The Violet Fungus is one of those super-low-CR monsters that you probably forget is even in the Monster Manual. Along with Shriekers and Gas Spores, these are non-sapient plant creatures that fit in just about any cave/underdark location and don't need much of an explanation.
Violet Fungus is also a monster with a bizarre feature, at least in 2014: you roll a d4 to see how many attacks it makes on its turn. While each attack is relatively weak - only doing 1d8 (no modifier) damage - it's tough because against higher-level parties, it's going to be at best a nuisance that they might just outrun, but against a 1st level character, if you roll high on their d4 and then hit with those attacks, you might have just killed a brand-new character.
Anyway, the "Fungus" section of the Monster Manual is short and quick and kind of easily passed-over.
This brand-new monster, though, is something quite different.
This is a CR 7 bruiser of a monster. That's a CR that can generally remain pretty relevant up to, and even into, tier 4 (though I'd always caution against using too many monsters with recharge abilities in the same fight).
The Violet Fungus Necrohulk is basically an overgrown violet fungus that has absorbed the skeletons of many people it has killed. Its attacks deal a mix of bludgeoning and necrotic damage, and the creature itself is immune to Necrotic and Poison damage, as well as the poisoned condition.
And that's relevant, because of its recharge ability: it can essentially shoot out a Fireball-sized sphere anywhere it can see within 60 feet, which does Fireball damage as Necrotic. The saving throw is Con instead of Dex, and a failed save also inflicts a short (until the start of the Hulk's next turn) Poison condition. (And successful saves still take half.)
Because the Necrohulk is immune to both the damage and the condition, there's nothing preventing it from including itself in the area, so these could be quite deadly in close quarters. It also has a 1/3 chance to recharge the ability, meaning it could potentially do a lot of damage to the party.
Now, the final piece here is its Absorb Body bonus action. And this is nasty in a couple ways: the first is that, while it can restrain and carry around a party member, it also imposes disadvantage on Constitution saving throws (which could include spell concentration). This, naturally, makes the absorbed person less likely to succeed against its Spore Bomb, which the Necrohulk is probably casting close enough to be inside the radius with its prisoner.
The scariest thing, though, is that a creature absorbed by the Necrohulk that dies has their body destroyed. Given that you might fight one of these in tier 2, any resurrection magic that could bring someone back from such damage is well beyond your reach (I think you could maybe argue that if the party kills the thing, they might be able to retrieve a skeleton and some chunks of them, but even that would still require a 7th level spell, if memory serves).
Now, how could you use this?
Naturally, this makes for a great scary dungeon monster in just about any dungeon that has anything like rot and decay - so, nearly all of them. I also think these would make very reasonable minions for Hags or for demonic cultists of Zuggtmoy. They could also perform a function as some kind of guardian for an ancient tomb.
Building a full story around one of these might be a little tricky: though I could imagine a local legend of some kind of terrible swamp creature near a village or something: the local wisdom is to never go by that one cave, or that one ravine that smells strange.
I could also see this being the creation of some kind of necromancer: maybe you had a Spore Druid who lost control of their symbiotic fungi and transformed into one of these horrific monstrosities.
One thing that might potentially disappoint players: as a Plant creature, it would seem to be an ideal target for Blight, but its Necrotic immunity makes that spell sadly useless for it.
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