What if your party walked into a room in a dungeon and the entire room was a alive and wanted to eat you? In this article we’ll look into some fun plug and play content that you could insert into just about any campaign. Ready? Let’s talk about gigantic mimics!
What is a Mimic Anyway?
If you’re not familiar with a mimic, these sometimes comical, surprising buggers are monsters that are indistinguishable from ordinary innate objects. They sit in waiting to pounce on, and probably eat the next meal, I mean… adventurer that comes close enough for it to attack. They often take the shape of treasure chests, chairs or furniture. Here’s the link for a basic Mimic in 5e D&D.
What Happens When a Mimic Gets Really, Really Big?
This week we’ll be featuring, a fantastic idea that came our way by our friend on Reddit, BrilliantBlood. He’s… really into mimics. This idea feels a lot like a one that spawned out of a simple, thought evoking set of questions: What would happen if a mimic got really old, and successfully ate a lot of unwary adventurers? What shapes would it evolve into? Could a mimic become an entire room, or an entire dungeon? An entire City? … Bigger? How would the party be able to interact with such a creature?
BrilliantBlood has posted these great write-ups for ginormous mimics. There is some great context and lore in these guides that give you a good feel for how these creatures are imagined.
Elder Mimic – House or Dungeon Room Sized
Ancient Mimic – Abandoned City / Entire Dungeon Sized
Overlord Mimic – Country of Portugal Sized
The Mimic God – Earth Sized
You Expect My Party to Kill One of Those Enormous Things?
Realistically, no. The monsters, as imagined in the guides above are way too high of a challenge for most adventuring parties. If you didn’t click through to the links for the full creature descriptions here is a snippet from the “smallest” of the custom stat blocks stat blocks:
Elder Mimic
AC 5 (What did you expect, can you miss hitting a building or the ground in a dungeon?)
Hit Points 10,000 (1D10X2000) (Usually above 10,000, and very rarely below)
Speed( 10ft.)
Actions:
On Hit, it deals 25, 5D10 damage.
Morph: If in a cave or Dungeon form, the mimic can mold itself to remove an entrance to a room. This action takes two turns, and a passive perception of 12 to notice.
Challenge: 21
Our Thoughts
This whole “Oversized Mimics” concept itself is genius. We can’t wait to find the opportunity to make it a part of one of our games. However, to introduce this monster to a party and make the encounter playable for the 99% of us that are not playing characters with demigod stats and powers, these numbers would need to be dramatically tempered.
There is some homebrew content on D&D Beyond for an Elder Mimic which is in the same spirit as the ones brought to us by BrilliantBlood. Variations include HP being down to sub 500, the AC is raised from 5 to 15. The CR is rated at 21 there as well. There must be an achievable balance that can be made to
How About You?
Has this concept inspired you to drum up your own version of a room or house sized mimic in your game? Have any ideas on how to make this idea even better? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
Additional Resources
Additional musings on giant mimics: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?488293-Greater-Mimic