire damage, but Thrown shrooms can be cooked by it. Golden Mushrooms/Beasts cannot be cooked and are immune to Fire damage. Other non-Golden shrooms, like Skillshrooms, Seasonal shrooms, and Splattershrooms, cannot be cooked either. Barbmeat is a similar consumable item which also cannot be cooked. Typically, cooking shrooms will enhance the effect duration, effect damage, or effect healing of the shroom. If you have the chance to cook your shrooms before an upcoming battle, you should do so. Be careful with fire sources in the Tower, as getting too close to some of them can set you on fire as well. There is a permanent Fire at the brazier next to the Mushroom Club in the Waiting Room where you can cook at.

Finally, there are certain shrooms that only grow during certain times of the year. **Winter Whiteout** takes place every **January** and **February**, with durability-restoring Snowcaps. Each **April** and **May** is a **Spring Egg Scramble** for EXP-rich Eggshrooms. There's **Fun(gus) in the Sun** every **July** and **August**, bringing valuable Parasol Shrooms to sell. And every **October** and **November** is a **Creepy Autumn**, where healthy Pumpkinshrooms with a Rage-boosting stimulant will grow. There are no special locations for these shrooms, they can be found at the same rates at any height of the Tower while they're available. You can still keep these shrooms after the seasons end.

## General Notes

While individual mushroom pages may go into more detail, here are some general tips & notes about common shroom usage:

* Mushrooms will not respawn until you return to the Waiting Room.
* You do not actually need to press  while in Throw Mode to cook a shroom. If you simply hold a mushroom in Throw Mode and angle your arm over a fire properly, the shroom will be cooked. Since you can swap between shrooms almost instantly, this is faster than the normal method while also preventing shrooms from being thrown into unreachable areas. The brazier next to the Mushroom Club is a good place to test this. If you do this in the Tower, be careful about standing too close to a fire.
* While all weapons with Fire damage can technically cook shrooms, the Flame Wand is probably the easiest to work with, as it creates lingering Fire pools that you can easily cook shrooms in. If your armor has positive Fire resistance, then the flames won't damage you at all.
	+ Lavashrooms are also an effective way to cook shrooms, as there are no fire pits in Gunkanyama's area where they first appear.
* Often referred to as "pre-shrooming", if you eat any mushrooms before entering a raid in Tokyo Death Metro, the mushroom effects will persist for that raid. Any mushrooms eaten this way will not show up in the logs, though an observant player may still be able to spot pre-shroom usage.
	+ Oakshrooms are automatically negated when eaten in the Waiting Room.
	+ You cannot pre-shroom Slowmungus or Cateye Shrooms, as their effect will not allow you to interact with the TDM console.
	+ If you eat a Lifeshroom before a raid, but don't actually die, the effect will still be gone when the raid ends.
	+ Prior to March 2017, Evershrooms were often used with Nail Guns to groggy *any* Defense Fighter, no matter how tanky. Their effect was patched since then, and both normal and Golden Evershrooms have become essentially useless.
* There are several noteworthy things about some specific shroom types:
	+ Lifeshrooms are an invaluable asset to players due to their ability to revive you. They can be obtained as early as 11F from killing Pillbugs.
	+ Fun Fungus are the rarest shrooms to find naturally spawning in the entire game.
	+ Skillshrooms can be gathered in abundance at 3F METAKOJIYA, on Thursdays only. Outside of this, they seem to spawn more frequently on Boss floors.
	+ The buff from Stingshrooms and Crushrooms cannot be active at the same time, the last one eaten takes precedence.
	+ Toughshrooms can mitigate the increased damage taken from using Stingshrooms.
	+ The Yogashroom animation can be cancelled early by opening the Options menu.
* There's a group of shrooms commonly referred to as "Falseshrooms", which consist of Red Stingshrooms, Umbrella Rib Fungus, False Brainshrooms, Cateye Shrooms, Boleoshrooms, and Helmetshrooms. They are called such due to them being weaker, "False" versions of existing shrooms that were made much more common than the originals after some game updates. However, most of them have the advantage of not being able to be negated in situations where the originals would be.
* Even though COEN is blind, not deaf, he still cannot detect an Invisible player under the effects of Transparungus or Umbrella Rib Fungus.
* GOTO-9 will try and eat any shrooms thrown on the ground after he glows red. The shrooms can have various effects on him.
* All mushrooms will restore a very small amount of Hunger, but the amount is so small that your stamina will run out again almost immediately. Stick to eating Beasts.
* All mushrooms, even damaging ones, will still grant you a very small amount of HP and EXP when eaten, but in miniscule amounts that are not very useful.
* All mushrooms will only sell for 10 KC to Choku-Funsha, except Parasol Shrooms. Likewise, all shrooms will only grant miniscule amounts of EXP, except Eggshrooms.
* Breaking wooden boxes in certain places may reveal a shroom.
* Even the seemingly most useless shrooms can serve a small purpose: You can throw a shroom across a room, and the noise when it lands will cause nearby enemies to walk over and investigate it. You can then sneak up behind them while they're distracted. Keep in mind, since you can't do this while crouching, you risk making noise and being detected before you finish throwing one.
* Falling off a ledge while eating a shroom will cancel the eating animation, but activate the effect immediately.
* When collecting shrooms for Quests, you can also kill any Beasts you come across for their shrooms. However, this only counts on the same floor you find them, as moving floors or taking shrooms/beasts from your storage means they won't count.
	+ The elevator floors for 1F, 9F, 11F, 20F and 30F are small areas with a high shroom/beast concentration. Side floors may have more, but you'll have to take longer trips. Alternatively, just paying attention during long climbs can net you a lot.
	+ If you're feeling dangerous, you can technically use the Goals during Pale Wind's fight to keep generating shrooms. Not recommended for inexperienced players.
* If a shroom says "/Stack", then eating multiples of that same shroom will continue to increase the effect timer. If it says "/Unstack", then each shroom will start a new timer.
	+ Effect timers will still expire in real time under the effects of Slowmungus or Cateye Shrooms.
* In Battle To The Top and Tengoku, it is very rare for the corpses of Haters to grow shrooms.
* The Bloodnium gained from Splattershrooms doesn't count towards the bonus Bloodnium total when eaten in Tengoku.
* When entering a pit in Tengoku, the effect time of shrooms will continue to decrease during cutscenes. This is one reason players often skip them, as waiting until the fight starts to eat shrooms is dangerous.
	+ However, this can be taken advantage of with Umbrella Rib Fungus and Helmetshrooms, as both of these have a small delay when eaten before their effect actually activates.
* Several decals affect mushroom usage:
	+ **Food Fighter** dramatically increases the speed at which shrooms are eaten.
	+ **Resourceful** will have you eat Raw shrooms as if they were Cooked.
	+ **Vitamin** and **Vitamin XXX** will increase the HP recovered by shrooms.
	+ **Turbo-charged Engine** and **Nitro Boost** will increase the EXP gained by shrooms.
	+ **Treasure Hunter** and **Spy** will reveal shroom locations on the map.
	+ All decals that increase Rage gauge charging speed, like **Wolf**, will increase the amount of rage gained from Mouseshrooms, Pumpkinshrooms and Yogashrooms.
	+ Several decals negate shroom effects on Defense Fighters, Hunters, and Haters only:
		- **Guardmycin**, **Skillmycin**, **Brainmycin**, **Fishymycin**, **Slowmycin**, and **Stingmycin** are 1-Star decals from Bronze, Silver and Gold Lost Bags that each negate 1 shroom effect.
			* In order, these negate Guardshrooms, Transparungus, Brainshrooms, Fishy Fungus, Slowmungus, and Stingshrooms.
		- **Naspirin**, **Loxorin**, and **Poltarin** are 3-Star decals from the Mushroom Stew that combine the 1-Star decals, each negating 2 shroom effects.
		- **Master Onion Cutter** is a 3-Star decal from Silver, Gold and Platinum Lost Bags that will negate the effects of Frongus.
		- **Not So Fast** is a 5-Star decal from Platinum and Rainbow Lost Bags that combines the effects of all of these decals, negating a total of 7 effects.
			* Despite this, it and the original decals are still vulnerable to the Falseshroom versions of these same effects.
* The Forcemen and Jackals negate certain shroom effects. See their pages for more details.
	+ Fighting Forcemen on Hard / Nightmare difficulty (except White Steel) will naturally remove all active shroom buffs before the fight starts.
	+ Forcemen negate effects with a wave attack, but even if this wave is Perfect Blocked, offending shroom effects will still be negated.