Muk (Grimer)

Oleumedunt facticius

Overview

In his 1913 novel “March of the Muk,” author Henry Blackstone laid out a vision of muk as a strange creation of sludge and lunar x-rays that rose up from the oceans to destroy the cities. With humanity’s greatest insults to the wilderness gone, the muk die off as if they had never been there at all. The view of muk as a scourge upon the civilized world was not new at the time. They seemed to come from nowhere around the turn of the 20th Century and thrived in the rancid sewers and industrial areas of the world’s cities. While they first appeared near Japan, they quickly and almost simultaneously appeared near almost all of the world’s coasts.

In truth, muk are not the creation of anything so fanciful as lunar x-rays. They were also not made by, or even in response to, humans. While they do not fossilize well, it is believed that muk may have been living for hundreds of millions of years on the seafloor. The Challenger expedition captured a grimer years before muk were seen on the surface. The ship was above the abyssal plains of the Mid-Atlantic at the time, half the world away from their eventual surfacing point.

The deep sea has no sunlight. No new plant life can grow there. The entire food chain is based off of scavenging the scraps that come from above. The abyssal muk is a slime mold that feeds not on the falling matter itself, but upon the bacteria and fungi that start to break it down. If necessary, they can kill other organisms and then wait for them to decompose.

The shelf muk is the subspecies that eventually came to the surface. They can function as a decomposer of decomposers, but they prefer to feed upon oil and natural gas leaking up from the seafloor. They do not directly eat the petroleum themselves. Rather, colonies of bacteria living inside of them break the oil and gas down into usable energy and put it back into the food web. When humans started bringing oil to shore and letting it run back into the sea, muk just followed the path until they found themselves in the harbors and rivers. Eventually, some mutated to live comfortably on land.

Once their food source and biology was better understood, engineers, chemist and biologists started to harvest terrestrial, shelf, and abyssal muk to selectively cross-breed them. These processes eventually created a new pokémon, the LifeChem, Inc. muk. The species is more commonly known as the domestic muk. The domestic muk is patented and regularly “updated” to keep the newer breeds protected by the law. Older breeds are no longer patented and can be purchased, captured and bred at will.

The domestic muk readily breaks down most microbes, organic matter and plastics without seriously damaging glass or metal. This allows for the cleaned waste products to be easily recycled. Some breeds only consume liquid oil, leaving plastics behind for recycling. The newest breed can break plastic down into a liquid form for remolding. Products cleaned by muk are very sterile because they consume bacteria and their bodies themselves rarely leave behind toxins. Their flesh still should not be consumed; the “muk slime challenge” can be fatal. Unless they are actively defending themselves, though, domestic muk are usually safe to touch and even hug so long as the crystals are avoided.

Muk are good battlers that can cut down on the amount of trash a trainer has to carry with them between disposal sites. They are also relatively easy to feed, as they can feed on decomposing plant and animal matter. They are not recommended for households with young children.

Physiology

Muk’s typing is widely disputed. A poison primary typing is agreed upon; the second slot is a toss-up. Unlike most muk species, the domestic muk is very resistant to psychic attacks that can fry the nervous systems of almost anything without a proper brain. They are also nocturnal. These factors suggest a dark-typing. However, muk are semi-liquid, most comfortable in the water, and need to fully submerge themselves at least once every few days. This suggests a water-typing. Other pokémon related to fungi have been given grass-typings. For now the Department of Agriculture has given them a preliminary dark-typing and left the issue open to comment and discussion.

Grimer and muk have similar physiology. As such, this section will not go through the anatomy of all three stages in detail.

Muk are closely related to slime molds. This means that they are an amalgam of many separate single-celled organisms, most capable of surviving outside of the collective. Some of these cells have dissolved the cell boundaries between each other, resulting in massive cells with multiple nuclei. This is also why they are so amorphous. Outside of their crystals, muk contain no hard structures.

Domestic muk generally stratify into specialized layers similar to organs. These layers often have different colors. Some layers are devoted to dissolving specific microorganisms, others to digesting plastic, and others still to generating attacks or neural processing. Despite their lack of a brain, muk are reasonably intelligent pokémon capable of solving puzzles, learning new moves, and displaying affection for their trainer.

Muk sense the world primarily through vibrations. This allows them to hear spoken words and differentiate between the voices and footsteps of individual humans. Muk appear to have eyes complex eyes. These are actually simple eye spots. Muk can only determine whether light is present or absent. The species can also apparently sense chemicals in the air and water. This is how they find food.

Unlike the other species, the domestic muk does not keep many poisons inside of their flesh. They do keep resident bacteria colonies inside of them, but these are mostly to help with digestion of plastics and other bacteria and they not actively attack living tissue. The domestic muk stores excess or particularly toxic materials inside of their crystals. When attacked they absorb the crystals into their body to temporarily make their flesh more toxic. This helps deter any would-be predators and harm anything that keeps attacking them. These crystals can be removed and sometimes fall out on their own.

All stages of the evolutionary line appear to have a mouth. This is used to wholly absorb rotting materials, letting them break it down from all angles. Sometimes a muk will engulf an opponent to maximize their exposure to toxins and prevent them from fleeing. Grimer and muk have crystalline teeth lining their mouth for extra utility in battle.

Grimer are very similar to muk, except smaller and with crystals limited to their mouth and the area around their eye spots.

New variants of domestic muk can only reach widths of eight feet and weights of up to 300 pounds. Some older breeds can grow slightly larger.

Behavior

Muk are generally sedentary creatures. They will sit still and digest food when they find it. When a food source runs out muk will retreat into the water for digestion, healing and safety. Muk prefer stagnant water, especially dirty water that lets them passively feed on bacteria. Adults are willing to enter running water, but grimer will generally avoid it unless they desperately need to hydrate.

A very hungry muk will attempt to hunt. Because of their low speed, they are mostly limited to sedentary Pokémon, animals and plants. Muk are one of the very few species that can digest slowpoke, but most will not take advantage of this. Lazy as they are, slowpoke still move faster than bacteria.

Muk were once believed to be a highly social pokémon. Terrestrial muk were almost always found in large colonies known as dumps. Shelf muk are also usually found congregated together. However, outside of crossover (see Breeding), members of all species don’t interact with conspecifics. Terrestrial and shelf muk only form groups because their largest food sources tend to be constant and unmoving, allowing for many muk to find a particular spot and coexist peacefully. Muk do not fight each other for territory, but if a given dump is at capacity would-be newcomers tend to turn away and find their food elsewhere.

Domestic muk tend to rest during the day and become active at night. This was bred into them to make their circadian rhythm align to the times janitors need them most. While muk do not properly sleep, they do enter periods of low activity. While inactive their mouth seems to disappear and they become a circular pile of colorful sludge with a very slight bulge and two white eye spots in the middle.

As mentioned in Physiology, muk respond to potential threats by breaking off crystals into their body. They will then rise up as high as they can and begin to groan. If the threat has still not left, they may begin to attack. If they do kill their assailant, the muk will stay near the same spot for days until the body is sufficiently decomposed to eat.

Husbandry

Grimer and muk can be fed every few days. They have been bred to eat a diet matching the typical load at a landfill. The average trainer’s trash will usually keep a muk satiated. They may supplement their diet by roaming their environment and eating any bacteria they find. This, combined with their sterile exterior, makes them popular with hospitals for sterilizing equipment and rooms. The sludge mix muk require can be purchased at most Pokémon Centers, hardware stores, or pokémon supply stores.

Muk will adjust the concentrations of bacteria in their body to match their average long-term diet. Newly captured or purchased muk should be fed more or less the same things they were previously eating and slowly be weaned into whatever a trainer needs them to eat. To maintain maximum size, a muk should be fed about thirty pounds of trash a week.

Muk are aquatic pokémon and should be given the chance to fully submerge themselves at least once a week. If this is not possible, they should at least be stored in a dive ball. These are not perfect substitutes for actual submersion and muk are happiest if they can swim frequently, but dive balls will at least keep a muk alive. Muk prefer stagnant pools, but have no preferences on water temperature, pH, or salinity.

Many trainers are often surprised to learn that grimer and muk can be rather affectionate to the humans who feed them. Some will initiate cuddling. Most will at least tolerate it. Before they embrace their human, muk will slowly move all of their crystals to one side of their body. They should only be touched from the other side. If initiating contact, slowly stroke one area of the body. This should lead the muk to shift their crystals. If the muk keeps their crystals in place, they probably do not want to be touched.

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Do not touch a muk within 24 hours of battle.

Muk can slowly be trained to be diurnal, but will always be a little sluggish in the day. Stern verbal commands can usually stir an inactive muk into moving. It is easiest to train a muk to be awake in the day if the pokémon is kept in a brightly lit area with water at night, and in a dark room with food during the day. After two weeks of this, almost all muk will have shifted their sleep schedule.

Muk sometimes enjoy puzzles. Systems of tubes with trash at the end are a favorite of the species. However, muk will usually try to eat pvc pipes and other plastic obstacles instead of playing with them. Metal toys work best. Because they sense the world through vibrations, many muk have shown a fondness for music. They usually settle upon a preferred genre or artist in time.

Illness

Most muk illnesses fall into three categories: dehydration, nutrient deprivation or starvation.

Dehydration illnesses manifest as muk being slower or less obedient. If a muk’s movement speed is noticeably slower than usual, allow them to be submerged in water until they decide to leave. The same applies if a muk is disobedient or aggressive for no clear reason, as they could be trying to get away and find water. Long term dehydration can lead to muk disincorporating into a pile of toxic crystals and bacteria-laced sludge.

Disincorporation is perhaps the only way a muk can die. Dehydration is by far the most common cause of death in domestic and terrestrial muk. It can also be caused by extensive attack damage, particularly from sound- and wave-based attacks (see Battling).

Nutrient deprivation illnesses manifest as one layer growing much larger than before or one layer growing smaller. As most layers correspond to one digestive function, check the muk breed’s guidebook to figure out what needs to be increased or reduced in their diet. Long-term deprivation of one nutrient usually will not kill a muk, but it will render them permanently unable to digest one food source.

Starvation results in a muk growing smaller over time. Reproduction and damage in battle can also result in shrinkage. If muk looks smaller or weighs less than usual, their feedings should be increased in size or frequency.

If any of the above remedies do not solve a problem, or if muk begins shedding more than one crystal a month, seek professional veterinarian help from a Pokémon Center or LifeChem store.

Evolution

Muk stay in much the same shape throughout their entire lives. Whether or not grimer should even be a recognized as a distinct stage is a hotly debated question. The main anatomical differences between grimer and muk are their size.

Newborn grimer have yet to stratify into different color bands. Stratification takes roughly six months. Once stratification has occurred, the grimer begins to slowly grow crystals. These develop first in the mouth and later in the areas around it. When the first crystal grows away from the face area, the grimer has formally evolved into muk.

Muk is the rare species of pokémon that doesn’t experience a rapid increase in growth and maturation rates in times of frequent combat. Instead, their growth is almost entirely tied to the amount of food they consume. Grimer can incorporate up to one one-quarter of their body weight every day and muk up to one-sixth.

Battle

Both domestic and terrestrial muk and frequently used in the international circuits. Muk don’t have conventional organs or weak points to damage. They are hurt the most by vibrations or attacks that affect their entire body at once. This makes muk the best counter in the metagame to technical physical attackers such as scizor, weavile, and sceptile. Physical birds often struggle against muk as well because their beaks and talons generally can’t do enough damage to muk to justify the proximity. Full body impacts run a very high risk of poisoning.

Domestic muk are more frequently used than terrestrial muk at this time. Domestic muk are highly resistant to telepathic attacks, the best counter to terrestrial muk. However, terrestrial muk can be far more toxic than domestic muk. This makes domestic muk an excellent wallbreaker; anything slow enough to be caught up in their body has a very limited amount of time left on the field. Because their bodies are filled with natural herbicides, domestic muk are also a counter to many physical or defensive grass-type pokémon. This has been famously exploited by Miguel Cabrera, champion of the Amazonian Federation, fifth highest ranked trainer in the world, and winner of 27 of the last 40 Pan-American Invitationals. The South and Central American metagames are filled with grass-types and technical attackers and are short on ground-types, making his muk almost as iconic and useful as his harpyre.

Both species are countered by any decently fast pokémon with a strong seismic move. Some powerful water-type attacks, such as surf or muddy water, can also serve the same purpose. Fast fliers with projectile attacks can usually dodge most of muk’s attacks and fire back their own. However, these birds are often unable to deal serious damage to muk, allowing the opposing trainer to run down the clock and switch.

A muk’s usual offensive movepool includes poison jab, toxic, venoshock and a projectile poison move such as gunk shot or sludge wave to hit fliers and fast projectile users. Protect, acid armor, torment, disable, pain split and substitute are useful for surviving earthquakes, but they can’t save muk in the long term. Even the most defensive of muk usually will not hold out long enough to be able to switch out against a powerful earthquake user. These moves dramatically boost muk’s ability to wall non-earthquake users (and-non psychics, in the case of terrestrial muk). Their elemental well is not large, but some muk are taught thunderbolt, ice beam and stone edge to increase their ranged offensive options.

Like the South American leagues, the Pan-Pacific metagame is dominated by grass-, water-, and flying-type pokémon. On the few islands where ground-types exist in large numbers, most serious trainers don’t bother to catch them. This makes powerful water-type moves the only real counter for muk on the island challenge, with ranged fliers like vikavolt serving as an important check. Powerful physical attackers that know earthquake, while rare outside of the very top teams, can also wreck a muk.

Grimer is an extremely good pokémon for the early island challenge as almost all weak pokémon function as technical attackers. This allows muk to single-handedly take down almost all teams on the first island and most of the second. Muk stays useful up to and including the pokémon league. Trainers are unlikely to be able to teach their muk the full list of defensive moves outlined above, but one or two in combination with toxic and venoshock are all muk really needs to succeed. Trainers can also use a dark-type move such as knock off to take advantage of muk’s telepathy resistance and turn them into psychic-slayers.

Acquisition

Grimer requires a Class II license to capture, purchase, or adopt. Muk require a Class III license to purchase or adopt. Only grimer may be legally captured in the region.

Most grimer in Alola are held in the four Waste Depository Centers, one on each of the main islands. They can also be purchased from private trainers and LiveChem stores. From time to time the Waste Depository Centers will release excess grimer into the area around them for trainers to capture. These releases are usually publicized a week after they happen in to allow the grimer some time to spread out. After a certain period of time passes, the DNR sets out to recapture any muk that still exist in the wild.

These four centers are in East Hau’oli, Route 4, Malie Cape, and The Battle Tree.

Breeding

Muk imitate sexual reproduction through two separate events. The first is crossover. This occurs when two muk are around each other for a long period of time and develop a mutual respect. The two muk will coalesce into one pile and then pull apart into two distinct muk. This process works across species and results in sister muk that are essentially the biological offspring of the pair. In captivity the trainer that the new muks choose to follow is essentially random, with one going with each trainer roughly half the time and both going with one the other half. Which muk remembers which moves and strategies is also essentially random. Crossover can be prevented by not allowing a muk to spend more than two weeks with another member of their species.

Grimer are produced asexually. Muk prefer not to get above a certain size, although their exact terminal mass varies by individual. When a muk is at terminal mass and consumes more food, they will mix some of every layer in their body into a ball and release it. The grimer awakens and begins moving within six hours of formation. Grimere are sometimes loyal to their parent’s trainer and often retain knowledge of most of the same moves, even if they do not have the proper anatomy or energy well for using them yet. Some specialty breeders exploit this to sell grimer with deep movepools and battle experience.

After a captive muk produces a grimer, the muk should be weighed to determine the mass they reproduce at. If you do not desire any more reproduction, make sure to keep the muk below that mass.

Relatives

As mentioned in the introduction, there are four species of muk. The domestic muk has been covered above.

The terrestrial muk (O. invasor) are shelf muk that have further evolved for life near human habitations. They are the most toxic of the species and can wilt small plants just by passing within ten feet. They are only found around the most polluted of industrial waste sites and landfills. They must hydrate daily which further restricts their range. Modern environmental laws have rendered the terrestrial muk all but extinct in developed economies, with the remaining populations persisting at facilities explicitly designed for keeping the terrestrial muk alive. These centers are often run by professional trainers who are fond of muk, but are sometimes run by environmentalists who want the species to live on for its intrinsic value.

Terrestrial muk are still a major health concern in some developing economies. Portions of coastal Brazil, the Gold Coast of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Indonesian archipelago still have very high concentrations of terrestrial muk, usually along the coast but sometimes in ponds or rivers.

Shelf muk (O. basisputei) usually live along the seafloor at the edge of the continental shelf. They are the lightest species, but usually spread out to about the area the average domestic muk takes up. Submersible observation suggests that most shelf muk stay unmoving for months at a time. They only appear to move when one of the rare pokémon that preys on gelatinous organisms approaches. They begin to move quite quickly when predators are nearby, rising off of the seafloor and flapping their body in a pattern remarkably similar to a jellyfish. Shelf muk usually attack by sending out jets of highly toxic water or wrapping themselves around an attacker. They can also make sudden movements that send pressure waves through the water, but these are only usually powerful enough to stun an opponent. While shelf muk can go above the surface for very short periods of time, they are extremely reluctant to do so. The difficulty of capturing them and their expensive diet make them uncommon in captivity, but some LifeChem breeding centers and public aquariums keep them.

Abyssal muk (O. challengeri) have been sighted on the abyssal plains of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Like most decomposers, they are most common in equatorial areas where surface primary productivity is rather high. They are seldom seen near the continental shelf, outside the tropics, or in ocean trenches. They also appear to be absent from hydrothermal vent ecosystems.

The abyssal muk is pure white. They are the heaviest, widest, and thinnest species, seldom becoming more than two inches thick. When food falls, they move along the seafloor like a shallow white wave. It is unclear how long muk stay in one place, but captive specimens have gone up to three years without eating before they became agitated. There is video of muk attacking and consuming wimpod and pyukumuku, suggesting that they may be both a scavenger and the apex predator of the seafloor. The abyssal muk appears to be hydrokinetic and able to still the waters ahead of themselves while they move, which keeps prey from being alerted to their presence.

LifeChem used to keep abyssal muk in their breeding centers. This is where almost all of our knowledge of the species comes from. It took months to adjust abyssal muk to surface pressures and they never seemed to fare well in captivity; most died of apparent nutrient deficiency within five years. The abyssal muk breeding program was discontinued in 2008. It is still not known what else they needed in their diet to survive.