[RPG] Can Mimics be “created”

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Okay, obligatory "I'm a very new DM and may have missed information available to me/this might be a stupid question".

Essentially, I want to know if it's possible to create a mimic, say via a ritual or other magic. I'm thinking of creating an antagonist/villain that is experimenting with creating more and more powerful mimics to infest cities, attack travellers, sneak in to places to kill political figures or whatever.

From what I've gathered, mimics are intelligent enough that they can in theory be tamed (albeit with difficulty) provided you can feed them so I'm not too worried about that. However, I haven't found an 'official' way that mimics reproduce or come into being. A lot of people have suggested something akin to mitosis provided a mimic eats enough to amass enough energy/power, but an 'origin' isn't fully established (from what I've found).

Again, I'm very new to the game – would it be possible to kill someone and imbue their soul in to an object? Are there ways to give items life or sentience?

I would greatly appreciate suggestions in regards to sacrifices this person would have to make to construct or cast such a spell, or if there's pre-existing spells that I can use as reference or modify to work with for this character 🙂

I don't mind homebrewing and mine and my players' attitude so far has been fun/story over rules, but I like being able to back it up with some numbers and proper notes, so I'd really appreciate some thoughts and feedback. Thank you!

Best Answer

Have you considered farming them?

The Monster Manual (pg. 220) doesn't give us much to go on about where Mimics come from. That means it's largely up to us to decide! They are monstrosities which the Monster Manual describes like so (pg. 7):

Monstrosities are monsters in the strictest sense- frightening creatures that are not ordinary, not truly natural, and almost never benign. Some are the results of magical experimentation gone awry (such as owl bears), and others ,are the product-of terrible curses (including minotaurs and yuan-ti). They defy categorization, and in some sense serve as a catch-all category for creatures that don't fit into any other type.

So you have some options here since the category is pretty broad. If you decided that mimics are natural enough to reproduce, all you need is two to start creating more. As the DM, you have ability to decide the details of what that looks like - are they mammals or do they lay eggs? How many offspring do they have at once? etc.

They could also be the product of magical experimentation

The description of monstrosities also leaves the door open for magical experimentation, and again it's up to you as the DM to decide what that looks like. Is it magical or alchemical or both? What materials does it require?

Or they could be the product of a spell

True Polymorph would let a high level caster turn another creature into a Mimic. Maybe they are kidnapping folks from the local village to enact their plan. Although, do note that it can still be dispelled.

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