Mimics imitate terrain and dungeon dressing to hunt for food. Rare specimens develop a deeper understanding of the world and can communicate with other creatures. In extremely rare cases, groups of these creatures band together, creating colonies. These bonded mimics cooperate to create larger objects than any lone mimic could approximate. A mimic colony can work together to form buildings, bridges, crystal formations, cliff faces, statues, and nearly anything it desires. Entire villages appearing out of nowhere might be composed of mimics!
Mimic Communication. Members of the colony develop telepathy and the ability to speak. While within 10 miles of the colony, any mimic can communicate telepathically with other creatures within 120 feet of it and can speak Common and Undercommon fluently (or two other languages of the DM's choice). The colony's offspring gain these abilities innately and can use them even away from the colony, as shown in the Juvenile Mimic stat block.
| Juvenile Mimic | |||||
| Tiny Monstrosity (Shapechanger), Unaligned | |||||
| Armor Class: 11 (natural armor) | |||||
| Hit Points: 7 (2d4+2) | |||||
| Speed: 10 ft., climb 10 ft. | |||||
| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
| 1 (-5) | 12 (+1) | 13 (+1) | 10 (+0) | 13 (+1) | 10 (+0) |
| Skills: Stealth +3 | |||||
| Damage Immunities: acid | |||||
| Condition Immunities: prone | |||||
| Senses: Darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 11 | |||||
| Languages: Common, Undercommon, telepathy 120 ft. | |||||
| Challenge: 0 (10 XP) | |||||
| Proficiency Bonus: +2 | |||||
| Spider Climb. The mimic can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check. | |||||
| False Appearance (Object Form Only). While the mimic remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary object. | |||||
| Actions | |||||
| Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage plus 2 (1d4) acid damage. | |||||
| Shape-Shift. The mimic polymorphs into an object or back into its true, amorphous form. Its statistics are the same in each form. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying isn't transformed. It reverts to its true form if it dies. | |||||
Confronting a Colony. A mimic colony's primary goal is survival. If threatened by a force the mimics can't overcome, they are willing to bargain. Mimic colonies have learned that adventurers they can't defeat can be bought off with information about nearby creatures or locations, hidden treasure (which the colony obtained from prior "food"), or even one of their own young.
If the colony's survival is threatened and it thinks it has a chance of surviving a fight, it can leverage its combined might using special lair actions. On initiative count 20 (losing all ties), the mimic colony takes a lair action, causing one of the following effects; it can't use the same effect two rounds in a row:
When determining the difficulty of an encounter with a hostile mimic colony, consider the colony to be one additional creature of challenge rating 2.