Summary
Mimics are an incredibly beloved monster inDungeons & Dragons, but they can be incredibly obvious if you have them in the wrong areas throughout your campaign. Sometimes it can be fun to have a poorly disguised mimic, and it might be a good way to introduce your players to the fact that there will be mimics in this campaign.
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The rest of the time, however, you probably want to have well-disguised mimics, and that means having them in areas that make sense. Mimics don’t have a natural environment where they flourish and run amok, but there are definitely areas where they will fit in exceedingly well.
10Dungeons
Dungeons are a classic home for mimics, especially if you’re looking at the lower floors where it’s likely that greedier adventurers are looking to grab something worth a lot of gold and escape without issue. Mimics are the perfect way to lure these kinds of adventurers in, which is even better if that’s your party.
You need to exert the utmost caution in dungeons because if you forget your wits for even a moment, you can fall into the most obvious traps, like a mimic treasure chest.
9Wizard Towers
In the earlier years of Dungeons & Dragons, mimics were generally believed to have been made by wizards to protect their towers and the contents inside from adventurers and thieves. Given that these mimics are meant to blend into their surroundings well, you can play with having magical items actually be mimics that don’t reveal themselves until your players are attuned.
A mimic encounter while sifting through a wizard tower could also befun in a one-on-one campaign, given that you would likely be working in cramped quarters that wouldn’t fit your standard party.
8Treasure Troves
Mimics are generally depicted as treasure chests and for good reason. More often than not, you will find a mimic in a treasure trove, where unsuspecting adventurers might scoop it up along with the rest of their new goods. Maybe your party gains a new mimic pet who got excited about how excited they were about treasure, which could turn out to be rather adorable (and eventually heartbreaking).
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Perhaps whatever came before the mimic wasn’t the boss fight, and the mimic is the treasure trove, ready to feast on greedy adventurers.
7Dark Caves
If your mimics are set further away, into areas where vision is impaired, it’ll be much easier to mistake them for the real thing. The further back you can get the mimic (or even a hoard of them) into the cave, the better.
Doing so will make it harder for your players to escape their combat range and easier for a hoard to corner them into the back corner of the cave. You don’t even have to have any story reason why there would be a hoard of mimics in a cave, perhaps it’s just easier for them to hunt this way.
6Taverns
Few people would enter a Tavern Cellar besides drunkards, thieves, and tavern workers. If the tavern workers know that there’s a mimic in the cellar, there’s a good chance that mimic is something like their security against people trying to get more booze than they paid for.
If it’s not in the cellar, perhaps it’s a musical instrument that the tavern owner just assumed was left behind by some bard. If your bard takes a fancy to it, if it’sone of the best instruments in Dungeons & Dragons, that could lead to an interesting encounter then or later on down the road.
5Abandoned Homes
Whether the mimic was the cause of the home becoming abandoned or just so happened to move in after the previous owners abandoned it is up to your discretion as the Dungeon Master. Regardless, if your players are headed in with the hopes that they can find some good loot, they’ll be in for a surprise when there’s a sudden mimic attack.
The mimic could be a door, a painting, or even an amulet of some sort. With some luck, your players won’t even realize it’s a mimic before they’re already stumbled right into its trap.
4Shady Back Markets
Should your players end up in a shady back-market deal for one reason or another, you might be able to pull off trying to sell a mimic. Or, perhaps the mimic has managed to slip its way into the wares of some dealer who doesn’t really care so long as they get their money.
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No refunds, no complaints, no problems, right? A deal that suddenly seems too good to be true might actually end up being too good as their purchased item suddenly shifts into a mimic form.
3Ghost Towns
A ghost town will really allow you tostart getting creative with your mimic disguises. you may opt for the simple treasure chest or a door, but why stop there? Why not make a building a mimic that has consumed the whole town?
You can really lean into how something inconspicuous in a town can destroy it before anyone realizes what has happened. If you want to push your players a bit more toward this inconspicuous mimic, perhaps the town isn’t entirely abandoned and left to rot just yet.
2Dark Forests
Lurking just beyond their line of sight, lingering behind trees, and following your players are horrors that can only pale in comparison to your player’s imaginations. In a Dark Forest, anything can lie in wait for your players, including the beloved mimics that are arguably less scary than most things in the Monster Manual.
Nonetheless, they’d hardly be out of place in a Dark Forest, nestled between trees or disguised as any matter of possible salvation from the spooky atmosphere for your party to come across.
1Warehouses
What better place to slip into than one that constantly has products moving in and out of it at most hours? In a warehouse, a mimic likely wouldn’t be found out for a very long time, so they’ll be well-fed and very happy until a noticeable amount of workers starts going missing.
Unlike their fellow mimics in the wild, this mimic can easily slip into cities and highly inhabited areas so long as they keep to the warehouse. This could also be a great way to experiment just a little bit with a modern setting, given that warehouses are incredibly prevalent in the modern world.
Next:Dungeons & Dragons: Tips For Incorporating Magic Into A Modern Setting
