Mimics

Mimics are amorphous, shapeshifting beings that can be found sparsely populating the world. They possess the ability take the shape of anything they can mold their mass into, with varying results of convincing imitation.

When not mimicking anything, Mimics can be seen in their default form, appearing as a shadowy, malleable sludge. It is rare for a Mimic to be in their default form on the surface world for long periods of time due to their natural instability causing them to quickly mirror a subject once more. A Mimic always remains in this default form in its home environment.

Origin

Mimics originate from an extreme home environment of crushing nothingness, giving them their epithet of "Living Void."

The Living Void evolved to fill what could be described as the absolute edge of ecological niche, making an existence filter-feeding on whatever scraps unfortunate enough to end up in darkness beyond darkness, in depths beyond depths.

In a similiar philosophy to life at deep-ocean depths, where creatures internally pressurize themselves to be able to counteract the high atmospheric pressure pressing down on them, the Living Void resists the crushing nothingness of its habitat by pushing back against it with intense potential.

As the emptiness begins anew to anhilate it each second, it morphs into something new the next. It simply dodges being destroyed as one thing by becoming something different. To survive non-existence, you must become everything and anything.

Surface Existence

Due to the Living Void's intense specialization to its niche, and the distance between its natural environment and the surface world, Mimics are distinctly non-native to the surface, but can be found across it nonetheless.

Mimics were originally introduced to the surface by portal destination errors by clueless casters, and researching astrologists realizing there was a realm they hadn't tried opening a gate to and couldn't resist the temptation.

Mimics begin to take on their trademark surface-known traits of shapeshifting and distorted resemblance to nearby objects almost immediately after being removed from their home realm via portal. Just as a deep-sea creature decompresses when taken out of the depths, it now pressing out against atmospheric pressure that is no longer there, Living Void's potential has no anhiliation to resist multiple times each minute and manifests as actually spontaneously transforming into things and mostly retaining the shape.

Past this, Mimics are highly diverse and variable, and functionally act more as a category of life than members of a singular species. Mimics imitate a wide variety of subjects, both inanimate and animate.

Mimics also vary in hostility to humans. Despite the commonly feared image of a Mimic disguising itself as an item humans value in order to prey upon them, many mimics stick to their home-realm routine of feeding on dust, dirt, and crumbs. (Rug Mimics are way more common than one would think.)

Mimics can also be highly inconsistent in quality of impostership. Mimics new to the surface world are almost always inexperienced in anything but broad-strokes details. Mimics that have resided for a longer time are almost always finer in their copying, both because of a longer span of time to familiarize with their surroundings, and because low-quality imitations are likely to be found out and slain, and thus selected against over time.

The best Mimics are the ones nobody fears. They make sure of it.

Sapience

Due to the consistent supply of crumbs and opportunity to steal excess food that human activity entails for a Mimic, many scope out a living continually deeper and deeper into the workings of human settlements.

Similar to the fool's errand of a niche they came from, Mimics will sometimes eek into further and further-specialized disguise niches to get a high reward in the form of human presence they can (most times harmlessly) siphon from. This, combined with the reward of more substantial meals that can be snatched (or even willingly provided) from humans allowing for more energy for finer thinking, has on numerous occasions in recent history resulted in fully sapient Mimics.

Despite the parasitic sound of it, sapient Mimics trend highly towards a willingness for cooperation, distinct avoidance of violent approaches to situations, and genuine participation as members of communities. Mimic folk aren't likely to swindle or decive. After all, it would be counterintuitive to their 'ruse' (If you can even call it one at this point.)

Each city has about a 50/50 chance of having at least one Mimic citizen or wanderer within its population, a statistic that'd likely terrify the average non-Mimic inhabitant. Views on sapient Mimics vary across the world, but usually trend clueless of their normalness, since the average Mimic isn't likely to admit their ruse to tell people they're just some local guy.

As of now there are no known centralized populations made of Mimics in majority or entirety, but it's a good guess that if there are, non-Mimics would be the last to know about them. The same thing can be said about the idea of distinct Mimic culture(s).