And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I game

[Dice4Hire]

One of my odder characters was BEorcum, a Druid's tree that was awakened and then killed defending a holy site in his forest. He was then adventuring as a halfling druid after being reincarnated.

 

[Yora]

I ran an NPC golden cat that could speak and cast spells like a cleric. It was interesting. The players actually liked having that character around.

I read some Greyhawk novels that featured a ranger, a pixie or sprite, a hellhound pelt, and a talking badger named Polk. The badger was originally human, but he was killed and reincarnated by druids into a badger. His character was amusing.

In one of the Dragon Age DLCs

Spoiler

There is a cat that is possessed by a demon. Called Kitty.

 

[enrious]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf04zlExM8c]You play to win the game! - YouTube[/ame]

 

[RangerWickett]

A friend of mine made this character and tried to pass it off as his idea. Boo for his cheating ways.

 

[Gryph]

Brings back fond memories of Cyrano de Squirrelzerac. Poor character was never loved as he desired to be.

 

[Oryan77]

This inspired me to create a human female NPC who gave birth to some cublings. His charisma is high indeed.

 

[Kaodi]

If anything, this is probably one of the truly great uses for psionics. I can well imagine that a cat awakened by a druid falls begins looking inward because he cannot speak and all of his old cat buddies are painfully stupid. He (or she) begins developing the power of their own mind, and sooner or later comes out looking like this cold hearted villain:

 

[Rechan]

Know a guy who plays a psionic hawk.

Kinda reminds me of the Polish army employing an actual honest to god bear to assist in hauling munitions.

As far as the Greyhawk novels and talking animal characters are concerned, I'm writing an Arabian S&S novel with a talking cat familiar. The wizard is mute but able to mentally communicate with the cat, thus the cat is his interpreter. Much hilarity ensues because cats are fickle bastards.

 

[Wycen]

Things that occurred to me about Sir Bearington:

1. He may have strong opinions on honey tariffs
2. He may be fond of pic-i-nic baskets
3. He should have an honorary rank of Major
4. He REALLY needs to talk to his Dutch relatives about his share of the diamond business

Someone may eventually approach him to be a spokesbear about preventing forest fires.

 

[Rune]

This makes me happy.

I've done something similar; the animals in this story hour started out with 3.5 rules (E6), although I have since converted the campaign to Trailblazer E6.