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]
Drawing from their depiction in Dungeons & Dragons, [7] Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord features slimes as low-level monsters, which in turn inspired their appearance in Dragon Quest . [8] The Dragon Quest slime, designed by Akira Toriyama, [9] 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. [10] Cute slimes feature in games such as Slime Rancher , Stardew Valley , Terraria , Minecraft , and The Legend of Zelda franchise. [11]
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. [12] In Delicious in Dungeon , slime monsters are a core ingredient in several meals eaten throughout the series. [13] Other examples of Japanese media featuring slimes are By the Grace of the Gods [14] and I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level . [15]
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, [16] they sometimes also feature in children's media, such as Puniru Is a Cute Slime. [17]
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." [18]
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 slimes created by nuclear weapons. [19]
Writing for Polygon , Ana Diaz described video game slimes as "loyal punching bags", owing to their role as common low-level enemies. [11]
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. Illithids believe themselves to be the dominant species of the multiverse and use other intelligent creatures as thralls, slaves, and chattel. Illithids are well known for making thralls out of other intelligent creatures, as well as feasting on their brains.
Wizardry is a series of role-playing video games originally created by American publisher Sir-Tech. The series was influential in the evolution of modern role-playing video games alongside Ultima and Might and Magic. The original Wizardry was a significant influence on early console role-playing games such as Shin Megami Tensei, Dragon Slayer, The Shining, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Originally made for the Apple II, the games were later ported to other platforms. The last game in the original series by Sir-Tech was Wizardry 8, released in 2001. There have since been various spin-off titles developed for the Japanese market.
Dragon Quest, previously published as Dragon Warrior in North America until 2005, is a series of role-playing games created by Japanese game designer Yuji Horii, character designer Akira Toriyama, and composer Koichi Sugiyama and published by Square Enix. Since its inception, development of games in the series have been outsourced to a plethora of external companies until the tenth installment, with localized remakes and ports of later installments for the Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, and Nintendo Switch being published by Nintendo outside of Japan. With its first game published in 1986, there are eleven main-series games, along with numerous spin-off games. In addition, there have been numerous manga, anime and novels published under the franchise, with nearly every game in the main series having a related adaptation.
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 Monster Manual is the primary bestiary sourcebook for monsters in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, first published in 1977 by TSR. The Monster Manual was the first hardcover D&D book and includes monsters derived from mythology and folklore, as well as creatures created specifically for D&D. Creature descriptions include game-specific statistics, a brief description of its habits and habitats, and typically an image of the creature. Along with the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide, the Monster Manual is one of the three "core rulebooks" in most editions of the D&D game. As such, new editions of the Monster Manual have been released for each edition of D&D. Due to the level of detail and illustration included in the 1977 release, the book was cited as a pivotal example of a new style of wargame books. Future editions would draw on various sources and act as a compendium of published monsters.
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.
Slime or slimy may refer to:
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.
"Dagon" is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in July 1917 and is one of the first stories that Lovecraft wrote as an adult. It was first published in the November 1919 edition of The Vagrant. Dagon was later published in Weird Tales in October 1923. It is considered by many to be one of Lovecraft's most forward-looking stories.
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 fantasy role-playing game, the undead are a broad classification of monsters that can be encountered by player characters. Undead creatures are most often once-living creatures, which have been animated by spiritual or supernatural forces. They range from mindless remnants of corpses such as skeletons and zombies to highly intelligent creatures like vampires and liches, but in whatever form they take they are typically malevolent and threatening. Like most Dungeons & Dragons monsters, the various kinds of undead creatures are "drawn from classical, medieval, and fictional sources", and have in turn influenced the use of these kinds of monsters in other games.
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 they are often sexualized as a form of monster erotica.
Isekai is a sub-genre of fiction. It includes novels, light novels, films, manga, anime, and video games that revolve around a displaced person or people who are transported to and have to survive in another world such as a fantasy world, game world, or parallel universe with or without the possibility of returning to their original world. Isekai is one of the most popular genres of anime, and isekai stories share many common tropes – for example, a powerful protagonist who is able to beat most people in the other world by fighting. This plot device typically allows the audience to learn about the new world at the same pace as the protagonist over the course of their quest or lifetime. If the main characters are transported to a game-like world, the genre can overlap with LitRPG.
I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level is a Japanese isekai light novel series written by Kisetsu Morita and illustrated by Benio. It was serialized online since 2016 on the user-generated novel publishing website Shōsetsuka ni Narō and, in the following year, it was acquired by SB Creative, who published the first light novel volume in 2017. The light novel has been licensed in North America by Yen Press, who published the first volume in April 2018. It has received a manga adaptation by Yūsuke Shiba in the same year as its debut of the light novel in Square Enix's Gangan Online website, also licensed by Yen Press. An anime television series adaptation by Revoroot aired from April to June 2021. A second season by Teddy is set to premiere in April 2025. The series has also spawned various spin-off novels.
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 October 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 premiered in October 2024.
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