D&D General Mundane animals - do you use them in game?

[cranberry]

The only mundane animal I use on a regular basis are horses.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I once had a villain create the Squirrel Bane spell, which makes every squirrel within 100ft aware of and deeply hateful toward the target.

I was hoping for tiny masks and voice modulators. "So, you think your acorns give you power over me?"

 

[MarkB]

Yeah, I assume that my campaign worlds contain the full range of mundane animals along with more fantastical variants.

If I had one complaint about how they're handled in D&D, it's that I'd like to see more creatures of fantastical origin but relatively mundane capabilities classified as beasts rather than monstrosities and the like. Otherwise the divisions of the fantasy ecosystem tend to feel rather arbitrary.

 

[Irlo]

Yes, I routinely use mundane animals as background flavor, as warnings of impending threats, or more rarely as encounters (or parts of encounters). I try to make fauna ubiquitous so that when I do mention that there’s a crow in tree the players don’t automatically conclude that it’s the evil wizard’s familiar spying on them.

Same with plant-life. Most flora in the world is mundane, the better to contrast with magical giant toadstools, witchwood conifers, and were-cabbage.

 

[Jolly Ruby]

I love using mundane animals as a way to portrait environments: a forest needs wildlife, a farm town needs sheeps and cows, a city needs dogs and cats and pigeons. Also, I like to use mundane animals when I don't want an encounter to be a combat but I'm afraiymy players will default to violence: if I put an owlbear the players will be more inclined to fight if they feel threatened than with a mundane bear. And my players love having mundane animals travelling with them: horses as mounts, a hound to help keep watch and track foes, a cat just because why not?

On the other hand: I just rewatch The Last Airbender cartoon and I'm thinking if the next campaign I run should use only "weird animals" as the mundane fauna. Megafauna, dinosaurs, impossible hybrids, etc.

 

[Irlo]

Forgot to mention — mundane animals as victims of monster attacks is a great motivator for some players to get them involved.

 

[Atomoctba]

Wolves are a very common menace in my first level campaigns. More than goblins and kobolds I think. A few levels after, a cave bear or two are also common.

 

[toucanbuzz]

If a player specifically has abilities to talk to animals, etc., then we're going to have a lot more animals in my flavor descriptions. Otherwise, I like the "Bits of..." series of flavor text (100 or so for a terrain type) which often incorporate mundane animals (sometimes they're simply background, other times they are attached to an encounter or mini-quest; keeps players guessing).

 

[bedir than]

The party is ~11th level. They're still meeting mundane animals.

 

[uzirath]

Lots of mundane animals. And some not-so-mundane ones.