Monster of the Month - Mimics
Okay so this one is going to be an interesting one for a Monster of the Month post for a couple of reasons. A big one being that there are only 2 cannon D&D mimics in the current RAW. In reality that's all you need... sort of. We will get to that later. But I kind of want to do what I did for the Hags post and provide alot more discussion on use, RP, and interactions with them. Now before I get to freaking you all out to start off this November month lets get to the normal housekeeping of talking existing Mimics.
That's it, just those two. Now we do have an even larger homebrew Mimic the size of a house. Which I find both terrifying and delightful to be entirely honest but we aren't there yet. Back to RAW (what is it good for~). The normal Mimic and Giant Mimic are only a CR apart and in fact only a size category apart. The giant one gets a multiattack but has the same attack modifier and damage modifier. Its a pretty simple alternative for the base Mimic creature but honestly doesn't give us a lot to work with in shaking things up.
So what might be a good way to do that? You may ask yourself because you can't do that to me in this blog post because it's already been written. Well, I'm glad you talk to yourself because we are getting to that. We expect to find chests, doors, drawers, wardrobes, desks, chairs, couches, etc as mimics. If we are in a dungeon or a underground basement like fortress we will run into these at least once so that the rest of the time players are paranoid. Its kind of a given at this point. But why do we limit ourselves to those objects when there is nothing saying we have to.
Mimics are shapeshifting predators able to take on the form of inanimate objects to lure creatures to their doom. In dungeons, these cunning creatures most often take the form of doors and chests, having learned that such forms attract a steady stream of prey.
Now that snippet from the Monster Manual is normally where most people stop when prepping for an encounter that involves a Mimic. This is the entire thing it revolves around, inanimate objects that you can lump in with doors and chests. Which really kills the imagination and fun we can have with this shape changing sticky bitey friend-os.
Mimics can alter their outward texture to resemble wood, stone, and other basic materials, and they have evolved to assume the appearance of objects that other creatures are likely to come into contact with.
Okay the first bit goes with the previous part we talked about. It lets the appearance be more believable and means that the first touch still carries forward the illusion. The part I want you to keep in mind though is that they have evolved specifically to mimic things they know their prey interacts with. Cause you know they need to eat so they aren't going to pretend to be a thing no one goes near. So we can assume the environment would greatly shape and change what the mimics look like.
Mimics live and hunt alone, though they occasionally share their feeding grounds with other creatures. Although most mimics have only predatory intelligence, a rare few evolve greater cunning and the ability to carry on simple conversations in Common or Undercommon. Such mimics might allow safe passage through their domains or provide useful information in exchange for food.
Two big things we get to play with from this part - they are solitary BUT aren't against partnering with other creatures in a symbiotic no touchy kind of way. The part that gets me excited though is the smart Mimic, the Mimic that can talk to and have the party persuade into things. There is so much that you can do with that! Just you wait and see, oh just you wait and see. But that wraps up the RAW from the books to go over for these creatures.
Now to do what I do best, upping how terrified you can make your players. Remember when I talked about how their environment shapes the forms it takes well watch me go. We are going to give a couple of more unusual places to place your Mimic! Sorry not sorry for what's about to be spawned.
Swamp - Now swamps are a dangerous place on a normal day but what if the bridge, the floating logs, the strange raft just there waiting all were trying to eat you? Making a deal with a Mimic smart enough to realize if they eat every person trying to cross the swamp that travelers will stop coming through this way is a fun way to shake your players out of their haze. Talk about making sure they understand that sometimes they can't win by might.
Graveyard - This section is brought to you by this amazing piece of Sage Advice. What does a graveyard have a ton of? Corpses. According to Jeremy Crawford that makes it an inanimate object so our Mimics can both turn into it. Honestly I just picture the scene from The Thing (1982) where they are trying to use a defibrillator on the guy and a giant mouth just takes off the arms instead. You can think of the kind of horror that may cause if a few corpses are laying around or maybe even partially out of graves. There is also the obvious headstones, mausoleum, coffins, and creepy creepy graveyard statues. An A+ addition to any encounter you'd like to make into a horror scene.
Mountain - You might be thinking that all this is going to be is a bunch of rocks. We certainly could take it that way. A bunch of smart toothy rocks hurtling down in avalanche fashion to squish and then slurp up some unwary travelers. But why would we stop there? A false entrance to a cave, a rope bridge over a chasm, a dead tree on the side of the path. There are just so many things to create drama~.
Traveling on the Road - A frequently traveled road could easily house a multitude of hiding mimics. A hard to read road sign, an out of the way campsite, a shack of fresh-cut wood, an abandoned tent or carelessly left adventurer pack. No one would notice if a few travelers went missing especially with bandits about. I see this type of Mimic as a smart almost psychotic serial killer. Picking victims and messing with their heads before devouring them in the shadows.
Shops or Workrooms - How about we miniaturize our little mimic buddies and make some swarms? Smart tiny mimics would know they couldn't kill the thing they needed to eat so could team up together. Especially if they were bred and raised as attack dogs for protection against thieves. Nothing like a flock of teeth chomping mini mimics swarming over you to drown out your bloodcurdling screams with noming noises. Shelves and tables holding potion bottles, books, nicknacks and more suddenly got alot more sinister.
With environments that terrify lets also jump back to that smart Mimic, our high IQ friend. Able to wheel and deal with trespassers in their territory. Able to grant a boon or passage or information for a favor. Guarding a portal as a false door this unusual creature might have the assigned job of protecting something. Or maybe it has learned that not everyone can survive past a certain point so why not get some food out of it. Are you really sure you want to go down this tunnel? This one that end in a pit of black ooze. Good luck to you. Or you know you could sacrifice some of those tasty goblins from the last level and I could share a safe route down to the treasure.
The last thing I will bring up are the many homebrews out there for house sized Mimics. I love them. They are an example of a simple thing you can do with any monster to surprise your players with. Sizing. If all you ever expect is something chest size to have teeth you aren't going to think about that tiny potion bottle that suddenly sprouts eyes or that weird house you have to go into that might have blinked at you. Well I guess you will now but I hope you can scare your players with it first.
I hope these inspire you to widen where you can find these dear Mimics. They can be found anywhere, shaped to fit into their environment, and can be smarter than your players. Play with the CRs and up, or lower, their size in order to throw them curve balls! This message paid for by the Association of Totally Not Mimics.
With that little rambling over with, I’m JustKay your regular DM Dalliance on the web and I’ll see you next post.