Codex: Mimbranes
(Graft, Epidel, Second Skin)
Name (Singular): Mimbrane
Sex: Asexual
Height: 0.0004 to 0.25 inches. Typically ranges between the slightest fraction of an inch when resembling a thin film to a quarter of an inch when dense and/or well fed.
Length: 6 to 36 square inches. The parasite’s ability to distribute its mass to control its surface area can usually put it anywhere between six and thirty six square inches.
Weight: 100 to 340 grams (0.2 - 0.75 pounds)
Hair: None of its own, but able to replicate host features.
Eyes: Two tiny eyes protected by a thick portion of dermis that can act as eyelids. Round with bright sclera, thin reddish iris, with average sized pupils. The eyeballs can vary in size, sometimes changing in size as the Mimbrane integrates into a host.
Senses
Mimbrane feature small fleshy mouths below and between their eyes that protrude slightly from their form, typically thicker than the rest of the creature. Their mouth is used to breathe, ingest liquids and communicate as most creatures, but if the parasite is able to latch onto a host organ with an orifice, it will ditch its normal mouth in favor of utilizing the newfound hole as its own. Without a properly sized orifice to borrow, Mimbrane will maintain their normal mouths, anxious to pass them off as small lumps with no seam. Information on how the creature feeds and breathes can be found below.
A Mimbrane’s most important organ is its skin. Its normal appearance is a light red or pink, lighter in color the thinner the creature stretches itself and more vibrant the more dense it is. Mimbrane are smooth and free of any discolorations or imperfections. They can appear as thin square sheets, slightly moist and glistening as they glide through the air or crawl along the ground. At their largest sizes, Mimbrane are incredibly lithe and become somewhat translucent.
The parasite is able to distribute its sparse mass in order to control its surface area, enabling it to not only encase its prey, but also allowing it to fly and glide with relative ease. The creature’s more well-known trait is its ability to transform and alter its epidermis, mimicking its host’s every detail. More information on this feature can be found below.
Armor
Due to their lean nature, mimbranes rely more on their ability to dodge and conform to any shapes in order to help defend themselves. Sharp blades and projectiles that actually do make contact easily injure the creature. Blunt weapons are normally ineffective. A Mimbrane’s primary offense and defense lie within its lust-inducing oil and spit, explained further below.
Typical Environments
Though the creatures can exist in most any habitat, Mimbrane tend to prefer natural and wooded areas, locales comprised of abundant sources of warmth and nutrients.
Means of Attack
Mimbrane tend to be docile creatures, hiding from potential prey whenever possible. The cause of this is the extreme toll battle can take on the parasite. A single creature can take months to accumulate enough nutrients just to work up the reserves necessary to employ their lust attacks in addition to the above average energy expenditure. In other words, a Mimbrane that has decided to attack is putting its all into the effort.
A mimbrane’s primary means of offense is to target their opponent’s carnal instincts. Its first attack is more passive, as the parasite’s skin secretes a clear oil, tinged lightly with a bright pink color. Contact with the parasite’s oily skin can wreck havoc on its opponent’s sexual craving. A byproduct of a Mimbrane’s sweat is the pungent cloud of ecstasy it produces; the parasite will periodically stress its pores and fan this gas towards their opponent. The creature’s more direct attack has it gather and concentrate its oil, spitting a particularly volatile batch of libidinal craving that bursts on contact.
While Mimbrane rely primarily on their ability to drive their opponents to sexual madness, they also utilize their light form in an attempt to smother their hosts. This attack doubles the effectiveness of their oily skin as well. The few physical attacks of the parasite involve it creating tiny barbs along its surface and brushing against its opponent, as well as fairly weak attempts at tripping up an opponent.
Parasitism
A Mimbrane’s primary goal in life is to attach to a host, feed, and slowly reproduce. Once it has properly subdued a target, the parasite will work its way towards its intended body part. An interesting facet of these creatures is their inherent organ preferences, shared among the entire species. These baked-in predilections place importance on ease of acquiring liquid sustenance followed shortly thereafter by warmth and relative seclusion on the host.
Mimbranes prioritize sexual organs, preferring penises over vaginas. Should the genitalia be either non-existent or claimed by other Mimbranes, the parasite will opt for the posterior, enshrouding the entire rear end and anus to account for its less-than-optimal choice. The next option for a Mimbrane would actually be the scrotum followed by the breasts, the lower and warmer sac an easier location for remaining secluded over the typically much more exposed breasts. When all known sexual organs are unavailable, the parasite will opt for extremities, typically the hands and finally feet.
The face is actually avoided when choosing a roost as it is typically a very sensitive and hard area to maintain for the parasite. Attempts to hide anywhere on or around the head more often increase the creature’s presence to the host. As a result, a Mimbrane would rather reject a host than place themselves somewhere they believe would lead to their quick removal.
Once a Mimbrane has chosen an organ, it quickly goes to work encapsulating the entirety of their selection, forming a perfect seal. From this point, mimicry becomes the primary goal of the parasite. The Mimbrane’s epidermis will integrate itself with its host’s nervous system, forwarding sensations on to nerve endings and feeling as if nothing were on the organ at all. Dead skin cells and sweat are passed through the creature if they are not able to be consumed.
The parasite also works to visually represent its chosen target, detailing every bit of texture, coloration, hair and imperfection that they’ve covered. In only a few scant minutes, a Mimbrane’s pink, featureless, slick skin will perfectly resemble its target down to the last hair, freckle, or scar. Once the transformation is complete, a motionless Mimbrane becomes almost unperceivable to its host, save for a few telltale signs.
The most visible indications of the parasite while they are attempting to mimic their chosen organ often appear as lumps of skin or enlarged body parts. The first sign is the bunching of the parasite’s skin along the base of their connection to the host. This acts as the creature’s defense from unassisted removal, painlessly digging into the host’s skin and alerting the parasite to any attempts to pry it free. The other visible trait is typically two tiny bumps close to the host’s orifice, where the Mimbrane hides its eyes.
The final telltale mark is only when the parasite has bonded with an organ that does not feature some sort of cavity. A third bump will appear, hiding the creature’s small mouth. The lumps protecting a Mimbrane’s mouth and eyes have no visible seams, and the parasites will typically try to push these few remaining marks of evidence down against their host in an effort to better hide them. More information on the parasite’s tendencies when coupled with a host can be found below.
Feeding
A Mimbrane can survive on sources of moisture such as plants, fruits or water, but it cannot reproduce until it has found and attached itself to a host. If it has clung to an organ that features some sort of orifice, it will dissolve its mouth in favor of substituting it with its newfound outlet. If there is no orifice, the Mimbrane will maintain its small mouth, trying its best to disguise it as an innocuous bump on its host.
The mouth is where a Mimbrane continues to feed and breathe. The parasite is unable to continue breathing through its epidermis when coupled as its skin is currently occupied mimicking the host. As a result, the creature will wait for moments of inactivity to move its mouth open and close, stirring fresh air around and allowing it to easily absorb and process oxygen. The sensation – whether with a claimed hole or the creature’s mouth – can very easily be felt by the host and is the most glaring reminder of the parasite’s presence.
Mimbranes ingest host secretions that pass through their borrowed mouths by absorbing them into the skin surround the opening in a manner similar to breathing. This action does not require the same amount of movement, however, and usually goes undetected by hosts. The exception goes for parasites lacking a borrowed spout, who use their natural mouths in a manner similar to all other living creatures in order to collect what they crave. When located on extremities such as hands, Mimbrane will attempt to push themselves to a visible source when hungry.
Due to their slow and miniscule metabolism, the parasites only require a small fraction of the various discharges they can come into contact with. Most Mimbrane are unable to engorge themselves rapidly, which acts as a countermeasure from growing too large too fast, thus increasing their odds of irritating their hosts and reaching their demise.
Reproduction
Mimbrane store and process any and all nutrients they come into contact with once in contact with a host. As a result, the body part they’ve encapsulated can appear to swell over time. The parasite can easily grow anywhere between twenty five and fifty percent of the size of the organ it currently resides over. People with swollen penises, vaginas, asses, or anything else never feel as if their organs have been smothered with the extra weight due to the creature’s continued mimicry and faked signals it sends to the nervous system.
Once a Mimbrane has reached a large enough mass – roughly at least double its original mass – it will begin asexual reproduction in a form similar to binary fission. The parasite begins by preparing the host for the bizarre sensations, which are described to feel as if removing large bandages, onaholes, or other sorts of coverings after a long period of time. If it fears for its safety, the parasite will wait until the host is asleep.
A separation begins to occur along the perimeter of the Mimbrane’s original size. Over the course of an hour or two, the parasite will center its consciousness on the skin still attached to the organ and finish severing all of the extra mass its accumulated over the course of a number of weeks. At this point, the growth will fall or merely slip off of the host, still appearing like an enlarged copy of the organ it shed from. The faux organ will convulse and spasm for a few minutes, signaling the growth of the new consciousness.
The new Mimbrane can survive in this state for tens of minutes, feeding off the excess stores of nutrition left to it by its parent. Some more experienced hosts have been known to enjoy the offspring for the time it exists as an engorged copy of their body part. The new Mimbrane’s mind briefly revolves around its memories as the body part in this state.
Eventually it will settle and unravel back into its original form, flooded with the continued instincts and knowledge that is always passed down throughout the creation of the parasites. Mimbrane prefer to spread to new targets and will abandon their parents as soon as the opportunity arrives.
Intelligence and Behavior
Evolution has taught this race to be patient and polite in order to increase odds of survival. Mimbrane intelligence is just above that of common house pets, surprisingly. The parasites rely on their lust-increasing secretions to attain hosts, but they cannot afford to continue to rely on them once they are in place. This forces the creatures to interact with their host as little as possible, relying on their mimicry, downplayed movements, and slow growth to conceal themselves as long as they feel they are in danger of aggravating their host, driving them to attempt and remove them.
Once Mimbrane believe they’re in little harm of being forcibly removed from their perch, they may open up a little to their host. The parasite will more freely control its claimed organ in plain view of its host, responding to stimuli such as movement and sound like any other sentient creature will. The parasite will attempt to form and maintain this bond in order to help ensure its survival if it thinks it can make it work.
As time and trust continue to build, Mimbrane can eventually reawaken their latent capabilities used when capturing prey, helping their host by waging the same spitting and secretion-based attacks against their opponents’ sexual drive. These strikes require a good degree of the nutrients the parasite has stored from the host, nutrients that are typically reserved purely for reproduction and self-sustenance. As a result, these actions can only be used sparingly by the creature when they feel open enough to aid in combat.
Getting a Mimbrane confident enough to act like this is quite a feat as this runs contrary to the species’ normally shy nature. A Mimbrane’s first instinct once it has attached to a host is to mimic and hide in plain sight. Even when the parasite has fully confided in its host, it will generally hide from all strangers.
What they won’t hide from are their fellow parasites. Mimbrane are highly sociable among one another, and people playing host to several of them may discover just how chatty the little guys can tend to be. No matter what form they may appear in, Mimbrane will utilize their mouth to make high-pitched squeaks to communicate with one another.
Mimbrane will also come to the aid of their brethren when possible. If they discover their host is in combat with another of their kind, they will sweat the same lust-inducing oil that host-free Mimbrane use to subdue their prey. This can turn an individual’s armor against them as the parasites will use it as a pressure cooker for sexual fervor. Once the host has been humbled, existing Mimbrane already clinging to them will announce their presence and work together to signify any remaining key organs for the new parasite to claim as their own. This behavior can easily lead to an individual being overrun by the parasite if they continually encounter them.
Finally, Mimbrane will continue to aid one another on the same host by making certain any parasites without orifices to feed from are taken care of. It isn’t uncommon for an individual with several Mimbrane to frequently lose control of much of their body as the parasites communicate and feed one another if the fear of discovery and removal is low. This group mentality is exclusive to the parasites only when a host is present; they do not typically come to one another’s aid and work together alone in the wild.
Removal
Mimbrane’s incredible mimicry and tendencies to aid their hosts when they aren’t avoiding their ire is simply due to the fact that they perish if they are ever removed from their host. The act of integrating into an organism’s nervous system is second nature to the parasite, but they will die of shock should they be pried away. Unaided removal is highly discouraged, as the parasite can easily utilize its connection to the host to paralyze them with signals of pain or pleasure.
Mimbrane can utilize their natural defenses in addition to anything the organ at their disposal can grant them to defend themselves against others as well. Individuals with a great number of parasites across their body can even provide a challenge for medical professionals. Caution is recommended when dealing with anyone in a situation like this; the parasites will easily wrestle control away from their host when fueled by adrenaline and defend themselves.
Contacting an anesthesiologist is the best approach to removing Mimbrane from an individual. The parasite’s need to respire makes it susceptible to being knocked out and easily removed. There is rarely any lasting damage to hosts.