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

[ezo]

So mundane animals: ranging from tiny butterflies flitting amongst the cabbages, pigeons in the town square, flocks of sheep grazing the hills, deer in the forest and seagulls squawking over the sea cliffs - do they ever appear in your games, even just as background flavour? Do you use any real world animals (ie not giant or magical forms) as hazards or even as encounters - a swarm of squirrels? a pack of normal wolves? a hidden tiger?

Or are all animals consigned to being familiars, animal companions, mounts and wild shape candidates?

Do you want to use more mundane creatures or is the fantasy of quantum butterflies and wild herds of alicorns more compelling?

Yes, we use them, from everything to setting and background flavor to adversaries (stinging flies, pack of wild dogs, charging elephants, etc.), to plot hooks (gathering up herd animals from raiders, etc.).

Of course we use them for familiars, companions, steeds, etc.

More magical animals are thrown in at times, but rarely, as our groups firmly believe that making magic things and creatures too common removes some of the "magic" from the game.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Horses, wolves, and bears are fairly common in my games. Other animals are more background stuff.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Well, yes. D&D doesn't usually feature firearms, and you're often adventuring out on the farthest frontiers of civilization where there can be a lot more animal life than we're used to IRL, and those animals are often less afraid of bipeds. You ought to be seeing more normal animals while traipsing around, most of which will be harmless but not all of them. Even herbivores can be extremely dangerous. Ask my players how "mundane" a buffalo stampede can be. Or heck, just watch any of the countless "idiot tourist at a national park" vids out there.

And that's not even considering what wolves are like during a hard winter, especially if failure to cull them has led to overpopulation. They depopulated whole villages back in Dark Age Europe.

Even in a city, you're going to see a lot of livestock, beasts of burden and mounts. A pre-industrial society that isn't saturated in magic relies on freshly butchered animals for a lot of their food, which means a lot of live animals being brought to market or the slaughterhouses.

 

[kigmatzomat]

So mundane animals..... Do you use any real world animals (ie not giant or magical forms) as hazards or even as encounters - a swarm of squirrels? a pack of normal wolves? a hidden tiger?

I once had a group of 13th-ish level PCs in a 3e game nearly get wiped out by 1hd herbivores. They were in a savanna near a water hole at dusk. The rogue sees a large ox-thing & throws a thunder stone. The ox takes off at a lumbering trot away from the water. For some reason the explosion echoes oddly ....then a massive herd of gazelle come around the lake aimed at the party.

Three PCs were all but pulped before the wizard put up a wall of stone (which only reduced the injuries as some gazelles continued to clear the top). Once the rain of gazelle ended, they pour potions over the downed PCs and staggered away from the mass of dead gazelle piled at the wall before the predators & scavengers arrived.

Then the cape buffalo the rogue threw the thunder stone towards returned to ambush him.

Good times.

 

[Greg K]

Yes, I use mundane animals. In fact, the following are among some of my favorite D&D books/pdfs:
Bestiary: Predators (Betabunny)
Noble Steeds: A d20 Guide to Horses & Mounts (Avalanche Press)
Sharks! (Bards and Sages)
Snakes! (Bards and Sages)
Spiders! (Bards and Sages)

 

[aco175]

Animals only appear if needed, otherwise they could be expected as needed. If the PCs are in town, I might not mention horses, pets, livestock, random squirrels and birds, but if a PC wants to cast a spell like animal messenger, they can find one. If the party is in the sewer, it is expected to see spiders and rats, but If I say that you suddenly notice the absence of rats and sounds of them- get ready.

 

[MNblockhead]

I certainly use them for flavor. And in D&D there are magical ways to engage with mundane animals so they can be used to advance the plot. In terms of combat, certainly bears, wolves, and other mundane animals can prove dangerous to low-level parties.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I use real animals sometimes, but they behave like real animals, and rarely attack without good reason.

My players tend to not want to hurt animals, and will generally try to avoid fights with them, or use non-lethal methods.

 

[Yaarel]

I dont like to see real animals suffer in combat. So there is that. Any combat pets are necessarily "materializations" from an other plane of existence. At zero hit points they dematerialize and return to their planar state, as a Fey spirit or a Celestial paradigm, etcetera.

But real animals are important, are around, and magic can communicate with them, so there are noncombat encounters involving them.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

The DMs in my group will use a plethora of mundane animals from time to time.

However, for my current campaign they are only rarely used because the high magic of my world tends to make dire animals the normal, along with Monstrous and Primal variants. Monstrous animals are even larger and more power then their dire counterparts, while Primal animals are powerful animals infused with primal magic that gives them supernatural powers and control over their natural elements and environments. They, along with many different monstrosities act as the more expected fauna of the world.