Uncle Beholder explains to Boxxy T. Morningwood how he could've gotten all the shinies without dying. "Huck!"
Or, an exercise in unmitigated pedantry.
Table of Contents
Everybody loves Boxxy
Neven Iliev's "Everybody Loves Large Chests" is excellent if one enjoys litRPG from a monstrous and demonic point of view, which unsurprisingly involves nonstop atrocities such as murder and occasional rape.
The protagonist is Boxxy T. Morningwood, a shapeshifting chest Mimic with dextrous tentacles. Despite the heavy subject matter, it is basically a comedy about an infantile asexual box and its emotionally broken pseudo-harem. One cannot help but root for the monster as it beats long odds in its absolutely single-minded pursuit of all that is tasty and shiny.
There are some spoilers here through book 3, in terms of characters and their abilities. The mention of "dying" in the title is not some grand spoiler, it's just an expression for danger. (Or is it?) Certainly Boxxy endures a great deal of pain and suffering that could've been avoided with a bit of common-sense. This leads to frequent and emphatic cursing, which the lipless Mimic pronounces "Huck!"
I will write Boxxy's gender as male, since he becomes a Doppelganger. All Doppelgangers are technically male.
Mimic skirmisher
Intro
While Neven is great at writing characters, his knowledge of medieval weapons seems average. This explains the absence of poleaxes and slings, in a fantasy world with plate armor and no firearms. This is a common failing in fantasy writing. Swords and bows are elegant and flashy; slings and poleaxes are drab and brutal. See lightsaber vs shotgun.
Chest Mimics are usually depicted as mindless beasts who fight unarmed. Neven's concept of an intelligent mimic who fights with weapons is intriguing. Therefore, this section will examine how a chest Mimic with an internal bag of holding should fight.
Bored of the sword
Neven writes Boxxy as a tentacle swordsman and dagger backstabber. This makes no sense:
One-handed blades are side-arms not intended for the battlefield, except when paired with a shield.
Tentacles are boneless limbs designed to explore underwater nooks and grapple prey towards a central mouth.
Tentacles lack the arm bones necessary to wield a sword effectively. The bones leverage the nearby torso to impart force.
A Mimic's optimal physical combat role is skirmisher. Its Storage carries plenty of projectile ammunition. The Mimic skirmisher covers its naked body with a large shield and moves evasively on spider legs.
At long range, it outranges bows with a staff sling and arbalest.
At medium range, it hurls throwing weapons such as pilums, grenades, caltrops, etc.
At close range, it entangles with nets, lassos, bolas, whips etc to grapple and bite.
Setting up the bite
A chest Mimic's hunting strategy is to wait until its opponent is in melee range, then ambush with a grappling bite. This works on a single unwary foe, but not in open combat.
A Mimic is an ambush predator with a devastating bite. Why should it wield a melee weapon capable of doing massive damage, when its teeth already perform that role? All it needs is a helpless enemy.
In open melee, foes can be rendered helpless with nets and other entangling devices such as whips, lassos and bolas. These can be held by pseudo-tentacles, which are already designed for grappling prey towards the mouth.
Spider slinger
An intelligent Mimic need not risk melee combat at all. The logical weapon for the shapeshifter is a staff sling AKA fustibalus. This keeps the limbs safe near the main body, and lets the Mimic put its "hips" into the bullet's release. The Mimic can probably wield two fustibali at once, alternating releases for a high sustained rate of fire. It can probably form these fustibali from its own flesh and bone, for better accuracy. Doing so is less complicated that walking on shapeshifted spider legs, or swordfighting.
The fustibalus (or staff sling) is a siege weapon that outranges the bow. Fustibali are easily constructed, and ammo is abundant. A warrior who attempts to block the rain of rocks with its shield is likely to run out of stamina, assuming his arm and shield don't break first.
Its internal bag of holding provides unlimited ammo. Thus the Mimic can skitter backwards on spider legs, firing with impunity from walls and ceiling at maximum range.
Boxxy can add further firepower with an arbalest (siege crossbow) inside his mouth, where it can be quickly winched and loaded with poisoned bolts from Storage. A sufficiently powerful crossbow bolt will penetrate both shield and plate armor.
Fighting retreat
Faced with heavy ranged fire, the foe will likely charge. At midrange, Boxxy's Warlock job does devastating burst damage and offers crowd control options as well.
As Boxxy retreats, he can lay caltrops and trip with nets, lassos, bolas and whips, leaving the foe prone and vulnerable to a bite on the neck. Caltrops favor the Mimic's mana vision sphere and spider legs. They can be crafted easily from scrap.
Blindfighter
The foe may retreat around a corner, attempting to fight in an enclosed space to negate Boxxy's ranged advantage.
“Honoka, that’s a Ranked Up Mimic in there. It has command over one of the most advanced Mana Locator Glands in existence, second only to a beholder’s.
The MLG organ provides a sphere of perfect mana vision. Since Boxxy does not require ocular vision in melee, he can blind everyone. The True Darkness Warlock spell conveniently creates a globe of darkness.
People tend to open their eyes wide when it suddenly gets dark. That's a great time to put smoke, gas, fire, dust, acid, sand, shit, etc into their eyes. Boxxy can store a personal air supply in his Storage, so why let anyone else breathe?
Grapple with whips
The Mimic's best melee weapon is probably the whip. Tentacles are already basically whips, so the motions will be natural. Each tentacle can wield a short whip designed to flay and grapple a foe, disarming weapons and pulling him into a bite.
Spider tank
A shapeshifting chest Mimic with an internal bag of holding is a terrifying skirmisher projecting infinite ammunition with incredible force from a mobile platform. Basically it's a spider tank.
I hope this analysis will inspire fantasy authors to write more slinger builds.
Party composition
Familiar sequence
The sequence in which Boxxy contracts his familiars is crucial. Unsurprisingly, the moronic box flubs it. Here's the correct order.
There are five types of demonic familiar available, initially:
Beholder (intellect, secrets)
Fiend (wrath, butch)
Hellhound (canine)
Stalker (fear, insectoid or feline)
Succubus (lust, female)
Beholder first
The missing mentor
The largest mistake Boxxy made was his choice of first familiar. At the time, Boxxy was an infantile illiterate box with nothing but his monstrous appetites and instincts to guide him. He asked for something sneaky with a large chest and got a Succubus. Carl the Contract Devil was enjoying a bit of creative misinterpretation, there. Boxxy probably meant something like a Stalker.
Neither was the correct choice. A Beholder is a floating lump of eyes, secrets and magic with no physical prowess whatsoever. Thus it is the perfect complement for an infantile Mimic with retard strength.
Mimics and Beholders share not only a common demonic origin but also a shared outlook in the Mana Locator Gland. This explains the Beholder's avuncular delight when Boxxy first encounters one in Bootlick. By contrast, Xera the Succubus is disgusted to be contracted to an asexual moronic box.
A loyal Beholder would've quickly guided Boxxy away from Monotal to level safely in Erosa, skipping the Calamity and thereby avoiding the attention of Spymaster Edward. A wise Beholder would also not endanger his master's life with foolish and incompetent antics, the way Xera and Kora commonly do. In fact, the Beholder would be essential in effectively managing the rest of the party. Baby boxes are not leadership material, no matter how endearing and persistent.
Most importantly, the Beholder would provide an easy and deniable way for the God of Chaos to use Boxxy as his pawn to topple Teresa, the bitchy Goddess of Justice. Intelligent leadership would allow Chaos to achieve its goal with much less danger to Boxxy.
How would this subtle influence be exerted? Well, demonic familiars can telephone the Beyond while summoned. So the Beholder could confer with his well-informed colleagues to develop a geopolitical strategy for the restoration of the Doppelganger kingdom. A Doppelganger kingdom would create many more monstrous Warlocks to summon bored Beholders.
Well, eventually that could happen, once the Boxxy show gets popular. In the early stages, one Beholder's common sense would be enough to steer the moron clear of trouble.
Neven's Beholder lore
According to the lore contained in the Summon Familiar and Demonology Skills, Beholders were demons whose main purpose was not combat, but information gathering through observation. They loved hoarding secrets and knowledge for themselves, and made sure to avoid sharing what they knew as much as possible. That didn’t mean they couldn’t fight, however. Although their offensive capabilities were lacking, the various types of eye beams they could fire were capable of weakening, staggering or outright crippling their target. They could also erect magical barriers in order to protect their master and allies, although they probably had to be specifically ordered to do so as demons were quite fickle creatures.
Those eye-demons were quite popular among Warlocks that dabbled in the demonic arts, as they eliminated many of their masters’ weak spots.
…though neither as potent as succubi nor as versatile as beholders.
The first priority when operating alone in total ignorance is proper scouting. Whereas Boxxy's mind is unable to handle the input from multiple eyes for 360 degree vision, a Beholder does this naturally. Therefore Boxxy should contract the Beholder first to literally watch his back.
Beholders and Mimics share a common outlook in the Mana Locator Gland, in addition to their common demonic heritage. This helps to overcome the hurdle of Boxxy's initial idiotic personality.
Beholders are good at blocking magic and spotting threats, which would've helped Boxxy avoid some of his near death experiences. Boxxy's bane is lightning, and ice magic impedes his shapeshifting. A Beholder's screens can block both.
The road to Erosa
Boxxy only remembered to Summon his Familiar after killing a Janther and most of the party of adventurers fighting it. Unfortunately the rogue of the party survives and flees back to town, reporting that the Litigar Dungeon sweeper is a terrifying chest Mimic. The town immediately began preparing a raiding party to put the sweeper down.
Had Boxxy summoned a Beholder, it would have recognized the threat and advised Boxxy to leave the area immediately. The logical destination would be Erosa, where Boxxy can get paid for killing monsters by doing Mercenary Guild quests. The Monotal militia would assume that the sweeper ran off or got killed. Nobody else would care about a sweeper from a low-mana region, since it would be low-level.
The Calamity of Monotal would not happen, since Boxxy would not have a Fiend to dislodge the Dungeon Core and push it out of the Dungeon while fighting off waves of monsters. Thus Erosa's security would remain low, and Spymaster Edward would not be in town. The area around Erosa would provide suitably-leveled hunting grounds for Boxxy.
Trapdoor artillery
In transit to Erosa, the Beholder would teach Boxxy how a chest Mimic should hunt in the wilderness. A Mimic should be nocturnal, since he has both night vision eyes and an MLG. Therefore, during the day he should burrow like a trapdoor spider. He can leave some blood out as bait.
At night, Boxxy functions as silent artillery. His main attack, the fustibalus, is a siege weapon that even historical humans could fire 1/3 of a mile. He wouldn't need line of sight with the Beholder spotting.
Good luck dodging bullets by moonlight while a Beholder debuffs and dazzles. Even if Boxxy's accuracy is poor at first, the harassing fire is a good way to exhaust prey that lacks a ranged attack before closing for the kill.
A Beholder would probably find orchestrating such ballistic mayhem highly entertaining. 3D Tank Wars is a lot better than floating around bored in the Beyond.
Succubus next
The next familiar Boxxy contracts must be a Succubus, so that he can obtain Warlock Job training. Otherwise he cannot contract more familiars due to the Level 25 Warlock Job cap.
While difficult, obtaining Job training is doable even without the Essence Concealment perk Boxxy gains from Hero of Chaos.
The main lynchpin of its infiltration operation, the sole thing that allowed it to integrate so fully into elven society, was now gone. People trusted Appraisals to an almost outlandish degree. Why wouldn’t they? It was a reliable magic that revealed one’s true colors, so being able to subvert that was pretty much a free pass to do whatever the hell it pleased, within reason of course. As expected of a Skill granted by the Gods, having Essence Concealment truly felt like cheating.
Xera helped Boxxy obtain Artificer training by hypnotizing Fizzy in Erosa. Unfortunately, Warlocks are wary of Succubus wiles and have high Mental attribute to resist hypnosis. Luckily, Warlocks are also unscrupulous and open to bribery or blackmail.
If the Assessment can't by skipped, it can be faked. Xera defeated an Assessment check in Monotal by hypnotizing an official in his private office. While the Warlock trainer in Bootlick doubled as Appraisal Scribe, most do not.
It might take Xera awhile, but the ancient shapeshifter would eventually find a way to falsify or skip Appraisal and obtain Warlock training for Boxxy.
Boxxy should still minimize his time in town while he is a chest Mimic, due to his poor acting skills and suspicious Sandman appearance. Lacking the Butcher of Humanity perk certainly helps. There is no need for him to go into town, since Xera can do those errands for him.
In Monotal she posed as a Pyromancer to join the hunt for Boxxy. A Pyromancer witch questing solo would raise eyebrows, since it looks risky. Instead, she should pretend to have a Warlock job in addition to Pyromancer. Warlocks are more solitary, and the Beholder would explain how she is able to quest solo without being surprised or overwhelmed. Her rapid rate of quest clearance should earn her gratitude, which she can use to deflect suspicion.
Once Boxxy has the Transfamiliar spell and ranks up into a Doppelganger, he can take turns with Xera pretending to be the same woman, for even better infiltration.
Then Stalker
A Stalker demon is a stealthy insectoid or feline assassin. Having a dedicated scout on patrol greatly reduces the risk of Boxxy being surprised and overwhelmed. Stalker benefits:
A hunter to feed his voracious appetite and supply biomass to Rank Up.
A stealther who can stay undetected so no one realizes the Monotal Dungeon sweeper has moved to Erosa.
An assassin to eliminate witnesses and investigators.
A scout to patrol beyond the Beholder's vision.
A direct counter to Boxxy's lightning bane and vulnerability to cold magic.
Neven's anti-magic Stalker Drea works fine for these purposes. Her silk would also make good armor for Boxxy's combat form, although he doesn't wear any in the book. Boxxy should weave different shapes suitable for standard anatomical shapes such as treasure chest, spider leg and tentacle, then loosely fasten them on with flesh buttons through pre-punched holes. The strength of silk would help prevent him from losing biomass due to severing blows.
Hellhound fourth
This choice may surprise you. Why a Hellhound instead of a Fiend? A Hellhound is an all-rounder whose capabilities seem redundant with existing party members. By contrast, a Fiend is a dedicated tank, or at least a melee specialist. Shouldn't every Warlock want a meatshield?
Yes, Enlightened Warlocks want meatshields because they are slow squishy bipeds. But Boxxy is a beefy speedy shapeshifter. A Fiend will just slow him down. As a flightless biped, Kora is the slowest member of Boxxy's party.
(Enlightened species include elves, humans, dwarves, gnomes, beastkin, etc. Monsters are the opposite — selfish, primal and destructive. Neven's worldbuilding sharply divides the two, although individuals may vary.)
Admittedly, Hellhounds are far less useful than Fiends on the battlefield. However, Boxxy should avoid battlefields like the plague, since they attract Rankers who repeatedly almost kill him. The existence of a battlefield means that there are fewer guards elsewhere, so elsewhere is where Boxxy should be! War means monster populations grow unchecked, which is good hunting for mercenary loners.
If Boxxy were primarily clearing Dungeons or fighting in underground tunnels, then a Fiend would be better. Fiends are a more stationary combatant, capable of holding their ground.
However, Boxxy cannot gain nutrition from Dungeon monsters. Dungeons are designed to challenge Enlightened races. Boxxy's comparative advantage is hunting monsters. Being a monster himself, with a demonic party, he is comfortable in the wilderness. Dungeons attract adventurers, who threaten Boxxy's safety. The wilderness has fewer Enlightened, and it is easier to see them coming, as they fight through the local monsters.
A Fiend is inherently distinctive, fighting with idiosyncratic weapons and a memorable humanoid configuration. Hellhounds are much less distinguishable. They're speechless, quick-moving blurs, low to the ground, difficult for untrained witnesses to observe in detail. Thus it is much harder to identify a Warlock by his Hellhound than by his Fiend.
All of Boxxy's party members are highly mobile. So why should they stand still to fight? They don't care about defending anything; they're monsters.
Hellhounds are designed to hound prey. It is very dangerous to run from a canine, because they will bite the vulnerable tendons on the back of the leg.
When the foe stands still, Boxxy dials in his fustibalus fire. When the foe moves, the Hellhound and Drea harry it from above and below. Whether it moves towards Boxxy or away, it's screwed. The best it can do is hide in a cave, where Xera can roast it.
Once Boxxy closes in, he can continue firing over the Hellhound's head. Even Xera's pyromancy will affect the Hellhound less, due to its fire resistance and mobility.
The Hellhound also helps Boxxy flee. Canines are pack animals who distract a large foes from focusing on any one member. Whenever Boxxy encounters a monster in the wilderness that is too strong, the Hellhound harries it, Drea webs it, and the Beholder weakens it, until the whole party (hopefully) escapes intact.
Resummoning Kora in the battle of the five Hylt sisters took half of Boxxy's mana, so the priority is on using demons who won't die due to low mobility or unwillingness to disengage. This is the skirmisher style of warfare. Boxxy is fundamentally a skirmisher, if mobile artillery can be called that.
Shield Fiend fifth
Last is the Fiend. Kora is still not a suitable candidate, regrettably. Her memorable four-armed torso is responsible for a substantial percentage of Boxxy's near-death experiences. Her punches lack range and power relative to polearms, yet leave her defenseless.
Kora is good at breaking things, but the party already has enough firepower. What Boxxy still needs is a shieldbearer and tank.
Boxxy should contract a Fiend with the following characteristics:
Male to be more rational. Kora's extra Berserker fierceness is superfluous, with Boxxy supplying sustained fustibalus damage.
Small to pass as Enlightened when armored.
Inherent large shield and gladius.
Fast to keep up.
Defender, not berserker.
I'll call my Fiend Kurt the legionary. Just remember Kora < Kurt.
Although Boxxy does not equip Kora, he should certainly equip Kurt in quality armor. Boxxy is rich, and items in his Storage weigh nothing, whereas resummoning a demon costs half his MP.
Kurt stays with Boxxy as shieldbearer and bodyguard while the others range ahead, allowing Boxxy to focus on launching projectiles. Once Boxxy closes in, Kurt charges.
Wearing full plate with a large shield is excessive when fighting alone, and a gladius lacks armor penetration. However, Kurt is a dedicated tank. Others will open holes in the foe's armor, which the gladius can exploit with minimal exposure. The team lacks a dedicated healer, so HP conservation is key.
As to whether such a Fiend exists, presumably all the legionaries who died on campaign from gut wounds and dysentery have spawned a demon or two. They are accustomed to long marches and artillery fire preceding the charge. Boxxy's methods will make sense to them.
Fiends are the most aggressive demons and should therefore be contracted last, when Boxxy is ready for open confrontation with Enlightened foes. Having a dedicated tank in the party will be crucial for countering Enlightened Rankers, who can't be permitted breathing room to use their overpowered Ultimates.
Conclusion
Boxxy's greatest advantage is the unprecedented loyalty of his contracted demons. With a proper party composition, he can level rapidly and remain undetected until it is too late.
Gnomish Golem Champion
Coincidental acquisition
Boxxy only acquired Fizzy as a gnomish golem paladin Champion of Chaos sworn to his service because he inadvertently nuked Monotal and then was captured by Spymaster Edward.
Fizzy is an overpowered ally. Therefore, one could argue that choosing a Beholder as Boxxy's first familiar would hurt Boxxy's long-term potential.
This ignores two things:
Boxxy probably dies to Spymaster Edward's hunt after the Calamity of Monotal, and decisions must be weighed probabilistically, not ex post facto.
Boxxy's capture and promotion to Hero of Chaos were merely part of a pre-existing proxy conflict between Chaos and Theresa.
Boxxy would've been the logical choice for Hero of Chaos even if he didn't nuke Monotal, due to his demonic heritage and familiars, who tie him closely to the Beyond, Chaos' domain. Fizzy was merely selected as the Champion of Chaos because she was there. Another person would've served just as well, or at least that's what the God of Chaos told her. Actually, it likely would've wound up being Fizzy anyway.
After all, Fizzy was one of the few Erosa Trainers available to Boxxy for a Job highly useful to a grenadier: Artificer. As an isolated gnome without a guild, she did not require Boxxy to pass any Appraisal checks. Like the Mercenary Guild dwarf, she did not discriminate against his appearance.
Moreover, although this is not mentioned in the book, Arclight Artificers undoubtedly know how to insulate themselves against their own lighting, which is a simple matter of weaving grounding wires into one's clothing. So Boxxy could defend against his Lightning bane by taking that Job.
When Boxxy left Erosa, would he leave Fizzy behind? Someone who knew him too well, and might let something slip to investigators later? She is small and easily abductable. Her family would still have died in the bandit ambush on the highway. Nobody would miss her much.
There would be no ruthless abuse, since she did not betray Boxxy. More like a willing camp follower. Xera could watch her dreams for signs of betrayal. They would journey together to Horkensaft, a more hospitable civilization. In time Fizzy could be trusted to represent Boxxy's interests in town, alongside Xera.
Would Fizzy still become the Rustblood Juggernaut by donning the Jade King's cursed gauntlet? Probably, yeah. Chaos manipulated that outcome to over 90% probability in the book. The Jade King's Dungeon is on the way from Erosa to the Ishigar Republic. That is the logical place for Boxxy to go after he levels enough to travel safely. Ishigar is more tolerant, and it's on the way to Horkensaft. Traveling overland and avoiding roads is safest for Boxxy; otherwise he risks encountering observant VIPs such as Shinji Arakawa's carriage in the book.
It would likely happen because Chaos likes transformation and wanted to embarrass Goroth for making a cheesable boss fight. Also, Boxxy killing that perverted necromancer twice would be funny.
Fizzy is still unsuited to travel in the company of Boxxy, and wishes to leave her grief behind. The best way to fix that is to become a golem.
Fizzy the famous
As the Rustblood Juggernaut, Fizzy is mentally capable of navigating civilization, but her golem status encounters prejudice in some civilizations. She performs best among the gnomes and dwarves of Horkensaft, and therefore should return there.
Fizzy is an ideal face for the operation. She is a divine champion, artificer, ex-gnome and living work of art, making her charismatic in Horkensaft. She should accept quests for the party and claim credit for their completion. This will rapidly attract powerful patronage and protection. The party can align with Horkensaft and expand its interests to mutual profit, focusing on the surrounding monsters, to avoid provoking a coordinated Enlightened counterattack.
Allies of Horkensaft
Fizzy will naturally ally with the Horkensaft government. Boxxy can use this to obtain discreet assistance for his needs such as Job training. Horkensaft is the correct place for Doppelganger Boxxy to openly portray himself as Fizzy's reclusive Warlock ally.
Boxxy can present himself in Horkensaft as a lazy rich elf Warlock/Artificer named Chester Shadowspring who lets Fizzy do the fighting with Kurt tanking. Fizzy and Chester bonded over a shared interest in artificing, so they traveled together to the Horkensaft kingdom. Chester mostly stays in his workshop, but he does amazingly good work for an elf.
Horkensaft should not know that "Chester" has a succubus, so that Xera can play Chester if necessary. Thus Boxxy can loot distant cities and Transfamiliar back to deposit it into his Horkensaft bank, while Xera ensures Lodrak gets blamed for it.
Hidden hand
Overview
I propose a strategy by which Boxxy can use his new Doppelganger race to destroy the Lodrak Empire and rule a rump state from the shadows.
Boxxy and Xera leave Lodrak and do false flags implicating Lodrak, inciting world war.
Fizzy gains fame in Horkensaft. Boxxy invests in its arms industry.
Spymaster Edward is executed for war crimes. Conquered Lodrak is divided; nobody wants Monotal region. Boxxy takes it.
Doppelganger changelings mature after 11 years in chaotic conquered Lodrak.
Doppelganger sailors crew gnomish navy to dominate navigable coasts of Oculus Sea.
Ishigar and Sovereign States Alliance are too war-weary to challenge Horkensaft-Doppelganger alliance.
Boxxy rules Lodrak rump state from the shadows. Gnomish lightning-scribe inquisitors police his spawn with threat of bloodline extermination, like vampire clans.
I do not expect a rotten slut and a baby box to develop Question-tier geopolitical strategy, but it amuses me to ponder what they should have done, if only to underline the comedy of errors.
Why Doppelganger
I always examine evolution choices in litRPG, since they are strategically crucial and therefore interesting.
At rank up, Boxxy's three choices were Slime Queen (Shadow or Metallic) and Doppelganger.
Doppelganger was the correct choice, despite Boxxy repeatedly nearly dying due to clumsy infiltration of Enlightened society.
My strategy avoids these risks. It is based on Neven's worldbuilding. Quoting from Royal Road:
Of course, the immature monster had no way of knowing that Queen Slimes were considered a species superior to Doppelgangers. In reality, a Queen Slime’s amorphous body was actually composed of nearly a hundred smaller slimes that had melded and gelled together. It was essentially a self-contained hivemind that had enormous growth potential when it came to its intelligence and learning capacity.
Their shapeshifting abilities were not particularly lacking, either. Not only could they compress and shrink down their amorphous body in a manner similar to Doppelgangers, but lacking a base form meant that a Queen Slime’s transformations were truly limitless. Most interesting of all was a Queen Slime’s unique ability to divide its own body into multiple sentient blobs. After all, they had hundreds of slime nuclei floating inside their bodies, so something like splitting up into multiple copies of themselves was child’s play.
Granted, each one would possess only a fraction of the original’s Attributes, but doing this dramatically increased the monster’s survival rate. Not only was fighting a group much more challenging than attacking an individual, but a Queen Slime only needed about 20 or so slime cores to escape from a fight in order to survive. Although losing a large chunk of its nuclei would temporarily reduce the creature’s overall Attributes and cause severe memory problems, it was still preferable to being completely destroyed.
However, while a Queen Slime’s shapeshifting ability could not be called inferior to a Doppelganger’s, it would be hard to call it superior. It was rather the situation where both species were specialized towards different types of shapeshifting. Putting it roughly, it was like comparing a Blacksmith who mass-produced standard quality swords to one that would pour months into honing and refining a single blade. It would be impossible to say which approach was the better one, as they served completely different purposes.
But, at the very least, Doppelgangers would be far superior to Queen Slimes when it came to blending in with their surroundings. In fact, these monsters used to be extremely widespread in civilized society in the past, to the point where if one gathered a group of 20 random people in a room, at least 1 or 2 of them would be a Doppelganger. They were completely indistinguishable from those they were imitating, as body structure, skin tone, internal organs, language and mannerisms were all perfectly mimicked.
However, such things were ultimately put to an end several hundred years ago when the Doppelgangers that controlled society from the shadows failed to stop the spread and usage of Appraisal. This magical analysis would be able to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt whether a person was actually who they claimed to be. Once word got out that shapeshifting monsters were among them, the enlightened races quickly took measures to weed them out.
The cunning shapeshifters would not go out quietly, however. The Doppelganger communities started aggressively eliminating and replacing key figures. They often posed as Scribes and tried to falsify Appraisal results through any means necessary. After all, a Scribe could only give second hand accounts for what they saw through Appraisal, so if a Doppelganger said that one of its kin was not a monster, the other people had little choice but to accept it. Of course, they could not maintain this guise for long as they didn’t actually have the Scribe Job, but it was still enough to let their compatriots escape or assume new identities. This constant back-and-forth between the secretive shapeshifters and the authorities had created a period of confusion and distrust that histories now refer to as the Silent Rebellion.
This Silent Rebellion lasted for nearly a decade before it ended rather abruptly when news of the Doppelgangers’ Bane had come to light.
All monsters, without exception, possessed a weakness towards a specific substance or element, known as their Bane. Being subjected to their Bane would not only cause severe damage to a monster, but also inflict some kind of debilitating condition. In the case of the undead, holy magic would purify their rotting bodies, greatly weakening them if not outright destroying them. Enlightened races such as dwarves, elves and humans, on the other hand, did not posses such a glaring weakness. Grasping and exploiting a monster’s Bane was their way of gaining the upper hand against a normally stronger and more dangerous opponent, but they themselves were exempt from such things.
The Bane of Doppelgangers, and indeed all shapeshifters, was being hit by any and all forms of electricity. Being struck by a lightning Spell, for example, would cause their nervous system to go haywire, rendering them completely paralyzed for a few seconds and forcing them to revert back into their base form. This was something Boxxy had already experienced firsthand back in Erosa, and the one thing that ultimately led to the downfall of the Doppelgangers. No matter how they lie, cheat and betray, getting zapped would instantly reveal their true nature to everyone around them.
Once this fact became widely known, Scribes started subjecting themselves to minor electrical shocks, usually produced through a magic item. This allowed them to unquestionably prove themselves as the real deal, which meant their Appraisals could be trusted on the matter of weeding out the Doppelgangers. It was thus that an effective yet simple set of anti-shapeshifter measures had been established.
First, all government-sanctioned officials had to subject themselves to mild electrocutions twice a year while under the watchful eye of at least 20 armed guards. Once the Scribes were proven to not be compromised, they began inspecting and Appraising the entire population, one household at a time. Granted, this was a long and arduous process and it was believed many of the monsters were able to slip away, but it proved to be sufficient.
The Lodrak Empire, for example, saw a massive drop in murders, theft, banditry and missing person reports in as little as a year since implementing these measures. Of course, there was the rather touchy subject of how Doppelgangers reproduced. No mother wanted to find out the child they had been raising for years was actually a monster, and that their real son or daughter had disappeared without anyone realizing it. Then there was the implication that they had copulated with a shapeshifter, often without realizing it. Add onto that the directive that any confirmed Doppelgangers had to be put down on the spot, and a recipe for tragedy unlike no other had been born. There were more than a few incidents where distraught and confused mothers refused to accept reality and attempted to protect and safeguard these things. They still saw them as ‘their children,’ despite the cold hard logic that stated their actual offspring was long gone. Some of them even went as far as to escape society and attempt to live away from others like hermits, all for the sake of raising their broken family in peace.
Needless to say, none of these women were ever heard from again, as the ones they were foolishly trying to safeguard had, in all likelihood, murdered them once they were strong enough. To a Doppelganger, their parent was nothing more than a cover, so once that was blown, they quickly turned on them. It was a gruesome, cruel fate, but such things often befalled those who succumbed to foolishness.
In the grand scheme of things, the Silent Rebellion had ultimately been completely crushed. Not only were active Doppelgangers hunted down, but they also lost their ability to reproduce in peace. This was why they were now largely considered to be on the brink of extinction. They would never truly disappear, however, as every now and then, a new one appeared through Rank Ups from lesser species. Such monsters often found it impossible to successfully integrate into modern society in the long term, as sooner or later they would need to be subjected to an Appraisal that would reveal their true colors.
But Boxxy was different. The former Mimic was a Hero, and as such possessed the Essence Concealment Skill. This divine power to fool Appraisal was something no mortal Scribe could hope to beat. Granted, the Juvenile Doppelganger still possessed a weakness to electricity, but that was a relatively uncommon element. It didn’t exist in nature outside of thunderstorms, and only a select few Jobs and certain species of monsters could conjure lightning with magic. Arclight Artificers and Spellbinder Enchanters, on the other hand, were the only ones that were capable of creating items and weapons that employed electrical effects.
All things considered, it was a manageable weakness, but still a deadly one. Boxxy had made the silent decision to seek out magic items that provide additional defense against that particular element, or just magic in general. Although it was impossible to completely neutralize a monster’s weakness, Boxxy could at the very least severely dampen its negative effects. The monster had a hunch such equipment could be easily obtained as long as it managed to integrate itself into a large enough city.
And therein lay the biggest problem, for in order to successfully do so, it had to act and speak in a befitting manner - something Boxxy had to practice. Which is why the former Mimic had changed out of its prefered chesty shape, and into the slightly uncomfortable form of a young elven male. It looked to be about 16 or 17 years old, with pale green eyes and somewhat pale skin. The face was unremarkably plain, while the trademark knife-like ears sprouted out from either side of its short, ginger hair.
The synergy with Hero of Chaos' Essence Concealment Skill alone makes Doppelganger worthwhile. Later the reader learns that Queen Slimes cannot Rank Up further, which further cements Doppelganger as Boxxy's best option.
I speculate that monsters can either rank up into a higher evolutionary form or maximize their current phenotype. Thus the Slime Queen is the ultimate form of Slime, but loses its ability to evolve as the price of this complex specialization.
Doppelgangers reproduce by inseminating and parasitizing existing pregnancies of Enlightened races. The Doppelganger fully replaces the unaware Enlightened child by age 10.
Lodrak threat
Since Spymaster Edward Allen has identified Boxxy as the culprit behind the Calamity of Monotal, he is an existential threat. If Boxxy wishes to continue to act with anonymous impunity via his Essence Concealment skill, he should erase evidence of his origins, before someone connects the Mimic to the Doppelganger to the Hero of Chaos.
Spymaster Edward has a unique Eyes of Truth ability that sees through Boxxy and Xera's shapeshifting. However, Boxxy would not know about this if he did not nuke Monotal. Would he still target Lodrak for destruction?
The answer is yes, for several reasons.
Firstly, it would be popular with Horkensaft, and therefore Boxxy would enjoy political protection for causing it:
Lodrak is on the opposite side of the Oculus Sea from Horkensaft. Thus it is the most beneficial place to hold a world war for Horkensaft's arms industry, without damaging the homeland. (Like how the USA benefited from WW2.)
The war would help Horkensaft's navy and trade ships to dominate the Oculus Sea, in exchange for their support against Lodrak.
Lodrak is aggressive, racist and obnoxious, which harms the interests of the dwarves and gnomes living in Ishigar, making it a popular war for Horkensaft.
The Ishigar Republic and Sovereign States Alliance are eager if not desperate to end the Lodrak threat, guaranteeing victory.
Secondly, Theresa is a Goddess of Justice, who punishes oaths sworn falsely in her name. This is contrary to the interests of Doppelgangers, Succubi and demonkind. Boxxy's patron the God of Chaos has a grudge against Theresa, and conquering her Empire would force her to reform.
Thirdly, the chaos of war will allow a Doppelganger kingdom to be reborn from Lodrak's ashes.
False flag sociopathy
Borders are transient zones filled with travelers, and border incidents look like international provocations. A city full of strangers passing through is an ideal hunting ground for sociopaths in general and Doppelgangers in particular.
The normal way to provoke a war is with false flag attacks. Since Boxxy now has a Doppelganger race, he is well suited to intrigue. He can therefore engage in a spree of sabotage in Ishigar and the Sovereign States Alliance that will be blamed on Lodrak spies rather than the monstrous Hero of Chaos. This will level up his Doppelganger job, which thrives on deception.
Xera's hypnosis and shapeshifting will be indispensable for this purpose. Her guidance is essential to help naive Boxxy navigate civilization. Therefore she and Boxxy operate as a team. She can gather intelligence and plant suggestions that will be acted upon once Boxxy has left the city. She is best motivated by a combination of predation on Enlightened and Boxxy's abuse.
Their main tactic is to work together to pose as one woman. The succubus supplies dreamweaving and social acumen, while Boxxy supplies athletic performance, deeper shapeshifting and Essence Concealment. Transfamiliar permits swapping between Horkensaft and target city.
This allows them to wreak havoc. The goal should be theft, and implicating the Lodrak Empire in hostile espionage. The latter covers the former.
Investigators will find it impossible to track a succubus shapeshifter who randomly transforms into a Essence-Concealed Doppelganger. The belief that Lodrak spies are to blame will even be partially correct, since Boxxy did originate in Lodrak and intends to return there.
Boxxy and Xera should not take combat jobs during such crime sprees, to avoid exposing their recognizable abilities. Traveling by road is also too conspicuous. Instead, Boxxy camps out in the woods while Xera flies to the next target, then Transfamiliars. This prevents investigators from guessing where the duo will strike next.
Ideally, investigators will be too busy chasing real Lodrak spies to realize that a shapeshifter and succubus are involved. Delayed-release hypnotic suggestions by the succubus should conceal the dates the duo were present in a city, by generating chaos well after their departure.
No other demons should accompany Boxxy during espionage, to prevent investigators from suspecting the involvement of a single Warlock using Transfamiliar to teleport around. Instead, the other demons can party with Fizzy and do monster-clearing quests in Horkensaft. Fizzy can use her celebrity to spread her sob story about human discrimination in Lodrak, resulting in the death of her parents and her transformation into a golem out of grief.
The Beholder can happily guard Boxxy's estate, manage his investments in the arms industry, and use written correspondence to fan the flames of war, which he will probably enjoy even more than artillery spotting. What demon doesn't want to brag about laying waste to an Empire, especially Theresa's? The other Beholders will die of envy.
Monotal mommies
Doppelgangers reproduce by parasitizing the pregnancy of an enlightened race. Xera can simply collect sperm from an enlightened man and Boxxy, mix and inject into various hypnotized women, then wipe their memories. Xera is a superficial shapeshifter who can vary her appearance to avoid detection and fly invisibly over long distances to spread the Doppelganger plague. She's the equivalent of a Doppelganger ICBM.
Junior Doppelgangers are clumsy and likely to provoke countermeasures. They were genocided once, and if vigilance is again aroused, would be exterminated even more easily this time, with inquisitors combining proven methods (lightning, Appraisal) with new technology (Arclight).
Nevertheless, Boxxy can begin seeding the low-mana Monotal zone with changelings. Nobody will care about that area once the war breaks out. A low-mana zone is the best place for Doppelganger young to grow up, since they will be vulnerable to detection until age 10. The less magic about, the cheaper Enlightened surrogate mothers will be, and the fewer Appraisals to corrupt.
Once Lodrak is conquered and Spymaster Edward is dead, Boxxy can safely breed a generation of Doppelganger changelings in the Monotal region. These scions will establish Boxxy's power base in Lodrak in 11 years, when the former Lodrak Empire is conquered, exploited, exhausted and vulnerable. Due to wartime casualties, there will be a large number of single women eager to serve as surrogate mothers as an alternative to starvation or prostitution.
Objection: Monotal is an irradiated wasteland.
Answer: So is the region around Chernobyl, yet people and wildlife still live there. They just avoid the areas where the radiation is highest.
Those people tend to be poor and desperate, which make them ideal candidates for Doppelganger surrogate pregnancy, voluntary or otherwise. There is no need to go closer to the radiation than the nearest Enlightened residents. It is a classic tactic: Acquiring distressed real estate at a bargain for nefarious purposes.
I don't remember the name of the province of Monotal, nor do most readers, so I refer to it by synecdoche.
The irony of returning to do even more terrible things to Monotal is very tasty.
Even if Boxxy never nuked Monotal, it is still a good location for Doppelganger farming, because it is a low mana zone with weak defenders. It is distant from the war's front lines and therefore likely to be depleted of combat-aged males, who would be power-leveled and then sent to the front.
Doppelganger sea, gnomish navy
Together, Fizzy and Xera should be able to secure Job training for Boxxy from Horkensaft, especially after building the strategic alliance. Boxxy can eventually be presented to Horkensaft's rulers as Fizzy's divine beast ally. Chaos is weird, so this is something the gnomes would take in stride. It can be kept a state secret. This is the only direct contact Boxxy needs with civilization.
This alliance gives Boxxy access to the Scribe ability Job Removal, allowing him to use Cadaver Absorption without fearing the accumulation of useless jobs such as Cat.
Horkensaft's gnomes are a logical ally for the future Lodrak Doppelganger kingdom. An ocean separates them, reducing the risk of contagion. Gnomes make excellent Scribes and are masters of electricity, the Doppelganger bane. Doppelgangers have superhuman artificer assembly abilities thanks to shapeshifting, and their monstrous bloodlust complements gnomish cowardice. Thus gnomish Scribe-Artificers can help Doppelgangers police rogue Doppelgangers, and Doppelgangers can help gnomes clear their mines and seas of monsters.
Ishigar and the Sovereign States Alliance will both get large chunks of Lodrak, leaving a Doppelganger rump state around Monotal. Horkensaft will get Lodrak's Oculus Sea ports, with gnomish engineers and Doppelganger sailors combining into a powerful navy. A Doppelganger can easily shift into an aquatic form and hunt fish in the ocean, making them ideal sailors. By contrast, dwarves sink straight to the bottom, and drink too much.
Gnomish inquisitors in Doppelganger Monotal can be trusted due to the Horkensaft strategic alliance and the resentment of the conquered Lodrak humans against foreign gnomish mercenaries. Foreign mercenaries are typically used to police conquered nations for this reason.
International acceptance
Any country which objects to the new Doppelganger kingdom will have to contend with the powerful Horkensaft navy, the country least touched by the Lodrak war, grown fat and prosperous on war profiteering, with a huge industrial base geared for arms manufacture, and a newfound supply of monstrous soldiers and their eager demonic allies. Not worth it.
Ishigar and the Sovereign States Alliance will accept this morally repugnant situation in order to ensure that Lodrak does not threaten them again, especially if they're bribed.
As long as the Lodrak Doppelgangers are covert, strictly controlled, and do not spread outside Lodrak territory, they may be allowed to rule. To avoid peasant rebellion, they can pay surrogate mothers, and exterminate unsanctioned Doppelgangers spawn. Hidden King Boxxy will ruthlessly keep his spawn in check while a figurehead sits on the throne.
The result will be elite bloodlines similar to the Illuminati, controlling the Scribes, secret police, church and the media. Accomplishing this would undoubtedly max out Boxxy's Doppelganger level, potentially allowing him to change species and abscond with the loot before the enlightened races recover enough from the last war to launch a crusade against the new Doppelganger kingdom. Tasty!
However, an anti-Doppleganger crusade isn't inevitable. Dopplegangers are no longer the existential threat to Englightened races they once posed. Detection measures have improved thanks to advances in Appraisal technology, and lightning is still a bane. Paradoxically, the Lodrak Doppleganger rump state can actually benefit neighboring countries by reducing their risk of Doppleganger infiltration. Dopplegangers currently living in those states would be forced to register or emigrate. They would have no reason to risk death in hostile territory when they could simply go to Lodrak instead.
The monstrous Doppleganger nature would make them valued mercenaries and adventurers, capable of sustaining combat without psychological stress. The resulting rapid leveling would help them defend their new kingdom. Enthusiastic demon-doppelganger collaboration create a de-facto alliance with the God of Chaos.
Doppelganger mercenaries could help neighboring Enlightened countries expand elsewhere and subjugate their monster frontiers in exchange for international tolerance. Since monsters are disorganized, it is logical for Doppelgangers to exterminate monsters for levels rather than risk a coordinated counterattack by Enlightened rankers. Plenty of fish in the sea.
Since Dopplegangers can form MLGs, they are good at detecting physical secrets. Thus other countries can employ them as secret police, when partnered with a trustworthy Arclight Scribe. Dopplegangers can form a bridge between monstrous and Enlightened societies. Extermination of bloodline is an excellent top-down motivator, and monoparental Doppleganger bloodlines are easily traced. A Doppleganger who fails to prove the legitimacy of his birth is executed, along with his sire. Enlightened infants would be subjected to the lightning bane test at birth, saving their lives if infected with the Doppelganger parasite.
The result would be a society with a whole lot more random Appraisals, through which the Hero of Chaos Boxxy would swim with ease. Boxxy can continue to rule from the shadows, pruning rebellious Doppelganger bloodlines, as no one but the gods even know his name. Now that's how to level a Doppelganger job!
Xera's regret
Presumably Xera failed to inform Boxxy of this strategy because she was too busy drooling over TASTYCOCK — which is ironic, since she could've secured a lifetime supply. One can only imagine how much she would've enjoyed collecting Boxxy's sperm to breed new Doppelgangers — the closest to motherhood that rotten slut could ever get.
I'm not surprised Neven avoided this plotline. Genocide by parasitizing children is a bit dark, even for a book about a people-eating rapist box.
Conclusion
"Rocks fall, everybody dies," is a DM's joke, but also fustibalus Boxxy's martial motto. This essay's exercise in unmitigated pedantry would've taken all the fun out of the book, so I'm glad Boxxy's instructions to Demons 'R Us were misinterpreted to leave him saddled with a rotten slut instead of a wise Beholder mentor.
In the unlikely event anyone else wants to overanalyze this series, I created the SFW r/ellc2 to replace the defunct r/ellc, which was banned for being unmoderated. NSFW fan art should go to r/BoxxyTMorningwood or the Discord, which is suitable for those with a shorter attention span.
And yeah, this review explains a lot of the problems with the book, but who cares? I had fun reading it and then breaking the world even harder than Boxxy did. It does explain why my enthusiasm for reading the later books is waning. The author struck gold and kept going as long as he could. That's the beauty of Royal Road, and it mirrors the lifecycle of a Lesser Mimic who shouldn't have lasted a year.