Quote Originally Posted by Maat Mons View Post
In D&D 3.5, a template was a series of changes applied to a creature to get another creature. For example, Zombie was a template, and if you applied it to Human, you'd get a Human Zombie. Or if you applied it to Gnome, you'd get a Gnome Zombie.

D&D 3.0, there were also templates, but zombie wasn't one of them. Instead, there were just stat blocks for Small Zombie, Medium Zombie, Large Zombie, et cetera.

I see that 5e has stats for Zombie, and stats for Ogre Zombie, which leaves me a little confused, since neither of those is small. Do small creatures get reanimated as medium-sized Zombies?

Right now, Zombies are really, the only thing I have to look at for designing Fungoid Zombies. The internet says Tomb of Annihilation has Yellow Musk Zombies. And if those are anything like their 3rd edition counterpart, they should be closer to what I'm after, but still off in their own way. The internet also says that Volo's Guide to Monsters has Spawn of Kyuss. Assuming, again, that these creatures resemble their 3rd edition versions, they're probably the closest to what I'm after. Maybe I should hold off on designing Fungoid Zombies for now?
Okay. I'm pretty sure, but not totally, that templates don't exist in 5e. Probably if you wanted to make a gnome zombie you would use a zombie and make it small, adding or subtracting anything else you see that needs to be changed to fit the theme. I am afraid I am only familiar with 5e, so I haven't heard of a lot of this stuff before. Templates sound like a good idea though. They were probably taken out for simplicities sake, hence increasing the complications for anyone who wanted to make variants.

If you want to start designing the fungoid zombies now, go ahead. If you don't then wait. I currently see no reason why it would matter when you designed them. Also, most people I've seen GM make their own monsters and variants quite frequently.