Bellshade

Bellshades are a peculiar offshoot of the mimic family that has adapted to urban life. Rather than posing as chests or doors, they take the forms of carved inn and tavern signs, learning the shape and slogan of a locale well enough to fool passing patrons. They often attach themselves to the busiest thoroughfares, favors or curses of fortune-tellers aside, and feed on the small scraps and spilled ale that gather beneath tavern eaves. A hung bellshade will rarely move during the day, conserving energy and learning patterns; at night it slips down to scavenge or to drag an intoxicated patron into a dark alley. Scholars at the Collegium of Oddities in Varrinfell has chronicled a century of bellshade raids, and the guild of lamplighters known as the Crossbolt Company keeps lists of taverns believed to host one. A famous case involved the Yellow Lantern of Hobmead, where a bellshade learned to mimic the innkeeper's hand-painted pig and, over months, lured several prospective thieves into its maw. Superstitious innkeepers now nail extra boards or place wards beneath their signs; others commission the Signwrights' Circle to craft enchanted supports that a bellshade cannot adhere to easily.

From the street, a bellshade reads like an ordinary inn sign: a roughly rectangular plank of oak or elm, hand-painted with a crest or pictogram, and pierced at the top by two wrought-iron hooks and chain. Up close, the wood's grain sometimes appears wrong — subtly fleshy — and the painted eye of the emblem glints wetly. When it animates, the painted image peels back like stretched skin, revealing a puckered, glistening mouth ringed with peg-like teeth and a tongue that flicks and secretes adhesive saliva. Small nubs along the sign's underside can flex into short, stumpy limbs, allowing it to shuffle while dragging the chains. Scale: roughly 3–4 feet across, about the height of a human torso when hanging; texture: cracked paint, wet sheen inside the maw, iron rust on chains, warped wooden edges.