D&D 5E (2014) Animal Companion

[jgsugden]

Just do "fey spirits" as the familiars. Give them generic animal stats, but fluff descriptions that matches a pixie or brownie. Easy peasy.

 

[Blue]

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Cats have humans as companions.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Joking aside, it would depend on the lore of the setting. Does Humblewood have unintelligent animals, and if so are they of the same species as the intelligent animals? What (or who) do PC wolves eat?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Monkeys, apes, but also pokemons or digimon, or yokai, or animated statues, or magic action figures or battle robots who transforms into beast shapes.

 

[Raduin711]

One approach is that the Vulpin character recognizes the similarities between itself and the wolf, but ultimately sees the relationship like we would look at a gorilla or chimpanzee. I walk on two legs, wear clothes, use sophisticated tools, etc. It walks on all fours, likes to smell butts, eats poop, kisses anyone whose face gets too close...

Another is to frankenstein the animals.

Step 1: come up with a nonsense name for the new animal.
Step 2: pick one or two traits to change about the animal, (color, limbs, horns, etc) or substitute an entirely different animal in the same "function" (the chocobo solution)

Example: Is that a cow? No, that is a Vack. It's like a cow, only purple and with 6 legs.
Is that a horse? No, that's a Slank. It like a giant rat with really long legs.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Cats have humans as companions.

We were talking about in-game.

 

[FXR]

We once played Mouse Guard witht the D&D 5e rules. We had rabbits as mounts, cricket as dogs, so I guess it's quite possible.

 

[Athelstaine]

Thank you for the replies. I am just going to reskin a few things and go from there. No sense in trying to be realistic when you have crow necromancers and hedgehog paladins and so forth running around.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Hmm...maybe insects? Other, dumber animals? We're animals too so what animals are to us is basically what animals are to animals. Animals follow our lead because we provide food and shelter. Maybe an animal that can eat the scraps of a wolf like a vulture or a hyena?

This, but I’d actually say rather than making it dumber, just accept that it’s a sentient follower or a Fey spirit that takes the form of a primal version of one of the forest races.

For Fey, use the Spirit of The [earth/air] from that UA article, probably.

If it’s sentient, give it a decent Int score, and a personality Trait or two, ideal, and a flaw. Otherwise keep it simple.

The Fey version could also be sentient, obv.