Burials of Teganshire post 8 of 30
Let’s depart the campaign and adventure philosophy and dive into encounters. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, the Lothmar meta mimic for 5E. Yes, it’s a mimic of a mimic. Ha. Ha, ha, ha, AH HA HA AH MWA HAHAHAHAHA!
Ahem.
Encounter: The Old Man and the Ghost Wagon
On any road the PC party is traveling on, they find a wounded, delirious old man in the ditch. He claims that a “wagon with no horse or riders,” came across their own wagon in the opposite direction. When the animated wagon got closer, it “screeched like the damned, laughing and giggling” as it attacked the horses, and then the other occupants of the old man’s wagon.
This is the extent of his knowledge. He claims it was a “haunted ghost wagon” and doesn’t have any details of how it attacked or if the rest of his companions are alive or dead. He says the wagon took a bite of him and then yelled, “Begone, old fool, least GHOST WAGON kills you too!”
The old man is thoroughly traumatized and is suffering from post-traumatic stress. Still, PCs with a Wisdom (Insight) check of 10 or higher will reveal that he wants to deliver a helpful description, but no longer has the mental faculties to do so. Giving him some water and tending to his wounds will go a long way into calming him down, but the old man, who says his name is “Old Jim,” is helpless if left outdoors by himself.
The Battle Site
It doesn’t take long for the party to find the gruesome battle site: a broken wagon, two dead draft horses, and two dead men, all four mostly eaten, body parts everywhere.
A Wisdom (Medicine) DC check of 10 reveals the wounds from a large mouth with sharp teeth. A DC 15 shows sticky, goo-like substance from the meta mimic’s adhesive. A DC or 20 reveals the men also suffered from some other type of catastrophic damage, the meta mimics cosmic damage delivered by its bite. Only an Intelligence (Arcana) DC of 20 or more will type the damage as “cosmic damage from the void beyond.”
Wagon tracks go down the road (without horses or oxen to pull them), the ghost wagon seemingly heading back from which it came. No tracking (Survival) roll needed.
Combat Encounter
The Ghost Wagon will not be hard to find. It is moving at 30 ft. per round (using its movement for both its action and movent phases). Touching it or using ranged weapons will start combat. The meta mimic, while battling the PCs will periodically go “Oooooooo!” and “Mwahahahaha GHOST WAGON WILL EAT YOU!” It also taunts any healer in the party if another PC dies, calling them a “loser” and blaming them for the PC’s death.
It fights to the death. If the PCs only use ranged weapons, it turns into its true form, flies above the archers/crossbowmen, and then turns into a wagon to fall on their heads.
The meta mimic is reasonably intelligent. If it incapacitates a PC by bringing them to 0 hit points, it will keep attacking the PC until the PC is dead.
Combat variation
A fiendish DM can dramatically bump the encounter difficulty by having two regular mimics, as chests, hitching a ride in GHOST WAGON. All three of them think this is hilarious, and as the DM, you should find it pretty funny, too.
Your players, however, as play-testing revealed, will not think it funny at all.
Lothmar Meta Mimic for 5E
Description
Thoroughly malevolent, witty, and annoyingly snarky, the Lothmar meta mimic is an evil aberration from “somewhere else.” Often confused with regular or giant mimics, the meta-mimic is much more dangerous due to its innate ability to copy objects it can sense, including complex objects composed of smaller pieces, such as a wagon.
Meta mimics seem to bend the laws of physics to copy objects, and they can mimic anything from a tiny teacup to horse carriage to a wine barrel. They cannot “invent” objects to copy; they must see or have seen an object to polymorph into.
Mistaken Identity
Explorers and their like often confuse a meta mimic with an animated object or construct, that is, up until the meta mimic reveals its mouth with sharp teeth.
Compounding the problem is the meta mimic will “hang out” with animated objects, mimics, or giant mimics, and striking at the most convenient time for maximum comedic effect, according to the mimic.
Cruel Monsters
Meta mimics are cruel, but only insofar as amuse itself with its morbid sense of humor. For example, a meta mimic would think it’s quite funny to suddenly lunge at an adventurer in armor standing over a pit of alligators, in hopes of having them slip and fall in surprise. Then it would attack anyone coming to rescue, or, if the adventure is alone, extend a pseudopod to help, but leave the legs to the alligators as it feasted on the “top part.”
Unknown Ethereal Origins
Little is known about the meta mimic, other than it is susceptible to force damage, lending evidence to its origin being the Ethereal Plane. While it can speak (often to taunt people that it is munching on), it never reveals anything about its culture (if it has one), origins, or anything of import. Some guess that the meta mimic originally came across an actual mimic, and copied as much as its form and attributes as it could.
Survivors of the Lothmar meta mimic describe its bite as having some “soul-sucking, void damage from the beyond.” They also specify that it is not concerned with its safety or any natural functions, and seems only to exist to kill, maim, and taunt surprised victims.
It is also unknown why Lothmar meta mimics are bothered and damaged by loud noises. If the meta mimic knows, it isn’t telling. They even don’t seem to have a brain or at least a normal one, and they are entirely immune to psychic damage (nor do they respond to telepathy).
When a meta mimic dies, it reverts to its non-object form and dissolves into smoke until gone.
Burials of Teganshire
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