Mud Puppets

Conjured by the Great Tree, the Mud Puppets are a synthetic race of mindless drones that staff her trials across her archipelago. Plain in form, each is built from a clay like substance with a head and torso fused into a roughly rectangular block, two dot shaped yellow eyes, a pair of leafy twigs sprouting on top, spindly arms ending in mitten hands, and stubby legs with toeless feet. They are identical clones, seemingly born straight from the soil and crumbling into dirt when struck down.

Their entire purpose is to obstruct candidates undergoing the Great Tree's ordeals, which makes them hostile to nearly everything except one another and prone to attacking without warning. Individually they are feeble, falling to only a few hits with little strength or speed of their own, but their value lies in shapeshifting into stronger enemies the challengers have met before, such as Marine soldiers, automata, Divine Soldiers, zombies, and Majin Soldiers. Their signature move, Tsukitobashi, has them slam both fists forward to shove a foe backward.

A stronger variant, the Mutant Puppet, sprouts from the earth when a mysterious seed is left on the ground, appearing red with a seed husk on its head and unable to be beaten until it transforms. These mutants can become far more dangerous copies, including prototype Pacifistas and figures on the level of Bon Kurei or Aokiji, though, like the Great Tree's ordeal copies, the imitations never match the true originals' power.