What They Don't Tell You About Mimics - D&D

so this one might not be as grand a creature as Tito asked or the Krakens or many of the ancient dragons we covered before but I am so excited to talk about the mimic just because of how much of what we think about them is just not true there's so much about this mysterious class of creatures that are not known to the general populace and I am here to change that by quite a bit let's talk about the one reason you probably are second-guessing yourself on whether or not to open that chest first as always let's look at the Monster Manual entry for the creature and see what we're actually told for this monster first of all mimics our shape-shifting predators able to take on the form of inanimate objects to lure creatures to their doom they will take on the form of chests doors and objects such as those which they have learned at rocky steady supply of victims once the victim touches their transformed form they shift and attack in order to eat the victim a mimic in this altered form is nearly unrecognizable from the actual item becoming a perfect rendition of what it is trying to mimic when it changes shape it excretes this adhesive that helps it sees prey and weapons that touch it it says here that the adhesive is absorbed when the mimic assumes its normal form and on parts the mimic uses to move itself lastly on the last paragraph we're told that they live and hunt alone although most mimics have only predatory intelligence a rare few evolve greater cunning and the ability to carry on simple conversations in common or under common interesting such mimics might allow safe passage through their domains or provide useful information in exchange for food we also have a slight tidbit here as we are shown that they are immune to acid damage but there you go that is the mimic for fifth edition we're shown a badass picture of your traditional mimic in chess form with eyes and a mouth to boot though no look and how the creature might actually look on its normal form but hey without skipping a beat let's just go ahead and talk about what the monster mental does not tell you - mimics first and foremost let's talk about the actual mimic creature that is no transformations no color changes nothing what is that creature and how does it look like the mimic as the monster manual puts it is amorphous it doesn't have a specific shape the best explanation for its look is going to be that of a slime because it basically looks like a slime the difference of course is that it has skin and oregon's the creatures normal basic color is that of a speckled gray a color that looks very much like gray night when a mimic is attempting to behave and look like a rock it actually uses this scholar which is its natural hue the skin layer of the mimic is hard and actually feels somewhat like stone it's rough to the touch the inside however once you go deeper than the outer layer of the skin it actually becomes soft and in here is where you would find all the normal organs of the creature it's hard to suggest if system the whole thing now one of the most important organs for the mimic are these muscular organs that serve as both bags and pumps you'll find them scattered across the body of the mimic and what they do is they hold a brown liquid that works as pigmentation for the creature when the mimic wants to change color the muscular organs will squeeze the liquid from the inside of its body towards the outer layers of the skin using the blood vessels what happens is the capillaries on the outer layer of the skin will fail with this liquid then the capillaries will stand out brownish and wrinkled in a pattern that resembles woodgrain now this is what the mimic does in order to appear as wood on the outside and when it wants to revert back into its normal color it'll do so by using a form of external contortion the mimic will appear to wriggle and twist all over as it empties its capillaries of this liquid returning back to its traditional gray color so as you can see that the process for the creature to change colors is it's not actually magical at all there's no transmutation magic happening here but what this also means is that the range of things that the mimic can actually convert to is actually quite limited the mimic for the most part can only really do either grace stone using its natural color or wood grain using his pigmentation process anything else and it might have to rely on being clever with its body or with materials that he might find around though you might be interested to hear that the Iker of the mimic which would be a combination of its blood and the pigmentation liquid is actually used for polymorph potions and could be worth quite a bit too interested alchemists we're also told that the internal organs for the mimic are also worth a pretty penny as parts of it are used for perfumes in the Forgotten Realms whereas some of its other organs are considered tasting the likho sees in some cultures now this is the part that I think most people don't actually know but the thing about the mimics is that they are large creatures like very large a standard mimic actually weights about two metric tonnes that is a standard mimic weights about 4,500 pounds that's about the weight for a rhinoceros or about five blacksmith and VLEs put together certainly enough to be over the weight limit for a standard elevator if a mimic drops on you I mean you're dead the glue that the creature produces is also supposed to be incredible literally because of how heavy the monster is keep in mind that a mimic can hang from a ceiling perfectly using its adhesive and considering the glue is supposed to hold its weight without fail and it does well I mean good luck you're getting on stock from tremendous what I'm saying in the fifth edition Monster Manual we're giving a really weird stat block for the mimic considering that all it takes is an average role to be able to get off the glue but in previous editions we were told that only the strongest of Warriors would be able to have a chance at getting off the glue I mean you have to consider the fact that the glue can hold a forty five hundred pound creature on the ceiling without falling well you you be the judge if your adventurer can simply pull itself out of it good luck actually there is a way to get out of the glue that the monster model does not tell you alcohol it is very explicitly stated that alcohol contracts the effects of the glue which is the only way of eliminating the adhesive out of the body of a mimic without actually killing the creature now it is kind of random but mimics actually like alcohol by the way they don't get drunk of a vet or anything like that but they don't seem to enjoy the flavor and they get sustenance from it you might not know this either but the mimic actually uses this glue that it secretes from the skin to move see even though the mimic looks like a slime in its original form it doesn't really slither like one remember its skin it's not slimy at all it is actually rough and harsh it feels like stone so slithering is difficult instead what it does is it swings itself around using its glue it'll produce an arm fill it with glue stick it to a surface and then drag himself over or swing himself over the monster manner also doesn't tell you that the glue it secretes is not the only secretion it has in actuality the member can also produce a liquid that smells like rotting meat a liquid it uses to attract smaller more common prey like rats now we talked about the fact that the mimic was huge but I want to really convey how big they're supposed to be it is described to us that the typical mimic has a volume of 150 cubic feet that volume fills a dimension of 5 feet in length 5 feet in width and 6 feet in height from my European brethren 5 feet is about one and a half meters these guys are thick and for the mimic to be able to properly turn into anything it has to use all of its mass they can't reduce or increase their mass whenever they transform which means that they can only really transform into big things the only rule that I have seen is that they can't transform into anything that is longer than 10 feet 10 feet seems to be the longest they can go in any direction now to break it down even further we're actually literally told how big a chest would be that has been made by a mimic that chance would be about 3 feet tall 6 feet wide and 8 feet long now here's a rug that's 6 feet wide and 8 feet long so just at a height of 3 feet to that and you can envision how big that chest would be now that would be a royal treasury chest if I've ever seen one now the question becomes so wait are in there any smaller well yeah there actually are some but the reason for their existence is probably not what you think or maybe it is exactly what you think it would make sense actually a medium-sized mimic it's actually a baby or something akin to a baby see mimics reproduced by fission that is when they reach their full size then they will split themselves in half creating two where there was one if you find a medium sized to mimic then it is probably one that just came out of a separation and it is likely that you will find another one of its size somewhere in the dungeon as well its brother what's interesting about this is that it is not known whether or not a mimic actually ever stops growing the older it gets almost always a mimic will split in half when it reaches a certain size but there has been notable cases of mimics becoming so large that they literally become as big as houses and when that happens they end up pretending to be houses in order to attract prey this seems extremely rare though and even though we have seen those cases we're not sure how they came to be generally speaking you will only find mimics inside whether it is in a dungeon or inside of a house that's because the body of a mimic is filled with optical sensors that are sensitive to heat and light and can detect such things even in pitch-black darkness this is where the dark vision of the creature actually comes from but what's interesting about this is that if the source of light is strong enough the mimic can actually be blinded the reason they don't live outside is because the sunlight generally speaking is enough to blind them like wearing heat-seeking goggles out in the middle of a sunny day you just can't see a thing now the other thing that you might have noticed is the protection against acid in the static block you were probably wondering where that comes from see this originally came from the fact that mimics are actually completely immune to slimes whether it is black puddings or ochre jellies mimics are completely immune to their attacks we're not sure why this is but it is possible that when the mimics were created in the first place that a slime was used as part of its creation process making it somewhat part slime we don't really know much about their creation though we're explicitly told that they were indeed created by a powerful mage a mage who wanted his possessions to guard themselves in a in case of intruders the name of this mage has been lost history but it is believed that all mimics actually come from this individual now whoever this individual was he created more than just one type of mimic in reality he created two different breeds now the master manual actually does mention this if you pay close attention you would remember hearing me say at the beginning of the video that very rarely you can actually find a type of mimic that's actually intelligent that can actually speak and that this type of mimic actually tries to bargain with adventurers but the master manual does not tell you is that this type of mimic is actually the most common in fact so common it is literally called the common mimic that's its name the mimic that you are all more used to seeing the one that's domed that can't speak that will always attack you until it dies that's actually called the killer breed that breed tends to be bigger so instead of having a volume of 150 cubic feet they generally have about 200 cubic feet in volume now technically speaking those mimics are more rare than their counterpart the common mimic the common mimic is intelligent and will typically not fight you if it can instead trade with you what's interesting is that the common mimic actually has its own language one that it uses to speak to other mimics it is believed that this language is a bastardization of the original language of their creator of The Wizard creator though the language has been modified so much that it is impossible to tell anymore how it originally sounded this intelligent mimics will allow you passage or might even tell you about the dungeon but always in exchange for food do be careful though because they are intelligent and can communicate but that doesn't make them good they're considered to be neutral creatures even if you have struck a bargain with the mimic if at any point in time the mimic actually sees that you're weakened and vulnerable it might just attempt to eat you regardless to them the only thing that matters is food and survival and if you need to know a good meal to them is one to two humans worth of food a meal that you satisfy and should sustain a mimic for a couple of weeks before it needs to feed again I would like to personally thank my patron supporters ricado fan major failed gaming Wyatt kerlun berry mask and 5e magic shop Anthony clays Thrax heiress to be Oliver Dylan Baker's sack bowel Simon Hall man and mediocre at best for supporting me and patron at the $25 level if you would like to support me as well then please head on over to patreon dot-com slash mr. Rex to support guys thank you so much for watching make sure to as always watch the playlist for all of my D&D videos they're all great I promise you make sure to follow me on Twitter and leave me a comment down here telling me what you thought of the mimic and let me know what monster you want to see next I always read your comments guys alright so leave those down there thank you so much for watching and I'll see you all next time bye bye you

Channel: MrRhexx

Views: 818,553

Keywords: mrrhexx, rhexx, dungeons and dragons, d&d, mimic

Id: I1XkebT9hUs

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 01 2019