In fiction, slimes, also called oozes, are amorphous creatures composed of gelatinous ooze. In literature and film, slimes typically take the role of horrific monsters, while in video games and anime, they are often depicted as cute low-level enemies.
Slimes as monsters in literature originated with the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. In his novella At the Mountains of Madness , Lovecraft described shoggoths, shapeless beings made of black slime. Lovecraft's writings would go on to influence later Gothic fiction and other aspects of popular culture. [1] : 12–17 [2]
Slimes have appeared as monsters in tabletop games such as Dungeons & Dragons since the first printing in 1974, [3] being partially inspired by horror films such as The Blob . [4] [5] : 193 Slime creatures in Dungeons & Dragons, such as the gelatinous cube, envelop prey before dissolving them in acidic ooze. [6] The Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Spelljammer: Adventures in Space (2022) introduced plasmoids as a playable race, making the "ability to reshape their body to their needs" available to players. [7] [8]
Drawing from their depiction in Dungeons & Dragons, [9] Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord features slimes as low-level monsters, which in turn inspired their appearance in Dragon Quest . [10] The Dragon Quest slime, designed by Akira Toriyama, [11] became a highly popular and recognizable character, and went on to influence slimes in other fantasy video games. Slimes in video games are typically 'cute' characters, sometimes appearing not only as common enemies but also as allies or pets. [12] Cute slimes feature in games such as Slime Rancher , Stardew Valley , Terraria , Minecraft , and The Legend of Zelda franchise. [13]
In the 2013 light novel series That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime , the protagonist is reincarnated in a fantasy isekai world as a small blue slime inspired by the slime from Dragon Quest. This series created a trend of anime featuring cute slimes. [14] In Delicious in Dungeon , slime monsters are a core ingredient in several meals eaten throughout the series. [15] Other examples of Japanese media featuring slimes are By the Grace of the Gods [16] and I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level . [17]
A subcategory of slime creatures are slime girls, which are slimes that take a feminine humanoid appearance rather than an amorphous form. These monsters have appeared in media such as Monster Girl Encyclopedia, Monster Girl Quest, and Monster Musume . While slime girls frequently appear in hentai, [18] they sometimes also feature in children's media, such as Puniru Is a Cute Slime. [19]
According to Steven Shaviro, slime creatures in fiction often take the form of either a unicellular organism or a superorganism, "both of which cannot grasp its complex nature." Additionally, slimes lack the differentiation of organs and tissues that are characteristic of multicellular life. In this difference, slimes are "a collective without individuals, without any specialized parts, and without any sort of articulated (or hierarchical) structure." Marijeta Bradić writes that the motif of slimes in fiction "serves as a tool for questioning the idea of human exceptionalism." [20]
Slime has had symbolic meaning in fiction. In science fiction, slime is often "a metaphor for the intangible or unthinkable", according to designer Steven Heller. [2] Historically, some male writers, including Lovecraft, associated slime with femininity, characterizing women as disgustingly different from men. An example of this symbolism is in Lovecraft's short story "Dagon", which features a monster made of ooze and shares a name with Dagon, a Mesopotamian deity sometimes depicted as a hybrid of a fish and a woman. [1] : 23–25 American journalist Daniel Engber considered slimes in cinema of the 1980s, such as Slimer and the ectoplasm in Ghostbusters , to be emblematic of cultural fears during the Cold War of nuclear radiation and radioactive material created by nuclear weapons. [21]
Writing for Polygon , Ana Diaz described video game slimes as "loyal punching bags", owing to their role as common low-level enemies. [13]
Spelljammer is a campaign setting originally published for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, which features a fantastic outer space environment. Subsequent editions have included Spelljammer content; a Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition setting update was released on August 16, 2022.
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, illithids are monstrous humanoid aberrations with psionic powers. In a typical Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting, they live in the moist caverns and cities of the enormous Underdark.
A gelatinous cube is a fictional monster from the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It is described as a ten-foot cube of transparent gelatinous ooze, which is able to absorb and digest organic matter.
The beholder is a fictional monster in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It is depicted as a floating orb of flesh with a large mouth, single central eye, and many smaller eyestalks on top with powerful magical abilities.
The Monstrous Compendium is a series of accessories for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game released from 1989 to 1998. The title was then used for a series of 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons supplements released on D&D Beyond.
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is a 1980 adventure module for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game written by Gary Gygax. While Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is typically a fantasy game, the adventure includes elements of science fiction, and thus belongs to the science fantasy genre. It takes place on a downed spaceship; the ship's crew has died of an unspecified disease, but functioning robots and strange creatures still inhabit the ship. The player characters fight monsters and robots, and gather the futuristic weapons and colored access cards that are necessary for advancing the story.
An owlbear is a fictional creature originally created for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. An owlbear is depicted as a cross between a bear and an owl, which "hugs" like a bear and attacks with its beak. Inspired by a plastic toy made in Hong Kong, Gary Gygax created the owlbear and introduced the creature to the game in the 1975 Greyhawk supplement; the creature has since appeared in every subsequent edition of the game. Owlbears, or similar beasts, also appear in several other fantasy role-playing games, video games and other media.
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the mimic is a type of fictional monster. It is portrayed as being able to change its shape to disguise its body as an inanimate object, commonly a chest. The mimic uses a powerful adhesive that holds fast to creatures that touch it, allowing the mimic to beat its victims with its powerful pseudopods. The mimic was introduced in the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game's original Monster Manual. The mimic has appeared in subsequent editions. Several variants of the creature have been introduced, with a variety of abilities and sizes.
Lovecraftian horror, also called cosmic horror or eldritch horror, is a subgenre of horror, fantasy fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). His work emphasizes themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries, which are now associated with Lovecraftian horror as a subgenre. The cosmic themes of Lovecraftian horror can also be found in other media, notably horror films, horror games, and comics.
Slimes are a fictional species of slime monster in the Dragon Quest role-playing video game franchise. Originally inspired by the game Wizardry to be a weak and common enemy for the 1986 video game Dragon Quest, Slimes have appeared in almost every Dragon Quest game since. Their popularity led to the appearance of many varieties of Slimes, including boss characters, friendly allies, and even emerging as the protagonist of their own spinoff series. Slimes have also appeared in other video game properties, including Nintendo's Mario and Super Smash Bros. series of crossover fighting games.
In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, orcs are a primitive race of savage, bestial, barbaric humanoid.
The lich is an undead creature found in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. Liches are spellcasters who seek to defy death by magical means.
The role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), which receives significant attention in the media and in popular culture, has been the subject of numerous controversies. The game sometimes received unfavorable coverage, especially during its early years in the early 1980s. Because the term D&D may be mistakenly used to refer to all types of role-playing games, some controversies regarding D&D mistakenly pertain to role-playing games in general, or to the literary genre of fantasy. Some controversies concern the game and its alleged impact on those who play it, while others concern business issues at the game's original publisher, TSR. The game is now owned by Wizards of the Coast.
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the term monster refers to a variety of creatures, some adapted from folklore and legends and others invented specifically for the game. Included are traditional monsters such as dragons, supernatural creatures such as ghosts, and mundane or fantastic animals. A defining feature of the game is that monsters are typically obstacles that players must overcome to progress through the game. Beginning with the first edition in 1974, a catalog of game monsters (bestiary) was included along with other game manuals, first called Monsters & Treasure and now called the Monster Manual. As an essential part of Dungeons & Dragons, many of its monsters have become iconic and recognizable even outside D&D, becoming influential in video games, fiction, and popular culture.
A monster girl is a fictional trope of a girl or young woman who is or shares visual traits with a monster. The trope is historically used strictly negatively and antagonistically as a representation of an ugly, cruel, or deceitful woman; such incarnations often have the woman hide her monstrous traits to deceive others. More recent works of media often depict monster girls neutrally, as merely another race of people, or positively, with their monstrous traits being a type of superpower they use to help others. Monster girls also feature prominently in anime and manga, in which their depiction ranges between humanization and body positivity as a form of female empowerment, to sexualized objectification as a form of monster erotica. Monstrous women and girls in popular culture to become representatives of women who not only deviate from the norm, but stand out.
Spelljammer: Adventures in Space is a boxed set for the 5th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. The boxed set includes three sourcebooks: the Astral Adventurer's Guide, the Light of Xaryxis, and Boo's Astral Menagerie. It was published by Wizards of the Coast and released on August 16, 2022.
Puniru Is a Cute Slime is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Maeda-kun. Preceded by a one-shot published in Shogakukan's children's manga magazine Bessatsu CoroCoro Comic in February 2019, the manga started its serialization in Weekly CoroCoro Comic online service in March 2022. Shogakukan has collected its chapters in six tankōbon volumes as of September 2024. The series focuses on the titular character Puniru, a slime girl created by a boy named Kotaro Kawaii during his childhood and wants him to notice her for her cuteness despite him being in love with his junior high school senior. An anime television series adaptation produced by Toho Animation Studio aired from October to December 2024. A second season has been announced.