Name: Mimics (AKA every dirty name and slur)
Doppelgangers (AKA the name of anyone you know. Maybe even... you!)
Piklins (They do not go by any nicknames yet)
Race: All: Monster
Sub-race: All: Shape Changers
Place on the Pyramid of Power (PPP): Mimics Predator (Cannot do magic, or hold talents given their lack of soul.)
Doppelgangers Completely dependent on host/ Prey by itself (Can perform magic based on who they have infected, and capable of performing feats based on that same body. However, the doppelganger is incredibly weak and useless without a host)
Piklins Supernatural (very few can do magic, but all of them can pilot suits of armor and golems like magic mechs. The older the get, the more likely they are to be able to do magic, or gain such from eating a doppelganger)
World: Xentos
Habitat: Only the tunnels of the Northern Kingdom
Concept: Mimics: Everybody knows what a mimic is. They are the bastard monsters that keep you from getting loot, because they pretend to be chests. They are creatures that disguise themselves as something cool, so they can ambush you when you are low on health. The apex of ambush predators. I will say that mimics vary from world to world, but I'll talk about the creatures from Xentos specifically here.
These mimics are different, mainly because of their black blood. Anyone that ends up attacked by these monsters will unfortunately have a few puncture wounds and scratches. If you manage to get away that's fine, but if you injure it back; well you can expect a case of the skull shivers. While not an actual threat to most monsters, these creatures are in the tunnel system of the dwarves. Which means that what they attack and get their blood on, can become infected, or outright turn into a monster if it survives.
To make matters worse, these mimics only take on the texture and durability of what they eat. If they find an old chest covered in holes, they can eat pieces of that. After they get their mouth full, their skin changes to the texture, and they mold their flesh to the proper shape or size. Which means they can take on the appearance of clothes, armor, the treasure inside the chest, the chest itself, anything smaller than a person really. You can check a chest, and find out it isn't a mimic. Then you open the chest, to find a super cool looking sword, only to hold it up to see your reflection. Then the sword attacks you.
Mimics by themselves have no souls, and very basic minds. Which makes it extremely hard to locate and deal with them with a magic sense. Not to mention that they cannot do magic themselves, but can be enchanted by eccentric people to act as guards. While it isn't properly covered in the story, a mimic could be raised and fed. They could also be tamed, and enchanted to make very low cost, very convincing guards to keep the real treasure safe.
Most mimics never grow beyond the size of a large chest, but that changes with their queen. The queen will send out a hypnotic signal to all other mimics in the area. They start to gather, and cover whatever their queen has chosen to make as their nest. They eat out the insides of columns, make pockets in tunnels, follow along open spaces inside of rooms, or even take over coffins. The queen will take over any space large enough to fully hide a person for making doppelgangers.
Needless to say, queen mimics are smarter than the others. The one weakness that can easily be exploited for normal mimics, is that they are super easy to affect with hypnotic suggestions, or direct mental impulses. Normal mimics simply have no resistance to such, and you can find them by simply suggesting, 'attack.' That order will cause most to burst open, thinking there is prey in front of them. Queens on the other hand are immune to such suggestions, and will often hide themselves in the presence of another queen (thinking the one doing the suggestion is such). They are immune to hypnotic suggestions, or mental attacks, which makes them even harder to find.
Why queens are immune to hypnotic suggestions, and mental attacks will be covered in biology. It is important to note that queens start off roughly as intelligent as normal mimics. This intelligence increases in proportion to the doppelgangers they take in. They learn what the doppelganger has learned, and if the soul still lingers, they now can use that same doppelganger to do magic. So yeah, mimics are a little more terrifying in this world.
Doppelgangers: Probably a little more terrifying, compared to the mimics. Doppelgangers tell you that there is a queen somewhere. Though really, good luck figuring out if there are any nearby. These monsters lack souls, but make up for that by trapping the souls of their hosts in their own bodies. They also form a sort of symbiotic relationship with their host's body, by making it immune to black blood. Given that their own black blood will be filtered out by themselves, and everything else just processed naturally.
Definitely not a mutualistic relationship for any living creature, that would like to control its body. They are monster parasites, that seek to benefit their queen and continue their race. They go out and mingle with those closest to them, who are well generally well received given they were missing for up to three days. The doppelganger will blend in with their friends and family, like a duck taking to water. Using the memories of their host, and even using magic. The hardest part for them, is coming up with a viable explanation as to why they were gone for so long. Though given the nature of how people welcome their own back in, this is often overlooked, or just flat out not asked in some cases.
Over the course of a couple weeks, the doppelganger will assume the life of their host completely. Acting as if everything was just like it was before. In more toxic environments, they will try to make it seem as if the experience made them a better person. Which is generally accepted as a positive thing, over thinking it was something bad. The doppelganger will slowly peel apart individuals in a group, expressing interest in wanting to show them where they had been for that time they were gone. Which as you may have guessed, just so happens to be the place where their queen is located.
The queen will grow larger during the first wave of doppelgangers, making more as the two communicate via telepathy. Once a doppelganger feels it cannot provide information or more prey for their queen, they simply move on to the next phase. Which involves said doppelganger being taken in by the queen and their host digested. The doppelganger itself, will became a brain and spinal cord acting on behalf of the queen. Slowly it will be taken over by the queen, and its memories become part of a network with others within the queen. This is when the queen itself will gain intelligence and the ability to plan and act in proportion to who they have taken in.
This is not a hive mind creature, but a ruling type. The queen gives orders to their doppelgangers, and gains more memories and magic based on that. The doppelgangers themselves lose their individuality once they become a part of the queen, merely becoming that, another part of the queen. The black slug that they are, is slowly replaced with the flesh of the queen as they themselves are digested. The souls that were trapped can be released, if holding onto them might cause problems. Otherwise they stay there so the queen can do magic, as all useless memories are forgotten and the brain is transformed to control parts of the wall.
It should be noted that doppelgangers are not picky about their hosts, since the queen is the one putting them inside such bodies. They cannot take over most monsters, but people and beasts are all fair game. There is a size limit, and if a soul is too strong, it will destroy the creature. Which is why they tend to avoid dragons, heroes, and so on. Which works well enough, because such figures are typically having their movements watched and tracked by others.
Piklins: Piklins are what happens when mimics are given a soul, and mind. With comprehension, comes understanding. With understanding, comes morals to some degree. Due to very unique circumstances, this new iteration of the mimic race came about. They have lost the ability to hide from soul sensing, and mind sensing magics. What they have gained, is a very unique interaction with magic, and magic equipment.
Piklins are fleshy creatures that are unable to eat and digest anything that isn't organic matter. To make up for this, they tend to enter suits of armor, chests, or anything that is suitable enough. They move inside like hermit crabs, and their blood and fluids make a network of magic circuits to make it move with minimal energy.
As a race, they are designed to be super helpful to those around them. They are untainted by the monster king's influence given that they developed well outside his kingdom. Which means these guys are a look at how some monsters might have acted before. It also helps that their blood and fluids are able to counteract the volatile nature of magic by stabilizing it. Which means that they are the ideal race for advancing technology and potentially creating magitech on Xentos.
It's because of this fact, that the Dwarves waited so long to inform or seek help. Piklins are helpful creatures, their blood is inert on others meaning they can't infect or turn others into monsters. Not to mention that they can figure out who is a doppelganger or not, by just being around them.
The main concept is magic mimics that pilot mechs, and that's just neat. They can't actually be mimics, since they have to be fleshy monsters, so it is the next step for them.
Biology: Mimics: Your average mimic starts its life hatching from an egg, inside the mother mimic. They will linger there for up to a month, as the mother moves to drop them in a spot with material for them to eat, and take the shape of. While they start small, they are able to make themselves look larger than they are, by ballooning up, or just slowly compressing air inside their. Depending on what they eat, they will change the top layers of their skin to a copy of the material in question.
This top layer is for all intents and purposes, an organic version of the dead material they have eaten. If you strike a sword mimic, it will ring and act like a sword. The strength of their organic metal is on par with the material to a certain point. It will not be able to puncture or pierce anything but leather. If the mimic itself dies, that same top layer can be put back into its 'resting' position to fool others into believing it is the real thing.
That said, mimics can be enchanted with magic and runes. They are essentially just mindless bunches of flesh that will forget ever being enchanted. Which makes this a great way of dealing with their queens, since the runes will explode when they try to merge, potentially taking such out. As for the runes that can be put on them, such follows the same principles as putting runes on anything else. They can only carry one less rune than the material they are pretending to be. So if you have an iron dagger that can carry one rune, mimics that pretend to be such cannot carry runes.
Mimics will grow larger from the time they are born, until they reach a certain point. They start off as the size of a dagger, but can balloon up to the size of a ball. After a few seasons, if they are able to eat enough, they will grow to the size of a sword. Give them a couple years, and they can become the size of the surface area of a chest. They weigh roughly as much as an average adult human male. Starting off at maybe two kilos (four pounds). It's important to know that a mimic disguised as a chest, will be empty inside, whereas a mimic disguised as a weapon will be rather solid.
Mimics themselves are highly suggestible creatures that you just need to communicate with very simply. Their species has evolved to have a queen capable of organically speaking to others through telepathy. A sort of mimic wavelength that came about without magic. These queens have a specialized brain that helps them find other mimics, and order them to gather and become a part of themselves. Due to its organic nature, and not being magic, these queens pick up the wavelength from people using magic. To the queens, a person using telepathy is no different than another queen. They ignore all commands and orders, but merely hide until the enemy queen passes.
There can only be one queen, and mimics will seek to destroy other queens of their kind. After all, their goal is to constantly grow and expand. Naturally queens can only make doppelgangers, and will do so when there are enough mimics in one area for them to call a gathering. A gathering is when a queen sends out a singular commend to all mimics in the area, because they feel there is enough mass between them all to fill such an area. The mimics will gather, as ordered towards the source, which is the queen. Then the queen will absorb the mass of the others, and stretch it over the area it intends to use.
At this point, they do something clever. Since there is no telling what the other mimics have eaten, or can disguise themselves as. The Queen will use the first few mimics to bore into whatever they are about to take over. Seeping through cracks in stone, slowly carving out a hole to comfortably fit a person. They carve their way behind the material and hold onto a thin layer to keep the disguise as all the mimics are reset while slowly becoming a part of the queen.
A new queen will have a pocket large enough to hold your average person. The queen will even leave out a little cache of treasure from what the other mimics held onto. This acts as bait to lure anyone to their small pocket. Most people, or even creatures would be surprised by a pile of rubbish in an area. Once they check it out, the individual is grabbed by a tendril, and pulled in when the wall opens. Pressure is put on them, as the wall of flesh stops them from moving properly, and they are slowly deprived of air. The queen will insert a doppelganger slug into the ear canal of their victim. They will wait until the doppelganger has taken over its host, before releasing them, taking care of the body the entire time.
After that, people will notice a sharp drop in mimic sightings in one area, as the Queen continues to gather more and more of her kind. Expanding the chamber, while the doppelganger does its job. Depending on how smart the individual was, the queen will gain that knowledge and use all relevant information to continue to grow.
It is important to know that any mimic can spawn a queen, but queens can only spawn doppelgangers. The queen will increase in intelligence in relation to who or what they eat. Meaning they can take over whispering wolves, and not get any smarter, except when it comes to pack tactics. Any creature or person is fair game so long as they can fit in the queen's 'chambers.' Though entities with souls that are too powerful will be able to resist the doppelganger infection, and now know where the queen is.
Doppelgangers: A doppelganger without a host merely looks like a disgusting black slug. An oily creature of shifting flesh, and seeping black blood into a puddle. They are parasites created by their queen to take over a host. They are unable to reproduce, given that they are essentially part of the queen herself. A doppelganger is not the egg or sperm of a queen, since queens are not fertile, but the repurposed brain matter of the other mimics that went into the queen. To them they are effectively a part of the queen.
When inserted into an individual, they will seek out the brain of their host. Upon finding it, they will wrap around it, soaking it with their monster blood. Their blood is constantly filtered by themselves, to keep the rest of the body from suffering from their blood. After wrapping around the brain, and soaking it with their blood, they begin the very long process of breaking the individual. Their nerves as a mimic brain, start to connect and control the nerves of the body. They grow from the nutrients fed to the body by the queen, keeping the host brain alive, and traveling down the spinal cord.
With the connections made on the first day, the second and third days are spent fighting for control over the body. The host may experience their life flashing before their eyes, dread, memories. If they are cowards to their core, they will not struggle, and the process will be relatively painless. If they do struggle, they will have all the memories of their past mistakes relived. They will feel absolute hunger, the worst pain they could possibly feel and so on. The mimic brain will throw everything it can at them, to try and force them to submit. This is because the doppelganger is immensely weak. The host can reject it through enough will power, and simply not wanted to become one. They just have to overcome the worst experiences of their life.
If a host does successfully reject the parasite, it will still be connected to the queen. They can pretend to work for such, but have full control over themselves. They gain an immunity to monster blood, the ability to sense mimics in an area, and the ability to detect other doppelgangers. If the queen is still young, then the individual could potentially take over the queen when they go back to become a part of them. Though that is much harder, and very unlikely. Roughly five percent of a population might be able to make it through the doppelganger infection. Which doesn't really help if the queen is already established and smarter than you. So those that do survive, likely try to find others to work on a way around it.
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Naturally, given the low chance of somebody actually overcoming a doppelganger, their queen is typically safe. They of course share the benefits of what would have happened if the host had won out. The connection to the queen doesn't mean anything much at the start, besides a nagging order to 'gather.' After the first doppelgangers have gone back however, it becomes a stronger connection that can give orders that can be understood.
It should be noted that doppelgangers will die if their host is killed. Specifically if the soul leaves their body. This is because the illusion falls apart when someone with magic can no longer do magic. After the host is pacified and no longer a threat, most doppelganger will put them to sleep. If the host was a mind mage, they might get to enjoy living in their dream world. Otherwise, it's just sleeping until the day comes that they die.
If the host was a particular bastard during the exchange, or if the doppelganger just doesn't like said host for whatever reason. Well, they get to enjoy a front row seat to watching everything that happens while not in control of their body. Unable to do magic, unable to warn anyone, just the silent screaming of a person trapped inside their own body.
When a doppelganger has fulfilled their use, they will return to their queen. The body will be digested and the doppelganger brain extracted. It will be put in it's own chamber room, to make more doppelgangers. Effectively becoming one with the queen again, and forgetting everything else. They are flesh walls, with the singular purpose of making more doppelgangers. They will defend their chamber with the magic they can muster, and the flesh they have access to. After all, there is only growth.
Piklins: All Piklins are princesses, with a queen guiding them. They are able to eat other mimics, and inject doppelgangers into prey if needed. Piklins can make more of themselves given that they have both parts like all mimics. Though most do choose to take on a semi-person form based on who they are interacting with. Essentially a show of trust, since their flesh is weak and easily harmed.
Doppelgangers that Piklins make, are essentially controlled by the group, unless given orders by their queen directly. Even then the doppelgangers they control are more focused on the will of the host. The host has some small level of control, so long as they do not actively try to bring harm to Piklins, and those that were turned to doppelgangers were the ones that tried to hunt or hurt them in the first place. Doppelgangers made by Piklins will not be eaten by them when their use is over. Instead they will be asked to do something else, until their body withers away, or the host itself makes the request to be eaten. A much 'nicer' alternative to being controlled by a queen mimic.
Piklin offspring differ in that Piklins lay their eggs in a nest of treasure/ mimics. The newborn Piklin will either seek to enter armor, or latch onto a mimic to become a parasite itself in some sense. As they get bigger, they will begin to gather materials they can connect with and make small golems, or even bits of armor.
Those that build small golems for themselves will move around on their own, learning how to better control what they are inside. While those that go to make armor, will become a sort of living armor that the doppelgangers wear. Because of how Piklins work, and the fact that their blood naturally strengthens armor, the living armor made with Piklins still inside is arguably the best. Such armor is able to support itself and move on its own, as well as adding strength and protection given that the Piklin acts as a shock absorber.
Piklins themselves can tolerate a high amount of heat, before it starts to hurt them. The general rule is that once it is hot enough for water to start boiling, it begins to hurt them. Piklins are mostly fire proof given that they 'sweat' more, but the material they are inside can catch fire if such was possible. Even though their blood is oily in nature, it is not flammable, which makes it an excellent lubricant.
A Piklin will spend ten years before it reaches sexual maturity. They typically will make between five and ten eggs, once every two years. Piklins do not stop growing, even after reaching their adult phase. Instead, they continue to grow until they are killed, or die from natural causes. When a Piklin becomes too large to fit in a suit of armor, or anything like that, they will instead try to construct their own with other materials. When they become too large to be supported by such, they will move into a mountain or castle to try and move that about. An important thing to note, is that only the Queen will continue this growth, while the others will stagnate in their growth at an acceptable level.
The maximum size of a Piklin is that of a giant that can move a single mountain, or a cluster of small hills. It will take around five hundred years for that to happen, which in terms of the queen presented in Ebony's story, she is about half way there.
Diet: Mimics: Omnivore (Anything they can eat pieces of to change into, and anything they can get ahold of)
Doppelgangers: Completely dependent on what their host ate before infection.
Piklins: Organic matter (Cannot digest inorganic matter, but will separate it into piles to be worked later)
Relationships: Mimics: Not very well received, and generally hated. Mimics are the stuff of nightmares, and do not particularly care how others look upon them. While the queen mimic can become smart enough to attempt cultivating relationships, this usually ends poorly for those involved. Specifically because the queen's end goal is to turn whoever they meet into another bit of flesh for themselves.
Queens may lie because they are smart enough, but when they feel they have the upper hand, they will happily make moves to drag those foolish enough to trust them into their chambers.
Doppelgangers: Depending on how well received the person was when they came back, it can vary a lot. Their main goal is to not be noticed, and to slowly grow their numbers for their queen. Save in the instance of Piklins, who are asked not to make more. They can be considered diplomats for the mimics, and Piklins.
They really are not liked by most, except in situations where they pretend to be one of those that overcame the parasite. It gets complicated, rather quickly, so it's better to think of them as all being spies. No body really likes the guy that is willing to betray trust and everything that was built up. Though you expect it in some sense, so you keep them at a distance if you can help it.
Piklins: Generally well received given the benefits they offer. That said, in the current story the Beard Cutters want to enslave them and keep them hidden. Other families under the Beard Cutter's rule, are more receptive wanting to aid them. These guys have been aiding in the war against mimics for decades, but are still monsters. Mimics hate them, and Dwarves want to use them to get ahead of Eclipse on something. It really isn't the best relationship for them, but they swallow it because of their history, and to survive.
Romance: Mimics: Good luck? While they can self fertilize and are more prone to going with other mimics, they don't exactly have the tools to reproduce with other species. They don't have predator eggs or sperm, and as monsters they are immune to reproducing with other races. The only exception would have to be the splicers. Besides the only interest they hold towards what is in your pants, is how much they can chew on it.
Doppelgangers: Depends on the host, but generally most are very accepting towards reproduction. After all they just have to feed the offspring and grow it until it joins them. It is healthy for the queen, so there are no qualms about arranged marriages or even sex slaves. If a doppelganger's body becomes pregnant, it will produce a perfectly healthy child of its host body. No one would notice anything amiss, and even pregnant women can be turned into doppelgangers without it affecting the child in their belly.
They are totally down for orgies, or sex clubs. They know just the place to go even. Just don't worry if the walls start to move, that's how raves work right?
Piklins: Kinky. While they aren't able to actually reproduce with others, they are willing to try. Given the nature of their blood, there is a very slight chance for their eggs to be fertilized, but they won't be getting any other race pregnant any time soon. They would be perfect for people that like light vore, since they would invite a potential mate into their personal space and surround them with flesh. Many would even take on the extra effort to take a form or shape based on what was requested.
Not only that, but they are sweaty creatures, that enjoy staying moist. They will smell like someone that has exercised or worked hard, so if smell is your thing well they have it. Their body temperature is warmer than most. Not to mention they have a tendency to want to completely satisfy anyone they are willing enough to do such with. While niche, they are likely perfect for some groups with very specific preferences.
If a crossbreed was to occur, from their eggs being fertilized by another race, it would result in a hybrid rather than a crossbreed. The hybrid itself would have traits based on both races. Making a kind of shape shifter, in the form of the parent creature that helped create them. Such a hybrid would be able to become its own race, as it reproduced with others, or it would simply die out.
Creation: Mimics: Created by the mad god, just because why not? They were made as a proof of concept, to see if flesh can survive with minimal perception, and no soul. Turns out they have very simple and effective solutions and adapt rather quickly.
Doppelgangers: Why think, when you can get others to think for you? Take over the brain of a host, and suddenly you have the tools you were lacking before. It took a couple of tries before the mad god got around to this iteration. The others went extinct, but the entire concept of a mimic queen suddenly left mimic brains laying around. Better put that to use, and make them into real monsters.
Piklins: Created when one of the mimics that escaped, ate someone with a special talent. The first Piklin was a mimic, that did not understand what was going on. It thought itself a queen, but died when trying to gather others under it. It gave its soul to the first and only egg it was able to lay. This egg would grow to become the first Piklin, as the race evolved in a way that would make the mad god proud. (This is going to be a whole short story for the lore section. Hope you all enjoy.)
Purpose: Mimics: Eat, grow, and make more. Very simple creatures, with no greater direction or sense of purpose. The queens can assign and claim that their purpose is grand, but ultimately they are a cancer that wishes to grow and consume all that they can. A smart enough queen will use religion on some races, suggesting that they are entities worthy of worship. That their goal is to unify and unite all races under their doctrine. Which that same claim falls apart when you remember that they just erase all memories from those doppelgangers they take in. A queen's ideal world would be a world covered in flesh with doppelgangers reproducing with their bodies, to make more flesh to be taken in.
Eventually such a world would die from lack of food, or diversity. Just drifting through space, unchanging. If life is observed outside of their planet, they will not try to pursue it, because that would mean another potential queen that might try to fight them. An unfortunate end to any civilization or world.
Doppelgangers: Everything they do, they do for their queen. They study, research, and explore subjects that their queen deems important. Beyond that, there is nothing else to do. Nothing that they would actually want to do. They are parasites that were created for the growth and health of their queen. They will die fighting to protect her, or if she is lost, they will typically end themselves.
They can defect to other queens however, though such a move is usually known by their queen ahead of time. These are typically calculated moves to learn the location of the other queen's chambers, or a last display of pride since doppelgangers are considered a part of them. If the doppelganger defects then it is so their queen can live on, and they were ordered to do such.
Piklins: The realization of the world that might be left behind by their own mother race, they seek to destroy the queen mimics. Ultimately they wish to live, and grow their own civilization as their doppelgangers have told them about. To create a society and culture based on their unique views. Each piklin can be considered a princess, that all follow under the most successful one that they view as the queen. They are still a young race, that have a lot to learn, and merely wish to live long enough to be viewed and respected by the others.
Lore: Mimics: Created by their mad god, they were plunged into the depths of the Ankin colonies (basically humanoid ant monsters, that line the southern borders of Dark Fell). The first mimics would disguise themselves as their eggs, within the nests. They would kill and eat the eggs, as well as any weakened worker they could manage to fight. Sadly, they were unable to make the first doppelgangers with these workers. The first Queen becoming an egg chamber for their eggs. As time went on, the colony would grow, and go on to take people as their slaves.
These slaves would become the first doppelgangers, and with their aid, they would slowly begin to take over the colony. Decades would go by, before others started to take notice. Seeing the potential future that might come from such a colony, the black guard was dispatched. The colony was burned to ashes, killing the colony and the mimics.
Or so it would have been, if not for a doppelganger soothsayer. They learned of such a future, and told their queen. The queen did not know how to stop such, and so opted to send doppelgangers, and mimics disguised as saddles, out into the world. Towards the northern kingdom where there could be more tunnels and places to hide. Unknown to anyone involved, there was a slave with the talent to give their soul onto another living creature.
Doppelgangers: The first doppelgangers were slaves to the Ankin. People that were bound and kept in captivity, to be eaten, or used for amusement. The first doppelgangers merely wanted the bodies, while the slaves sought to be freed from their pain. Their solution was to simply take over the body, and keep them from feeling pain. To soothe the struggling individuals into a slumber from which they could not wake up. To use their souls and memories to slowly work their way through the Ankin.
Decades would pass, before their forces became strong enough to put the Ankin on the defensive. Their queen silently biding her time while more were doppelgangers were produced. A silent war waging beneath the hills of the Ankin colony, as two queens of different races fought for their survival. The doppelgangers were the ones to slay the last of the Ankin queen's elite guards. They were the ones to drag her before their queen. Ankin were finally food to the doppelgangers, and mimics.
The golden age had come for their race, as all new queens were slain before they had a chance to root themselves into the tunnels. Slowly but surely the walls of the tunnels were lined with the flesh of their queen. Ankin were used to defend the outside of the nest, and as food since doppelgangers allowed their hosts to eat meat with black blood.
Finally it were these same doppelgangers that foretold the future of the black guard coming to slay them. To burn their colony to ash, while stopping any trade from coming in or going. A desperate move was made by their queen, and a caravan was sent out to secure their future. Most would die on the journey, but ultimately they made it to the mountains of the Northern Kingdom. They dug tunnels, that would come to connect into those of the Dwarves, while waiting for a new queen to guide them.
Piklins: A queen did come, but was unstable due to the soul it was given. The order was given for mimics to gather, but as more came to her, the more she was strained. Mimics were ordered to reproduce, while the doppelgangers that remained, were ordered to take away the mimics. The mimics were placed and spread out in all the tunnels their doppelgangers could find. Many were slain by wandering tribes of Dwarves, but that meant nothing since those that did survive would be able to produce their own queens in time.
With her strength failing, and her body withering, the mimic queen used the talent she was given with the soul. She laid her own eggs, feeling pain as they withered and died. She gave the smallest egg, her talent and soul, before succumbing and dying herself.
That egg would become the first Piklin, who would spend it's first few months calling for help. No one would come, while she ate the flesh of her mother. Finally a Dwarf of a nomadic tribe would stumble upon this first Piklin. A member of the Moss Beards, with the talent: Do No Harm. They were a spirit caller, a rare magic that allowed them to commune with the spirits of nature, and see the souls of others. This Dwarf would adopt the first Piklin, taking them out into the wide open world beyond the tunnels.
This Piklin would see the beauty of the world, while growing up with this strange tribe. They would roam along the borders of Dark Fall, walk the forests that would become Eclipse, explore the great sea, and witness the friendly elves, over the course of ten years. This tribe would return to where they found the Piklin, only to run into one of the first hordes the monster king sent to the Northern Kingdom. They would die, while protecting the first Piklin, and the other Dwarves. They collapsed the tunnels, successfully ending the first horde. Though the second came a year later, and was able to infiltrate the tunnels and make nests for themselves.
The mimic queens that had grown in those tunnels welcomed the fresh flesh. Killing most of the monsters, while a few queens fell themselves. The tribes that roamed the tunnels would see these battles, and go on to tell stories of how mimics were protectors. Those queens that were still alive, would use this to their advantage to claim dwarf towns. Monsters were allowed to nest in the tunnels, to give these queens a sense of purpose among the dwarves, as some even began to worship them.
The first Piklin saw what was going on with horror, and prayed for a way to help. The Dwarves she loved so much were gone, as new tribes and kingdoms began to move against each other. She would have her own children, and slowly they began the thankless task of closing more tunnels, to prevent the monsters and dwarves from fighting. Mimic queens would take credit for this, and turned the dwarves against each other.
The grudges mounted, and cities became more isolated as a result. Kingdoms slowly falling apart, as their population are turned into Doppelgangers. Even when the books finally came, there was no passage about such creatures. Which galvanized the zealots, as they were a gift to protect them from other monsters. Finally it was discovered how Piklin blood could be used, and they were starting to be hunted by the other cities. Everyone wanting to use them to their own ends, to create new technology to best their enemies.
The Piklins themselves have gone into hiding, while using those tribes that wandered the tunnels. Their Queen still hopes to somehow save the others before it is too late. To make the world as wonderful as she thinks it used to be. She is aware that Oswald is coming, and he will bring either death or salvation for them. Because the soothsayers speak the truth as the future will come.
Fun Ideas: While people certainly have ample reason to hate these monsters, I find them oddly cunning and beautiful. They fill a niche, and have adapted to fulfill that.
Mimics and Doppelgangers are certainly fuel for horror tropes. If you're completely sadistic, you might fill an entire town up with these guys and let your party suffer. I personally wouldn't recommend this, since any group you are playing with will likely try to find someone else to lead their campaigns. That said, if the party wants to die, they are effective for that.
Not only that, but the doppelganger can certainly be used to sow paranoia in a group. Like just imagine one of your friends being one in a party, and suddenly you have a game focusing on the party itself trying to figure out why the warrior suddenly wants to go into a cave they just scouted. Naturally you'd have to make sure your players are on board with that, but it is an interesting story.
As for the Piklins, well they can fit any host of stories and settings. They can be aliens that have adapted to zero gravity environments. They can be living suits of armor that join the party as a companion to help on quests. They can even be engaging enemies to fight against, given their intelligence and strength.