Mimics are an utterly undying myth amongst adventure seekers, dungeon delvers, and treasure hunters of all stripes, an infamous tall tale that is earnestly believed by few but known by all. Living, gummy, rapacious chests, hiding down dark corridors in the forgotten catacombs of yore, an ambush predator whose proverbial lantern lure is greed. As stated, it's a common story, and a wrong one, but truth aside, it's easy to understand why it's so persistent. Adventurers live dangerous lives in search of treasure, and what could be more painful than death right before the moment of ultimate triumph? You're right on the cusp of having enough money to pay off your debts, maybe even enough to buy yourself a new horse without a limp, and blam, you're being gnawed on by a ridiculously ostentatious and slimy box. Beyond that, mimics are a good representation of the fear one feels of all monsters, the challenge that they pose, keeping you from the insurmountable wealth that surely must be just around the corner.
Sages claim that mimics are an impossibility, for such exact precision is simply beyond the natural world. Wizards claim that it would be so difficult to create an organism like the mimic through arcane means would be far too difficult to justify as opposed to a magical trap. Priests claim God created animals before man created furniture, so a creature suited to mimic such objects is a simple impossibility. Evolutionary Biologists (whoever they are) claim that the likelihood of a creature specializing in chest mimicry is very very low for a number of reasons, low enough that it's doubtful such a creature could ever exist. Pretty unanimous consensus all around, mimics are fake.
Man, sorta anticlimactic isn't it? But it's almost the end of the month, so maybe it's for the best it was a short post. Less of a scramble, y'know?
Hey wait wasn't there an asterisk in the title?
*: The Dungeon Squid
The name is a misnomer, they're really more closely related to octopi.
They're a rarity amongst cephalopods in that they eschew the water in favor of drier land, but they still avoid the surface, more for light reasons than anything else. Their favored environment is the subterranean, where they clung to cave walls and slithered through crevasses for millennia, undisturbed by mortals, the inhabitants of an utterly alien world beneath our feet. When we started tunneling into their caves to build catacombs and prisons, they took notice. Corpses and prisoners were easy food and weren't missed too much, and most who were in a position to take advantage of these food sources quickly learned how to avoid the priests and wardens that shepherded these spaces (unless they were especially hungry). Eventually our first catacombs and dungeons would sink deeper into the weary earth on their journey to the underworld, and they made themselves fully at home; even though the food had long since dried up, they made good nests. When other weirder, scarier, monstrous things had the same idea, they got good at hiding. Elastic, pliable bodies meant they could fit almost anywhere they wanted, within reason.
They especially like boxes, for instance, but they'll take anything they can get. Crawlspaces, coffins, trash chutes, armor (maybe even animated armor if they're delicate while getting in), basically any container or hard to reach place. They're good at getting into secret passages and rooms too, partly because of that elasticity, partly because they're also really smart (maybe a bit smarter than your average adventurer). Most monsters, or rather, most bestial monsters, don't have a purpose for treasure or an interest in finding secret passages, so they go unexamined, and the squids get left alone. Adventurers on the other hand, are much more likely to encounter said creatures, which makes sense since a lot of their work involves looking for things that are well hidden. An unfortunate amount of time, that thing turns out to be a 200 pound invertebrate, who's grumpy about the torchlight and the draft and the oily fingers poking at its eyeball.
Of course, a dungeon is typically confusing, weird, frightening, and above all else, dark, so when your buddy Johan throws a chest open and starts getting choked out by tentacles and slammed on the ground, it's very easy to think "Holy fuck that chest is eating him!" Not many people are aware that they're actually squids; outside of their hiding holes they can be pretty stealthy, you see, so most folks just see the tentacles and the chest and assume they're one and the same. Of course, as adventurers get more common in a given dungeon, squids will typically learn to avoid chests and other containers which look like they might have valuables to plunder. Alternatively, if one is particularly hungry, it might learn to use chests more proactively, as a lure for unsuspecting humanoids. Be suspicious of chests in otherwise safe chambers.
While interaction between squids and humans are often antagonistic, they don't have to be. Squids will often greet (in a metaphorical sense, as they are unlikely to reveal themselves to you at all) humans with curiosity, if not disturbed or attacked. Indeed, they are sometimes even able to be bribed with meat or other such food. Some even understand the concepts of trade and barter (in a very loose sense) and will try and present you with baubles in exchange for your salt pork, or mastiff, or halfling.
Biologically speaking, they're also close relatives to ropers (or maybe the same species, haven't decided yet). Their skin is typically mottled gray but they can shift color a bit (they tend to look dull, okay in low light). Their eyesight is pretty good in the dark but bright light makes them uncomfortable, maybe like a quasi-sunlight sensitivity trait.
If you can talk to them, via speak with animals (or some such equivalent ability), they'll be intelligent, but weird. You can probably strike a pretty handy deal with them, but don't expect them to understand sentiment, or empathy, or morality. Also be aware that at any time they might get hungry and think "hey, why the hell don't I just eat the smallest one and run away?" They're intelligent, but they're still wild animals (and also total bastards).
