Mimics used to be humans. Being killed by a mimic causes you to become a mimic, the first mimics were created from humans who coveted wealth far too much and had their souls twisted and bodies destroyed by their greed.

That's why most mimics wish to be human and sometimes turn into humans to live among them, but eventually go insane due to their knowledge that they are fundamentally different, and indistinct memories of when they were once human preying upon them.

In DnD at least, Mimics are amorphous aberrations - able to change their shape, color, and texture to mimic damn near anything. The treasure chest is the archetypical one, but they could conceivably take the form of anything with a similar volume.

As for their reproductive cycle, I imagine they're like a large amoeba; once they eat enough (by absorbing it into their form and dissolving it) they simply split into 2 slightly smaller mimics.

>>37511189
ok.

Answer one: It's magic, I ain't gotta explain shit

Answer two: I always thought that mimics reproduce by some kind of mythosis, like big cells. From one mimic, two come to form

I alwo think that the "chest" is not the mimic's real form. They were probably created by some wizard that who had enough of adventurers coming to steal his shit.

They're just shapeshifting monsters that can disguise themselves as different objects.

>>37511295
It really is all the wizard's fault. Wizards are the root of everything evil and wrong in D&D

>>37511189
From the Pathfinder SRD:

>Mimics are thought to be the result of an alchemist's attempt to grant life to an inanimate object through the application of an eldritch reagent, the recipe for which is long lost. Over time, these strange but clever creatures have learned the ability to transform themselves into simulacra of man-made objects, particularly in locations that have infrequent traffic by small numbers of creatures, thus increasing their odds of successfully attacking their victims.

>Though mimics are not inherently evil, some sages believe that mimics attack humans and other intelligent creatures for sport rather than merely for sustenance. The desire to completely fool others is thought to be a part of their being, and their surprise attacks against others are a culmination of those desires.

>A typical mimic has a volume of 150 cubic feet (5 feet by 5 feet by 6 feet) and weighs about 900 pounds. Legends and tales speak of mimics of much greater sizes, with the ability to assume the form of houses, ships, or entire dungeon complexes that they festoon with treasure (both real and false) to lure unsuspecting food within.

-------

>Of the vast multitude of mimic adaptations found throughout the world, the failed-apotheosis mimic deserves special mention. All mimics believe that they will someday transform into humans. Some elder mimics obsess over this and go to great lengths to truly understand humanity before they set their bodies into human shape. Mimics who attempt this final transformation instead realize only horror: they become awful parodies of life, composed of aborted human-like limbs and melting faces crashing one over another like an endless wave of corpses. Sages theorize that what the mimic understands in that moment of failure is its true, alien origin, as eternally divorced from humanity as any force or concept could be; this monstrous self-revelation is the only memory a mimic cannot wipe away, and madness consumes them utterly.

>>37511189
I remember u can look mimic lifecycle from dungeon denizens revisited from paizo

>>37511189
>Do baby mimics look like Jewelry boxes? Like some adventurer opens up a jewelry box, gets his hand bit off and watches the thing grow arms?
>Are there elder mimics that just look like giant vaults? What is the life cycle of these things!?

Holy shit! Those would be the ultimate anti-theft devices. If you could breed those things, you would be the king of home security systems in a fantasy campaign.

>>37511345
>alchemists
>No sense of right or wrong!

Anyone remember that old thread where we talked about building sized mimics and growing.
Like a small mimic outhouse slowly growing into a hut, then a tavern and finally a castle.Also living building breeding.

You see these gold coins around the mimic in your picture ? They look like gold, they weight like gold, but they're not. They're male gametes.

Sometimes an adventurer, for some reason, take them without trying to open the mimic. Then he carries them around, give them to others, and sooner or later, they find their way into the pockets of another adventurer who finds his way into another mimic.

That's how they reproduce.

Also, mimics are hermaphroditic, they can both produce "gold coins" and get impregnated by them.

>>37511512
Adventurers are pollinators? Cool.

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>>37511512

>mfw I looted mimic splooge
>and put it in my mouth and bit it to see if it was real gold

>>37511189

OK, OP, here's the thing, in the original D&D of the '70s, the DM was your adversary. Entire swaths of monsters were created just to dick with/fuck over PCs, especially clever PCs.

The mimic exists because some DM thought it would be a good way to attack his players. It just happened to catch on and be popular.

>adventurer finds a mimic
>starts going through the gold
>mimic moans
>adventurer fails listen check
>picks up a coin and examines it intensely
>moaning intensifies
>adventurer puts the coin in her mouth
>mimic splurts gp all over her face

>>37512185
>Adventurer stunned by face full of mimic splooge
>Mimic grabs her and stuffs her in it's chest
>Instead of eating her begins forming tentacles
>Three hours latter spits adventurer back up
>Adventurer is unharmed but now has a belly full of "gold coins"

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>>37513557
Ohhh boy

I heard there was a thing in Dragon magazine one time that went into great detail about mimic biology. I don't know whether they confirmed sexes/sexual reproduction, but I do know that they are confirmed to produce eggs with the appearance of gemstones, which adventurers pick up and carry off with them, then usually the adventurers get killed in some other dungeon, spreading the eggs to far-off locations.

I do know for sure that the mimic does not always look like a chest, at least not in D&D. In D&D, they are actually shapeshifters. They're kind of an amorphous thing like a weird slug in their true form. If I had to guess, I'd say they're probably hermaphroditic, and capable of producing eggs out of their own genetic material alone if need be. But that part is just a guess.

>>37513557
Bring a tavern whore back and split the profits.

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>>37511189
In my own setting they are made by wizards who trap a human soul into a specially made mimic body, that then has no desire other than to kill people, and prefers to do so by being a sneaky little bitch.
Pic related, most horrifying mimic ever.

>>37514426
In my setting, Mimics are slime-like creatures that absorb and digest anything that enters it

They will find boxes, chests, doors, walls, even entire houses and, through a crack, they'll enter it and digest everything, hollowing out the insides of the object

So, for a doorway, they'd enter through the keyhole and digest the wood, hollowing out the door. When someone grabs a hold of the doorknob or puts a key in, they'll digest that too

One of my parties killed a mimic with a large amount of fire and oil.
Inside the dead mimic, they found...

A small jewel case.
Another mimic.
But it was newly born, so it latched onto the party (literally) and treated them as its parents. It mewled at them when it was hungry and scared the shit out of people because it was a god damn mimic. But as long as they fed it it never caused issues, they just took it along for the ride.

>>37511189
A little off topic but I once saw a bit of homebrew that was "half-mimic" Player characters.

>>37512024
My favorite was cloakers. Because they evolved to hide in coat rooms. It's not even a fake treasure monster, it has all the allure of a free cape covered in cave mildew and still entices people.

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>>37511189

I've written a little on Mimic Ecology.

Mimics are essentially what amounts to a "land dwelling mollusc", they share a very distant ancestor with changelings, but are otherwise a very old and obscure species that does not have any other living complimentary relatives. Mimics in their natural habitat exist in damp, humid, partially shaded environments such as Rainforests, Jungles, and naturally formed caves that allow them to keep and hold moisture better so that they can breath. There, within the jungle or cave it will take the shape of "appealing" habitats: taking on the physical appearance and attributes of a hollowed log, stump, or dead tree. The Mimic than waits patiently (weeks if it has to) before an unsuspecting prey item (birds, insects, small mammals/reptiles, etc) stumbles into it's mouth and is consumed. Young or Juvenile Mimics simply mimic pieces of fruit, nuts, or food items targeted by smaller animals, so that when they go to consume them- the mimic's may latch onto them and swallow them whole.

The Mimics most iconic feature beyond it's transforming abilities are it's "tongue" and "teeth"- both of these are actually the same organ known as the "Radula". The Radula is a tongue-like organ covered in teeth that is common among Molluscs; they expel it and use it to latch onto or take bites out of food items. The Mimics Radula is much like the rest of the mimic and can be moved around, flexed, and can transform within certain limits.

Mimics are hermaphroditic and will very slowly "shuffle" to one another to briefly conjoin with one another to have sex before both releasing a cloud of spores. These spores contain the "eggs" of the Mimic and then carried upon the air before latching onto a damp surface to gestate and hatch.

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>>37516147

Changelings have a rich history of Mimic Husbandry and have produced a wide variety of Mimic breeds for both consumption, commerce, and entertainment. The "Classical dungeon Mimic" typically NOT seen and feared by Adventures is one such breed of Mimic that was specifically bred for security, storage, and as a trap: The Mimic -being a mollusc- possess a small gullet underneath it's tongue and inner muscle where normally a pearl 'may' form, but in this case however, TREASURE may be stored; Changeling mimic breeders naturally possess the skills and knowledge to not only identify a mimic, but to know if it's gullet is filled. Dungeon Mimics have become widespread through accidental or intentional introduction of feral colonies and populations that almost all of their association with Changelings has been lost.

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>>37514896
Damn i want a pet/familiar mimic so much.

>>37515935
>i walk through the door
>the floor attacks you
>the walls attack you
>the ceiling attacks you

>>37516902
>"I enter the dungeon."
>The dungeon was a mimic. It eats you. Reroll.

>>37517001
>I walk outside
>The world was the oldest mimic ever. You go insane as you see a mouth with mountains for teeth split the countryside in half from horizon to horizon before all the planets atmosphere is sucked into the cyclopian maw with you and every other living thing of the surface along with it.
>Roll up a new character, next campaign will take place 4 million years in the future, the time it takes for the planet to repopulate and get a new atmosphere.

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>>37515684
>half-mimic

>>37516902
>step into room and onto trapper, it wraps around you and starts constricting
>cloakers drop from the walls and start moaning you to paralysis like fucking redeads
>lurker drops from ceiling and wraps everything again
>piercers and darkmantles start raining down on lurker
>mimic door bides its time

>>37516147
>>37516382
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgDE2DOICuc

>>37517001
>Dungeon is a mimic
>Full of mimics
>Each room is another mimic
>They're not gonna hurt you but you have to let them eat you to get to enter them
>Each one wants you to take some of their "gold" (really mimic splooge
>Will force it on you if you take nothing and toss you in another room
>Each one also wants some of the "gold" from the other rooms
>Each one moans as they take or receive "gold"
>Satisfy all of them and they let you into the room with [insert captured damsel here]
>She is also a mimic
Dare you enter this magical realm?

WHIZZARD mode
>She has a vore fetish
>Promises you real gold if you let her "carry" you out of the dungeon

Mimics are the reason my Rogue always throws daggers at chests from a distance.

>>37517492
>Find a smart mimic
>It's hiding inside a real chest and springs out when it's opened

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This is how I throw mimics at my players.
the kicks, the endless kicks

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>>37517492
>mimic throws the dagger back

>>37517636
Can you really blame it for mimicking you?

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>>37511512
>Congratulations, your treasure is monster sperm

>>37517717
Would explain the stupid amount of gold in most D&D worlds, something like 99.99% of it is monster sperm


...What other monsters cum gold?
For that matter what monsters cum gems/silver/platinum/whatever?

>>37517820
Gold dragons, technically.

>>37517704
Carlos!

>>37511189
Mimics reproduce by fission. They eat people. They were originally created by a wizard, whose language they speak a corrupted version of.

Here is the Dragon article:
http://www.annarchive.com/files/Drmg075.pdf

Here is source on reproduction from the Monstrous Manual:
http://lomion.de/cmm/mimic.php

>>37511345
PF has no authority over Dungeons and Dragons monsters. I cast you out, witch.

>>37517492
Rogue and mimic storytime?
2e D&D halfling rogue
>Be me Stafford Lambert, halfing being targeted by a group of assassin's for my paladin's god only knows why.
>Be thief and always get the shit job of checking every door and chest before anyone else even touches them
>Get 'job' to get a mercenary's pay from his distrustful employer, told we can take anything else we find in the place.
>searching a rundown mansion for entrance and fall into some sort of secret hole entrance
>SPIDERS EVERYWHERE.JPG
>Kill like 10 giant ass spiders before reaching some sort of door with weird scribblies on it.
>Paladin notices it as music notes cause he was a choir boy before his god's meat shield.
> Paladin tells me to check it for traps and locks
>Weird gravelly voice says leave, fuckin' statue is talking put up my cloak of etheralness hood and nope my way outta there.
>Cleric and paladin pummel it with hammer and sword till it crumbles
>Use music notes on door and find out its magically voice locked, we get the illusionist to use magic to open it.
>Weird ass dungeon basement with strange shit everywhere
>Find a ghost of the old mansion's owner it possesses me and it writes a damn sonnet
>Get attacked by a wight through a crack in some old armory wall.
>Finally find exit, weird door. Open it and we knock a damn bookshelf over
>4 men standing in the foyer of the mansion look at us dumbfounded
>Paladin whispers something and suddenly goes berserk and rushes the guy in the center yelling something bout "EEEEEVVIIIIILLLLL WILL SEE JUSTICE."
>Not this shit again.gif
>I kindly fuck off with etheral cloak and stab some backs while paladin and cleric wreck the guy who's probably the boss.
>Eventually we finish fighting and I decided to loot the place, not like this guy's gonna need it anymore.
>Paladin tells me he found a chest he wants me to check if its trapped
>Go to chest and try to open it, it grabs me
>IT FUCKING GROWS ARMS AND PICKS ME US OHSHITSOMEONEFUCKINGHELPME.jpg
cont

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I actually drew some anthro mimic porn a few months ago, spoiled because NSFW

>>37516147
>>37516382
These are great. Really makes for believable ecology.

>>37518307
Cont
>Paladin charges over to aid me, slips, swings his sword and chops off my left hand.
>I slip my remaining hand from its other tentacle/hand/tongue thing
>Chest starts to hop away making good speed with my hand inside of it
>Chase it downstairs yelling, "YOU WOODEN FUCK I NEED THAT TO GET 100% DISCOUNTS"
>Catch up and stab that fucker a few times before the cleric mashes it on the head?/chest top?
>Pull my hand out of it and pass out.
>Wake up a day later in a church with my hand back on.
>Paladin got my hand reattached with the clerical might of his church cause our cleric isn't the best at healing as others are.
>Have to wait a week for it to fully heal
>Make sure the paladin pays for it cause he CUT MY BLOODY HAND OFF
>adventurer pocket change.gif
>Always make the paladin poke a chest with his longsword now before he has me check it for traps

>>37517126
>Planet is a mimic.
Stolen.

>>37517454
Originally, mimics could be bargained with so this isn't completely off-field.

Also why stop the symbiosis there? Make it so the smaller mimics assemble to form a mecha.

>>37518575
>Also why stop the symbiosis there? Make it so the smaller mimics assemble to form a mecha.

Ok... this thread is getting good...

If mimics can be reasoned with, then why not convince them into morphing into anything else you'd need.

Need a key? Get the mimic to shove a finger in the hole to pick it. A fishing rod/hook, pole, umbrella, anything.

Hell, get the mimic to turn into your clothing/armour! Symbiote style.

>>37513557
this has been kinda writefagged before, but with a harpy. It's in tg's Smut Index on 1d4chan. Search Golden Nest.

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>>37519175
Esh makes Mimics in her lab.

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>>37519653

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>>37519683

>>37519653
>Re-painted dollarstore treasure chest.
>Cost of materials $3
I am unimpressed.

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>>37519710

>>37519721
Sure is a good thing that no one gives a fuck about what you think.

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>>37519739

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>>37519829

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>>37517126
>>37518575

What if all mimics are like the Luggage that was in terry pratchett's "the color of magic"?

>>37520033
Luggage is OP though.

>>37520105
maybe it was a mimic with a few levels in one class or another.

>>37519792
Hey man, if you want to spend money on trash power to you.

>>37520674
>Trash

Stained and painted
Inner felt lining,
tongue,
little hangy ball thing at back of mouth
teeth
lots of teeth.

You are not a bright man are you?

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>>37517454
>spoiler
oooooh yeah

>>37523405
>She seems to be taking her time getting out
>Come to think of it, she never said she'd be leaving the dungeon now did she?

>>37511475
>Is there anything in this damn city that isn't a mimic?

>I think this goofy candlestick is just an animated obje- hey it bit me!

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>>37511189
Ecology of the Mimic, 1983, written by Ed Greenwood for Dragon Magazine issue #75.

>>37511475
>mimic outhouse

scat mimics! just what this thread needed.