Monster Review - Vegepygmy [Volo's Guide to Monsters, p. 197]

The Vegepygmy is an Pulp-y goblin alternative with a dubious name, borne from one of those weird 2e Adventures which was also responsible for the Froghemoth (a much needed addition to a game bursting from every orifice with frog monsters). It has no mythical antecedent but is instead a strange crossbreed of science fiction and pulp tropes - a grubby fungus from beyond the stars looking to set down some mycelium in your heart. Bizarrely, the Vegepygmy has long dwelt in the rather short shadow of the Myconids and Blights. Competition is apparently fierce in the world of CR 1/4 plant men.

Art

A significant improvement on the hideous previous efforts this combines a daring pulp colour scheme with a distinctively alien design. It looks eerily moist and damp and you can imagine its turgid aroma. It moves towards the body horror implied in the description (a mold infested corpse turned ambulatory vector of infection) but doesn't quite dare get there. The 'Thorny' who shares the illustration overawes the Vegepgymy with its impressive vegetable malice, however. WotC's attempt to make Vegepygmies relatable, cute and Disneyfied through the inclusion of Kapalue in the Tomb of Annihilation dilute the scariness of the Vegepygmy further.

Purpose and Tactics 
The basic Vegepygmy is disposable low-level chaff. With an AC of 13 and 9 HP, even a level 1 party will quickly reduce a Vegepygmy to so much disappointing crudités. As a result, Vegepgymies work best as an ambushing force: emerging from the subterranean murk or some brooding overgrown jungle in force with their increased Stealth skill and Plant Camouflage ability. At higher levels, you can season this encounter salad with any number of plant-based allies: either using the Thornies and Vegepygmy chief here included, or Myconids, Blights, Dryads, Treants, Wood Woads and Shambling Mounds. The regeneration will be essentially meaningless in most battles for healing - even a level 1 character should easily dispatch a Vegepygmy in one or two hits. Its power - which will be great at higher levels - is that the Vegepygmies will keep getting up and into the scrap until the team does Fire, Cold or Necrotic damage to them. This will be trivial in a team with several casters but adds an element of puzzle monster to the first encounter with Vegepygmies for your group, helping to differentiate the Vegepygmy from the pack.

The Chief is a weightier foe and his regeneration is likely to keep him fighting for quite some time as a low-level boss monster. The one-off Spore attack is a potentially potent AoE that seems statistically most likely to fizzle as players are unlikely to fail the Constitution check persistently, but it helps jazz up what is otherwise a fairly mundane bruiser monster.

In terms of quests, Vegepygmy lore places them best as a threat to a local region or ecosystem. They could threaten a forest village with infection of them or their animals, or they could be raiding farmlands of other regions for resources of their own.

Fluff

The Vegeygmy fluff is an interesting throw-back to the more eclectic early days of D&D when the occasional spaceship or laser-pistol might slip in to Ye Olde Fantasy Europe without anyone batting an eyelid. Terrified of acknowledging this explicitly, the fluff is very coy about the origins of the Vegepygmy beyond the stars, and only implies that fact. Much of the fluff doesn't relate to something that is gameable: Vegepygmies possess little civilization and can't really communicate, which feels to me like they're being slowly pushed into the 'disposable bad guy not plot hook' category of monsters. In fact, the Vegepygmy is sold short by his own publicist who can't stop waxing lyrical about Russet Mold instead. I would throw all the fluff out and start again, making Vegepygmies either a force of nature with Druidic overtones or a kind of fungal zombie a la The Last of Us and The Girl With all the Gifts. Nothing in the fluff deals with the serious issue I have here: my players would find the Vegepygmy ridiculous. 
Plot Hooks
Grimlin's Trading Company are finding their grain infected with some kind of fungus, causing ergotism and madness. The bodies of those infected have disappeared, and Grimlin suspects some conspiracy against his corporation. They are at a loss as to where this infection comes from, but would like it investigated covertly without any damage to their trading reputation...

In the fetid topsoil of the top-most Underdark caverns a brutal arboreal war is being fought: saplings uprooted, fields despoiled, mulch stolen and plant-men slaughtered, as a Vegepygmy tribal confederation and Myconid Hive-Mind fight a bitter, all-encompassing war. The Vegepygmies, squeezed and battered, seek deliverance from their implacable foe...

Verdict: Despite attempts to give the Vegepygmy something unique to run with, it still feels like an own-brand riff on the more recognisable plant monsters.