I remember back when I wrote my first adventure I was going through the Pathfinder 1st Edition Bestiary and found the perfect creature, Vegepygmies. Little dreadlocked plant people that burst out from your chest like a xenomorph if you breath in the spores from russet mold.

I fell in love with these little guys instantly.

The D&D 5e vegepygmy is simultaneously better and worse in a lot of ways. They are more alien in nature and fungel in appearance but lose the bizzare form of ancestry worship where they prey to the corpse that birthed them and use it as the source of their tools. So, lets make a better vegepygmy.

A basic 5e vegepygmy is a CR 1/4, neutral aligned, plant creature with 13 AC, 9 HP, 30ft speed, 60ft darkvision, and 2 attacks. A claw (+4 to-hit, 5 damage) and a sling (+4 to-hit, 4 damage). Otherwise, they have three truly noteworthy characteristics.

1. They can regenerate 3 HP every turn. This regeneration is turned off for one turn if they take cold, fire, or necrotic damage and they cannot die if their regeneration is working. To my knowledge, this is the lowest CR monster in 5e to have regeneration. Luckily for most PCs cold, fire, and necrotic are the three most common types of damage so its pretty likely someone has them. However, if the only casters in your party are a 1st level cleric, warlock or bard this might present a bit of a problem.
2. They are excellent at hiding. They just have +4 stealth and advantage if hiding amongst plants. Against a 1st level party that is very strong since that averages to a +9 to stealth when the party has between 14-16 passive perception at its highest. Add on that vegepygmies have darkvision and living in dark places. This means that unless the party is carrying light sources, which most parties in my experience don’t, the vegepygmies have the equivilant to +14 stealth against passive perception!
3. They have two resistances, lightning and piercing. There are exactly two cantrips (lightning lure and shocking grasp) and three 1st level spells (chaos bolt, chromatic orb, and witch bolt) and one 2nd level spell (dragon’s breath) which CAN deal lightning damage. Because of this its pretty unlikely that PCs will even notice the lightning resistance. Four of the most popular weapons however (bows, daggers, rapiers, and shortswords) all deal piercing damage. This means that, unless PCs adapt their tactics, the piercing resistance will come up in nearly every combat.

This list of abilties has left us with a very unique feeling creature for a DM to run. However, the majority of players will only see the claws and the regeneration. So you may as well just be playing a baby troll. How then do we make our little mushroom aliens more interesting?

Firstly we need to make their attacks carry a stronger theme. Claws are fine but these should feel more like tribemen. So lets give them a spear. The vegepygmy chief already carries one so lets just steal that and use it to replace the sling.
Next we need to give it something more to do than just hit people with a stick every round so lets give it a bonus action. They are very sneaky and not particularly durable. So lets give them the ability to dash or hide as a bonus action.
Finally, lets give it a recharge 6 reaction. They are born from spores and should carry some of that effect with them. Whenever they take damage, they can use their reaction to spray spores at the creature who hit it. That creature makes a constitution saving throw and if they fail, they are poisoned for 1 round.

None of these effects will have a huge impact on the CR of a vegepygmy and they can be applied to the chief as well. In doing so we give them a far more unique style of combat.

Now that we’ve covered vegepygmies which appear in the books lets make two of our own. Considering their unique method of reproducing we should make a varient that can travel long distances to spread their mold. It is also a common trope for tribal societies to have a shaman so lets make one of those too.

Our long distance vegepygmy will have two tasks.
1. Travelling the long distances needed establish a new colony of russet mold.
2. Creating more russet mold.
So I created this stat block.

Budder

Tiny plant , neutral
Armor Class 13 (Natural Armor)
Hit Points 11 (2d8 + 2)
Speed 15 ft. fly 40 ft.
STR 9 (-1) DEX 15 (+2) CON 12 (+1) INT 2 (-4) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 6 (-2)
Skills Perception +3, Stealth +4
Damage Resistances Lightning, Piercing
Senses Darkvision 60 ft., Passive Perception 13
Languages —
Challenge 1 /2 (100 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +2
Plant Camouflage. The budder has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks it makes in any terrain with ample obscuring plant life.
Regeneration. The budder regains 4 hit points at the start of its turn. If it takes cold, fire, or necrotic damage, this trait doesn’t function at the start of the budder’s next turn. The budder dies only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn’t regenerate.
Sporific Death. When the budder dies its body explodes, filling the air in a 10-foot raidus around it with spores. Any creature in that area which breaths and isn’t a construct, plant, or undead must succeed a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or become infected with russet mold. 1d4 days later a new patch of russet mold will grow in this area so long as it is free of the effects which would normally kill the mold.
Actions
Beak. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (2d4 + 2) piercing damage.
Bonus Actions
Underfoot Action. As a bonus action, on its turns, the budder can take the dash or hide action.

If a flying beast such as a bird or bat dies from russet mold, the result is an avian monster called a budded. Budders are less intelligent than vegepygmies, often leaving the tribe as soon as they mature to spread their mold across the world.

Finally we come to the shaman. Like I said, one of the things I loved about Pathfinder vegepygmies is that they would venerate their dead hosts and worship them. So our shaman is going to be a the leader of this worship. Considering its title it should be a spellcaster of some description. And we’ll throw in something special about their connection to their host.

Vegepygmy Shaman of The Host

Small plant , neutral
Armor Class 14 (Natural Armor)
Hit Points 31 (7d6 + 7)
Speed 30 ft.
STR 11 (+0) DEX 14 (+2) CON 13 (+1) INT 7 (-2) WIS 15 (+2) CHA 9 (-1)
Skills Perception +4, Stealth +4
Damage Resistances Lightning, Piercing
Senses Darkvision 60 ft., Passive Perception 14
Languages Vegepygmy
Challenge 2 (450 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +2
Alien Womb. The vegepygmy has retained a small fraction of its hosts mind allowing it to keep some of their skills from life. Roll 1d4 or choose from the table below to determine what the vegepygmy remembers.
1. The host was a healer. The vegepygmy adds cure wounds to the list of spells it can cast.
2. The host was a warrior. When the vegepygmy deals damage to a creature with its shillelagh attack, it can move the creature 5 feet to an unoccupied space, provided the creature is no larger than medium.
3. The host was a thief. Once per turn, the vegepygmy can deal an extra 1d6 damage to one creature it hits with an attack if it had advantage on the attack roll.
4. The host was a craftsman. The vegepygmy is proficient in one tool its host was in life. It can also create armour for itself, gaining a +1 bonus to armour class.
Innate Spellcasting. The vegepygmy’s spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save DC 12, +4 to hit with spell attacks). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
At will: infestation, minor illusion, shillelagh (see “Actions” below)
1/day each: armour of agathys, counterspell, inflict wounds, invisibilty.
Plant Camouflage. The vegepygmy has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks it makes in any terrain with ample obscuring plant life.
Regeneration. The vegepygmy regains 5 hit points at the start of its turn. If it takes cold, fire, or necrotic damage, this trait doesn’t function at the start of the vegepygmy’s next turn. The vegepygmy dies only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn’t regenerate.
Actions
Multiattack. The vegepygmy makes two attacks with its claws or two melee attacks with its shillelagh.
Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) slashing damage.
Shillelagh. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d8 + 2) bludgeoning damage.
Bonus Action
Underfoot Action. As a bonus action, on its turns, the budder can take the dash or hide action.
Reaction
Shake It Off (recharge 6). As a reaction, immediatly after it has been damaged by an attack, the vegepygmy can loose spores at a creature within 5 feet of it. That creature must succeed a DC 12 Constitution saving throw, becoming poisoned on a failed save until the end of its next turn.