Slime (monster)

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.

[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.

[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.

[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."

[2] Historically, some male writers, including Lovecraft, associated slime with femininity, characterizing women as disgustingly different from men.

[21] Writing for Polygon, Ana Diaz described video game slimes as "loyal punching bags", owing to their role as common low-level enemies.