I have been creating a bunch of new creatures for my DnDeBrief game (link) and I think it might be interesting to show everyone these creatures and talk a bit about how and why I made the decisions I did. Without further ado, here is the first in the series, the Mud Mimicker:
What Was I Going For? This creature doesn’t mimic mud, instead, it’s made of a mud-like substance and it mimics other creatures. My group ran into one that looked like a dinosaur and mimicked it so well that the PCs (and players) thought that it was a dinosaur, until they attacked and hit, at which time it felt different. At one point it stomped on a PC, but when the foot raised back up there was an indent the shape of the PC in the bottom of the thing’s foot, and the PC took much less damage than they thought from a stomping of that magnitude. The PCs were perplexed but had no idea what they were facing. To further the confusion, once enough damage is done to the mud mimicker, it loses its color and becomes more mud-like in appearance. When enough damage has been done and if 3 or more damaged ones are around, they can combine to form a larger one. This plays out opposite to how some oozes spawn little ones when they have taken enough damage (e.g. Ochre Jelly MM page 243).
How Dangerous is it? This is a vague way of asking what the CR of the creature is… I was shooting for a creature that would challenge a party of 6th level PCs. So… the CR needs to be between 3 and 6 (there would be more than one of them). That was my initial thought anyway. I settled on CR 4 based on the monster stats by CR table in the Dungeon Master’s Guide (page 274) – the numbers feel right to me.
Do Any Creatures Like This Already Exist? Not really. I wanted to remind myself of the details of elementals and oozes so I looked at 5 different creatures: Mud Mephit (CR 1/4 MM page 216), Earth Elemental (CR 5 MM page 124), Clay Golem (CR 9 MM page 168), Ocher Jelly (CR 2 MM page 243), and Mud Golem (CR 1 Kobold Press’ Creature Codex page 201). I looked at those because they are all ooze-like or golem-like and there is a wide variety of CRs among them.
So What Traits Did I Come Up With? I want the Mud Mimicker to have something akin to the False Appearance trait, but instead of making the creature impossible to see when immobile, I want it to mimic other creatures even as it moves around. This is closer to the Change Shape feature that is found in Metallic Dragons (e.g Brass Dragon MM page 104) or Night Hags (MM page 178) but is still not quite what I am looking for. Perhaps Eerie Resemblance (Gas Spore MM page 138) is closer? Not quite… I had to think about this for a while, but I think I have come up with something I like. So here is a list of the abilities and traits I want the creature to have:
Shape Changer: The Mud Mimicker can use its action to polymorph into a large beast. The Mud Mimicker is indistinguishable from the beast until touched or upon a successful attack or spell effect reveals its facade. Beast forms available? Dinosaur, Cave Bear, Ape, Giant Constrictor Snake, Giant Boar, Giant Lizard, Giant Toad, and Giant Crocodile.
Invisible in Mud: The Mud mimicker is invisible when fully immersed in muddy terrain.
Death Burst: Similar to the Mud Mephit ability
Combine Forms: If 2 or more Mud Mimickers are present and have been reduced to less than 1/2 of their individual hit points, the Mud Mimickers can use an action to combine their forms into a large Mud Mimicker.
Ice Weakness: The Mud Mimicker is especially susceptible to spells and abilities that expose the watery part of mud to extreme cold.
So… It needs work, and is probably too complicated for a CR 4 creature. And probably too complex to use easily at the table in its current form. But… here is the statblock as I used it during the session my players met a few of these:
I might throw this up on Drive Thru RPG as a pay what you want, but for now it’s just here.
That’s all from me for now – feel free to post comments and suggestions! This is called a workshop for a reason… it’s an incomplete piece of work being built and adjusted.
~DMSamuel
