Dungeons always surprise you, don't they? There's always some quirk baked in by its maker. Sometimes it's as complex as teleportation pads but in this particular complex, it's mechanical lifts. These small boxes use pulleys, gears, and ropes to convey small groups up and down levels. While it's made movement for your party quick and easy, it's also moved roaming monsters about. Hell, this most recent lift found spit-out moist living skeletons. As if living skeletons weren't bad enough on their own. But, it was time to move to the next level so in the party went. Only for the lift doors to sprout teeth to chomp him down, then tendrils to lash out at the rest of the party. Roll for initiative! An unusual mimic indeed, this monstrosity's origins start as they often do with a meddling wizard. In this case, the mad spellcaster came across the idea while crafting a dungeon to hide his treasures. He's already come up with lifts, well tortured an a...

Plumbing a wizard's tower always provides two things: great risks and great rewards. After weathering quite a few of the former, you finally stumbled on the latter. The crystal ball sitting atop a silver pedestal tickled your treasure senses even if it was covered with dust and webs. Of course, it could be another trap. The party approached it slowly only to be assaulted by a confusing bombardment of light. You shook it off but several of your comrades did not. The crystal ball rocketed off on a meaty tendril, stuck to one of them, and dragged them toward the pedestal. Once there it opened a mouth on the pedestal and your friend was stuffed inside. Now, it's time to act! Roll for initiative. This mimic understands that people love shiny things first and foremost. They are attracted to them like a moth to a flame, but also grow entranced as they ponder their thoughts while staring at them. To that end, the mimic developed its unique two-part form, though the two-part is a ...

The town mayor enjoyed a quick rise to power and fortune, for the small area he lived in, over the last year. However, he's grown sick as well, exhausted and restless. To cure his woes, he's paid your party to head to a lonely old hill where a well sat. The mayor said this is where his fortunes turned around for the better and there may be some clue as to his illness there too. The well seemed normal enough on approach, worn by the ages. Then undead shadows slithered up from the ground, but you managed to vanquish them. Now, you could investigate the well properly. Leaning over the edge to peer down into it, you noticed your hands stuck to the stone. Then the rope and bucket wrapped around your head, slimy and pink. The well mouth is now closing like a mouth. Roll for initiative. A strange creature indeed, the first well mimic was crafted by a bored djinn's hands. He invested a sliver of his power into the monstrosity and sculpted it to take the form of a well alone. ...

The abandoned theater proved spooky enough, especially when hunting supposed ghosts haunting the building. But clearly, something of flesh and blood lived here, a hungry something by the chewed-on corpses left behind. A giant spider perhaps? Ghouls? You spotted the golden harp your party was hired to find. As it was rumored to be magical, you weren't all that surprised when it started talking. The instrument was happy that it'd finally be taken away from this place and also let you know about a bejeweled cup over there as an additional reward. Score! As you turned away, the harp's mouth filled with teeth, its strings tentacles. This might not even get to initiative. The harp mimics can be traced back to a monstrosity adopted and raised by a bard, unsurprisingly. Said bard fed it a steady diet of rats and birds as they played the less-than-savory circuits. The mimic also took care of patrons that got a bit too handsy, of course. Over time, the bard even taught it to talk...

According to the map, your party had another day of travel before reaching a bridge crossing the rain-swelled river baring your progress. As luck would have it, though, an abandoned trade road you ran across still has an intact bridge spanning the turbulent water. The bridge wasn't on the map, but such oversights are not uncommon. What wasn't common was your boots sticking to the stones halfway across. Railing transformed into tendrils. and the bridge just twisted itself to throw the wizard into the rushing river below. It's yet another damn mimic... roll for initiative The bridge mimic's origin is simple enough. The breed is attracted to bodies of water and finds troll flesh downright addictive. To take on a troll, well, first one has to use acid to stop them from regenerating and mimics can do that. Second, you have to be big enough and tough enough to weather their attacks. Third, as a mimic anyway, you have to take a form they find attractive. Thus, a bridge! Plu...

For many, a cache of rare elvish wines might not be much of a treasure at all, but your party knew they had a gold mine on their hands. Not only would they fetch a high price with collectors, they likely would provide a damn fine drink or two. A debate broke out on if it was worth cracking open an amphora. Strangely, many of the party started acting as if they were already deep in their cups. Disagreements turned to heated arguments and you reached for the nearest amphora to start pouring hoping it would calm everyone down. The jug swallowed its cork and teeth filled the hole in its place. While your companions are swinging at one another, you've got an entirely different fight on, well, in your hands. Roll for initiative. This ancient, but rare, breed of mimic's origins are lost in myth. Some claim that a foolish elven god of revelry wanted to prove that he could make anything drunk and things went too far. Another that spiteful dwarves bred these monstrosities to hide amon...

Finding a few horses with their reins loosely tied to a tree in the forest wasn't a common occurrence, but the animals weren't skittish as your party approached to investigate. Not far off there was a small campsite that had clearly been attacked by some beast but the horses were spared. Having a steed for the trip would certainly be better than walking! When it was clear that a horse was calm and comfortable in your presence,you grabbed the saddle and swung yourself up into it. Though, now your hands... your rump... your legs are stuck to the leather. Rivets slowly turn to eyes and stitching to teeth as you find yourself sitting atop a mouth! The horse trotted off without a care, hopefully your companions can catch up soon! Roll for initiative. Developed by a horse-riding bandit gang, saddled mimics were bred to both keep their riders in the saddle and horses calm in the heat of battle. Its adhesive nature worked wonders for the first, and the monstrosities' strange na...

There are three things that abandoned mines are full of: old tools, loot, and monsters. Your party decided to clear out a local one supposedly containing all three. Of course, treasure hunters who went in never came out. You've yet to figure out why. Sure, you've run across old, eaten carcasses and rusting tools but after hours of looking around no loot or monsters. Maybe your luck was changing though, as a corroded cart creaked into view at the edge of the torchlight. Loaded with glittering ore, something had to have pushed it but nothing is near it now. The party fanned out, approaching the abandoned cart and searching for whatever propelled it. Suddenly, the cart rocketed forward of its own volition, growing teeth and eyes as it jumped off the tracks, slammed into the wizard, and started spitting rocks at the rogue! The truth's unfolded, now it's time to roll initiative. The skip mimic was fostered by miners who discovered the mimic polyp abandoned in their mine....

You always thought being the party rogue was an easy gig. Sure, when fights erupted things could get hairy but most of the time you focused on unlocking doors and working on simple traps. What could be more simple than a hidden snare? It was almost embarrassing when you ran across a few on the floor. Getting rid of them should have been child's play, but your tools and hands got stuck to one just in front of the next door. Then it wrapped around your arm like a living thing, and now it's pulling you toward a hole... no a mouth in the wall! Roll of initiative. This mimic breed came into being because the first such monstrosity saw a roper and thought, I can do that and do it better. It took some work, but eventually, the mimic settled on becoming a wall section and extending pseudopods to wait. This meant weakening its overall tentacles, but the passive trap worked as expected. To compensate for the lost strength, the mimic evolved a more powerful bite than its peers. Its la...

Another week, another encounter with the shambling dead. No one ever said being an adventurer was clean nor glamorous- but it pays well. Clearing out a zombie infestation came with a good payday, but damn it proved harder than expected. The blame lay on one particular zombie carrying a rusty, old scythe. Every time it cut down a hero, the shamblers around got stronger. So, you decided to take it out. Killing the lead zombie wasn't easy, they were as tough as they come, but when it fell another zombie shambled from the scythe. You snatched the weapon up only to find it sticking to your hands. Its blade sprouted teeth, its shaft eyes. Roll for initiative. A true terror, the reaping mimic is driven by the same instincts as the zombies it controls - hunger. The first of its ilk developed in a region plagued with undeath and thus bereft of the living. It grew sick of rotting food and shifted its focus on locomotion instead of ambush tactics. The mimic fostered a connection with the ...

The rash of zombie attacks throughout the city baffled both the guard and its heroes, but your party thought they tracked its source down. True enough, at the docks they ran across an undead dockhand and followed it into a run-down warehouse. Inside though, the zombie just wasn't there, only sparse, ramshackle crates. Maybe it was hiding in one of them? When you lifted the nearest lid, your skin shriveled as moisture leached from it. Glassy eyes and rotten teeth sprouted from the wood. Roll for Initiative. It's rare indeed when a mimic suffers the curse of undeath. Rare, but not impossible. The necrotic monstrosity which results remains a dangerous ambush predator. Sure, it loses its sticky nature but drains the bodily fluids from its victims instead. On top of that, it gains the ability to mimic undead creatures and proves just as hard to put down as any other zombie. Dead Mimic Medium undead (shapechanger), chaotic evil Armor Class 9 (natur...

Rumor has it that this abandoned manor has eaten more than a few unwary souls who entered it never to return. Some claim the disquiet dead got them, others demons roaming the dark halls. Either way, you meant to put an end to it. Searching from bottom to top yielded little more than giant rats and in the upper library, roofless and thus open to the sky, the search ended. Exhausted and with little else to go on, you sunk into a wingback chair. Oh, it was so comfortable. So easy to fall asleep in. Mm, time to roll a new character. This mimic sought an elegant and sophisticated form to match its wise sensibilities and homebody nature. In turn, it also needed a tempting target to lure meals in. A simple chest or door would not do, and eventually, the monstrosity settled on a wingback chair. Humanoids found them universally comfortable and ever so easy to fall asleep in. A sleeping meal is easier to eat than a fighting one. An odd thing happened, though. Not only did the mimic develop the...

Pleasant smoke filled the temple, blanketing over the gore-smeared altar and throwing the cultists present into a trance. This was the right time to strike, take down the priest that had corrupted these otherwise normal people, and bring the horror to an end. Something else waited in the smoke, however, or rather produced it. As soon as your party breathed the gas with ill intent in your hearts, the parishioners snapped out of their haze and into a murderous frenzy. You managed to drive your blade through the priest's back... but then the censure he carried whipped around and bit you in the face. Fight's not over yet, boyo. Polyps of the deadly idolatrous mimic , the censer mimics also use religion to their advantage. The smoke they produce lulls the unwary into a strange manner of worship. No matter what deity they serve, their rituals become bloody affairs to keep the mimic well-fed so it might bloom into a greater terror. The self-same smoke can suss out those full of ill...

Your backpack suddenly developing teeth and tentacles was surprising to say the very least. You've been using it for months and the idea of it being a mimc is just unfathomable. But, now it's time to fight for your life. The same for the barbarian whose trusty ax has bent back to try and gnash him to pieces. The paladin's gear seems unaffected and now he's bellowing for a fiend to show itself. Is that chandelier dripping down to form something horned and a bit too spongy? Oh, this is going to be rough. Roll for initiative. A strange creature spat from the bowels of Hell, the mimic mimic doesn't have a properly demonic name. Hell, it doesn't even have a sense of identity beyond finding itself onto the mortal play to make malicious mischief. Essentially a demon-shaped puddle. It can assume the form of any object and shares many traits a mimic does. It can also share the ability to become a mimic with a nearby object for a short time. Perhaps it was formed by m...

Sneaking into the warlord's keep through the garbage chute provided the stealth you desired. Guards and their war dogs were avoided. An ever-building stench was not. Finding a body part or two was a bit disturbing, but rumor had it that his torture victims were unceremoniously tossed out with the refuse. Finally, you emerged by the waste bins and the smell was so bad it was hard to think. In fact, you hallucinated that a bin lid was sprouting teeth. Well, it's not a hallucination. Sorry. Roll for initiative. Bred in the squalor of urban waste, the garbage mimic grew fat on the drek and dregs of the teeming masses. This gave it a filthy, noisome gullet no matter what object it mimicked. Thus, it settled on the form of a trashbin such a smell was expected. It soon weaponized that stench to better catch juicer prey. As it didn't have many meals of this sort, it learned how to make the most of them. It also developed a biting, sarcastic personality even though it couldn'...

Climbing the mountain pass in winter has proved as treacherous as you imagined. Yet, your party forged on because the barony needed to be saved and you were the only one to do it. The elf scouted up ahead, but now they've disappeared amid all the white. What could have happened to them? Fanning out to search, you ran across a splotch of reddened snow... and then the pure white snow next to it came tumbling down with icy tendrils flailing. Ok, maybe this was to be much more treacherous than you imagined. Roll for Initiative. One of the oddest mimic variations, this mimic adapted to a harsh environment where winter runs long and deep. Even though the mimic became immune to the cold, It found that it stood out amid the all the white no matter what object it pretended to be. Its presence struck prey as being 'off' and with the pickings already slim, the mimic began to starve. Then, it struck on an idea, what if it could be snow itself. Once it figured this feat out, the mons...

Something tore apart the bandits you've been tracking, but it's not obvious what chewed and in some cases melted them. Maybe there's a wyrmling in the area? Either way, all that remains alive in the camp is a pair of oxen burdened by their cart. Though, they are quite nonplussed given the violence that must have occurred around them. Surely these simple beasts couldn't be the case of the carnage, could they? As you ponder this, the oxen start plodding away, pulling the cart of goods with them. Trying to stop them was the logical thing to do... their yoke coming undone with twin, yawning mouths not so logical. You know what that means... initiative rolls, please. Relatively benign, for a mimic, the yoke mimic was cultivated by an industrious farmer. They didn't see the point of wasting an animal that came into their care, even a strange monstrosity such as this one. It became a valuable tool not only to get fields plowed, but also kept the animals attached to it d...

Defeating the dirge bard shouldn't have been too difficult. Your party waited until he was alone, strumming idly on his mandolin, to strike. The problem is, that this bard is never alone. The rogue's sneak attack was caught halfway by the mandolin's suddenly animated neck twisting around their arm. The instrument's strings screamed along with the dirge's thunderous spell sending the fighter bouncing across shattering cobblestone. The dirge isn't even playing anymore but the fast tempo keeps on. He's moving quicker than he should, casting spells on the go. Now the mandolin has sprouted teeth and is chewing on the rogue. Yep, it's going to be a rough night. Unsurprisingly, the first strumming mimic was crafted by a bard seeking a way to make a companion and self-playing instrument rolled into one. Just as unsurprisingly, that bard ended up being one of his creations' first meals. Since then, the strumming mimics have realized they need musicians to ...

As you approach the abandoned campsite, it doesn't seem that it's been that way for long at all. The fire pit in the middle still smolders, traces of smoke lifting into the air. Blood pools here and there. There's even an abandoned longsword not far from one of the tents. Speaking of the tents, they are battered and dusty. This doesn't mesh with the fresh signs of carnage. The firepit flares up, scorching your allies. Tendrils shoot from the ash, catching your leg and dragging you toward the ringed stones... or as it turns out an ember-filled maw. The misbegotten polyp of a hearth or kiln mimic, a grill mimic spends its first years living a feral existence in the wilds. It infiltrates campsites or abandoned settlements because its prey often gathers near fires and is lazy enough to light them in the same place out of convenience. It can strike while a humanoid arranges wood and leaves to start a blaze. However, the monstrosity isn't harmed by fire. So, when the ...

The famed jewel you plumbed this dungeon for is just within your grasp and is currently in the grasp of a one-armed corpse wearing piecemeal armor. It was smart to chop off its head, just in case. The gem feels almost stuck to the ornate gauntlet that is holding it. Maybe you'd get the fingers to open up if you put the metal glove on. Oww! It stings a bit! OH! It's starting to chew! Worse yet, the lost arm has come skittering into view, pulled along by the other gauntlet as it sprouts eyes and teeth. Roll for initiative! Pardon the pun, but the gauntlet mimics came along because someone thought they'd be handy to have around. Imagine not being able to lose your weapon because it's stuck to your hand, or being able to really grapple an opponent with extra force, and it even gives you a boost opening locked doors! It almost seems like a good idea, and if you're a half-mad arcanist or warlord sure, why not breed a mimic for that purpose. Most folks have two hands...