Cute
This month, we told our Quest Givers over on Patreon to choose the form of the destructor. The kingdom was being overrun by adorable critters! But what exactly were they? After the votes were tallied and the dust cleared, we discovered pastel-colored pseudodragons ruling the roost. The horror! (Better luck next time to all those pipefoxes, leaf leshies, and pookas who didn’t make the cut.)
Today’s comic comes courtesy of my group’s ongoing Dungeons and Doggies campaign. We are all awakened canines, and the setting is ridiculously, wholly, and deliriously cute. Our most recent antagonists are fey creatures straight out of Labyrinth. They scream like Muppets when defeated before exploding into confetti. Laurel is running a corgi warlock with a pixie familiar. Last session, we rescued a pseudodragon by the name of “Flutterfog.” I’m not ashamed to admit that I made some distinctly unmanly noises when the little fella introduced himself. All of this has been unexpectedly delightful.
Way back in “Claiming the Throne,” we talked about the grim darkness of the grimdark aesthetic. As it turns out, the candy-colored opposite can be a breath of fresh air. When I joined this dogs game, I thought I’d signed up for a bit of Watership Down style animal fantasy. What I got was the pastel realm of the noblebright instead. It’s not something that I’ve experimented with before, and it’s turned out to be a lot of unexpected fun playing the “good dog” excited for treats, chasing balls, and helping Timmy out of the well.
So in the spirit of noblebright creatures everywhere, I turn to you lot with the question of the day! What is the single cutest critter you’ve encountered in a game? Was it a familiar? A so-ugly-it’s-cute monster? Maybe something you adopted as a party mascot? Whatever kawaii critter made you squee, tell us all about it down in the comments!
THIS COMIC SUCKS! IT NEEDS MORE [INSERT OPINION HERE] Is your favorite class missing from the Handbook of Heroes? Maybe you want to see more dragonborn or aarakocra? Then check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. You’ll become part of the monthly vote to see which elements get featured in the comic next!
Once found a winged turtle in a fortress full of elemental air cultists. apparently they were trying to blow up the world and were converting the fortress into a flying “noah’s ark” to preserve life. which meant magically grafting wings to a bunch of critters so they could live in the sky. anyways, they failed and my paladin had that turtle sitting on her shoulder like a parrot from then on.
That is a delightfully stupid evil plan, and I love it a lot.
As far as cuteness goes, I’m a big fan of the Pathfinder Pipe Fox. Very disappointed they didn’t make the cut!
Also, I totally mistook that pseudodragon for a juvenile fairy dragon.
I mistook it for a flying armadillo.
Pipefoxes are adorable, yes!
When we were preparing for the big end battle in a long kingmaker game, I had my sorceress make some herself, to breed and spread through the world. On account of being big ol fluff noodles which are adorbs
I was surprised that Laurel was familiar with them, since I usually know random RPG critters a bit better. Turns out her history as an exchange student to Japan is what did it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuda-gitsune
Pipe foxes are indeed pure adorable, especially when you see the official artwork.
https://pathfinderwiki.com/mediawiki/images/5/50/Pipefox.jpg
Though, Pathfinder art tends to be very hit or miss. Case in point, the official Pathfinder Pooka art is just very ‘uncanny valley’, even though it’s otherwise a very wholesome creature.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ac/a1/41/aca141cc9ada497516d8f20e1d89016e.png
I feel like the realm of noblebright or sugarplum land at some point always becomes vastly improved when you add a vastly contrasting/dark villain, high stakes, or grim implications of the universe itself.
Enough so that it’s two separate tropes – ‘Vile Villain, Saccharine Show’ and ‘Crapsaccharine World’. Maybe just cause we’re all snarky, cynical people or think too hard on such universes of rainbow and magic.
And incidentally, why shows like Adventure Time, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Kirby and other such stuff is a big hit.
Coincidentally, today’s comic coincides with the campaign comic ‘Friendship is Dragons’ hitting 1500 strips. Give the author a few cheers!
http://friendshipisdragons.thecomicseries.com/comics/1500
I dunno. I feel like that’s kicking over the sandcastle to some extent. We’re always doing dark things to pseudo-European fantasy villages in this hobby. Actually dwelling in the fantasy world for a while it more novel.
Cutest critters in our RPG games? A bunch that I can recall!
In our Starfinder game, we’ve had mixed reception on this. Skittermanders seem to be universally hated/ugly by everyone but me in our group, to the point of being a meme that is applies in-universe as well.
Our first encounter in an official Starfinder AP was a very cute but problematic critter (seen below).
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b9/fc/19/b9fc190d963c646c1144ab1c3e9ef431.jpg
We were also introduced to the ‘Squox’ later on (a mix between a fox and a squirrel), as well as a Ratfolk with pretty cute official art.
https://i1.yuki.la/5/ef/5969592f64eaa687f18e010a259f9e4a0f22a3184e28cd58ff141d382a0f8ef5.jpg
In Pathfinder, I adore everything Ratfolk related. A critter that I introduced into one game was a Jerboa-like mount.
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/912586.jpg
Well shit. My buddy Nib the ratfolk is going to be shocked and surprised. No idea it was a common name.
I’ve always been partial to shocker lizards.
What? I never thought of those things as especially…
http://cdn.tabletitans.com/img/bestiary/shocker_lizard.jpg
OK, yeah. That’s pretty cute.
I personally think that’s one of the uglier renditions of shocker lizards, but to each their own.
Hey now, I don’t see you coughing up any links. 😛
Yeah, that was the picture that comes to mind… I think it’s the one from the 3e monster manual.
Minor spoilers for an AP’s NPC interactions below:
Nib happens to be girl! Who is in a strained ex-relationship with a female Lashunta NPC.
My buddy: “Those bastards! I’ll sue them! Nobody appropriates my glorious name and likeness!”
Is Magus a valid option for the cutest thing I’ve seen?
But seriously, my fighter has multiclassed into warlock, and his familiar is a pixie. SHE’S SO CUTE (especially when she’s being a tsundere at me for not being a pacifist)
Magus can’t be cute! She has realistic hands and no elbows. Heebyjeebie.
Her charisma score and low-light vision suggest otherwise. As do more than a few Patreon comics.
Fair.
Ages ago at DragonCon I was in a tournament game that was completely (and joyously) derailed by the DM’s portrayal of “Skippy the Giant Fireweasel.” No, we didn’t get anywhere near our objective or advance to the next round, but I daresay we had a lot more fun than anyone else in the room thanks to that woman’s DMing and ADORABLE giant fireweasel impression.
Ima need you to do your impersonation of Skippy for us. I expect onomatopoeia to the Nth degree.
In the current campaign im in, our lizardfolk warlock Othokent (Otto Kent) has obtained a familiar named Connokent (Connor Kent). Connor is a lizard familiar, specifically a skink, and so much of our group discord is now filled with pictures of skinks and other smol lizards doing various cute and/or sinister things entirely inconsistent with the fact that theyre like 4 inches long. My sarcastic dwarf bard regularly introduces the cute little skink as being the more important of the two lizards, and Otto’s player is perfectly OK with this.
I demand links to cute skink pics!
My Warlord got to ride a Unicorn. It was the most whimsical thing she experienced in her trip to Hell.
When I DMed a Unicorn they were a judgemental asshole who hated anyone who so much as had non-marital sex because I felt like digging into the old folklore.
When I met a unicorn, she overshadowed my PC. Lesson learned. Never play the straight man.
All hail Majenko, badass house drake and the REAL star of the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path!
Majenko is currently Laurel’s vigilante/kineticist’s improved familiar. He does not yet know how to use wands.
Our Ranger got him as his animal companion (can’t remember if he took a feat or something to allow that or if the GM was just really lenient) after my Warpriest decided to kick Barvasi’s ass. We refused to go into the hold of the ship (we were in terrible shape after the fight) and just burned the whole thing down. Turns out having a bunch of cobwebs hanging around makes starting fires really easy.
They managed to murder Barvasi in his sleep.
It’s a 2-player gestalt game, so I’m OK bending the rules to hand out an OP familiar. Every little bit of action economy helps!
Yeah, we’re at 3 players and a GMPC assisting as needed (this is our fourth one with the others having died) as otherwise it’s too easy to get overwhelmed.
I’ve loved the first 3 books of the AP, the fourth was great with some elements that I didn’t like, and the fifth was an absolute grind (but very cool) of a dungeon crawl. I’m not sure if that’s due to us not having a cleric or paladin (I’m playing warpriest, and we have our aforementioned ranger and a bloodrager), but playing it as written would have made it take longer than the rest of the previous books put together.
We dipped out of book 2 due to COVID. No one had the energy to deal with a magical plague.
Replace it with the Lady’s Light adventure from Shattered Star. Lost a bit of continuity, but at least we kept the Gray Maidens connection.
In my crew’s Crimson Throne Majenko took to my Kitsune Rogue, but I didn’t have the slots for Major Magic so he just kinda was the party’s mascot for the campaign. Even managed to be useful in a few fights up until we sent him to join my Rogue’s siblings and a former PC in our out-of-town safe house before going to book four.
I’m sure Trinya appreciated the company at the safe house.
Currently, my group has a clockwork baby snow owl, a flying cat, and a flying snake, as “pets” and familiar respectively. The familiar acts like a familiar, the pets… well, when danger strikes, they run, when nothing is happening they wander about the party being cute in the background unless someone mentions them, then they are cute right up front and center. We all love them and our bard tried to summon her own familiar and be even cuter!
She tried to summon a faerie dragon, the DM approved it… but because of character story, she got an imp instead. She was rightfully annoyed, and dismissed it immediately. It has since come back (it was invisibly stalking her for its master in hell) and tho initially pissed, she has come to accept it and it is kind of becoming the so ugly it’s cute friend of the party.
We may not trust it completely, but it sure is handy to have a creature with a mind of its own that can turn invisible at will! Also, it is growing on all of us!
Your imp story reminded me of the other time we mentioned cuteness on this comic:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/adorabolical
Your comment reminded me of one of the latest Starfinder critters from the recently released Alien Archives book, the Quyu!
Which is basically a Wolf-In-Sheep’s-Clothing mixed with The Thing, with extra mind-whammy powers to encourage you to pet it!
Warning: Unsettlingly creepy/gory bunny image in link below.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/717667920695656532/787448144521592872/Screenshot_2.png
Well then. That lives in my head now.
Fun fact, you can get one of those mouth-eyes as an augmentation! They’re as horrifying as they look.
One of the GMs in the pathfinder game I’m helping run is an amazing artist, and she has a few Leshy merchants she runs occasionally.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/710526949205868670/734497330191138876/snapleshy.png
Laurel’s professional opinion: “Ooooooh! That’s so cute!”
So, is this the land that imports all the cute (plus cheese & textiles) from the Village of Brie? What is the socio-political position of the quite Ratfolk/Ysoki village in regards to the royal court of the Pastel Palace? 😀
They’re in a trade war over the supply of whisker-warmers and other precious knitwear.
Grizzled, one-eyed Ysoki: “I was once like you, lad, a young, hopeful knitter, making cozy hats and earmuffs… Then came the Mitten War… Now, I can’t look at a pair of knitting needles without all the memories rushing back…”
I wonder if you can make knitwear from ysoki fiber….
Cruella would be proud.
My reaction when people make pastel colored cute things:
https://www.chapelcomic.com/28/
Cuteness like beauty is in the eye of the observer. So me liking H. R. Giger’s work make a good case of why people will not like what i consider cute. Yet even if it’s a nightmare made out of tendons and bone protrusions i will give love to that nightmarish little critter, and maybe be the only one that will love them as they are. So, i for one, would say that the cutest critter we found in a game was the one that made the rest of the group almost throw up after reading his description. The cute and marrowthirsty Olazabal’s Bonesucker 😀
Thou art a contrarian.
I like what i like. Also normal cuteness make me feel like my sugar level in blood increases :/
We adopted an awakened lizard in one game. I don’t think the DM realized how attached we were going to be to him.
What type of lizard? Also, how does it help on adventures?
This might be from a campaign I’m running, but given my players’ reactions I think it counts: ramumi.
Possibly-genetically-engineered (it’s been thousands of years) mice that come in a rainbow of colors. Some are bred as food animals, but the ones my crew encountered were bred to sing, to the point that their group noun is “choir”. (There is art out there of a choir trio of ramumi – one each red, green, and blue – putting on a performance.)
They will, every so often, sing random tunes (from an oral history their ancestors picked up from prior civilizations) at or to the PCs, making a perfect excuse when random boss music is needed. (It is possible they are mildly clairvoyant.) The results are similar to https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/192517230515322881/813974550735093790/64spbjibcaj61.png .
On their spaceship, the crew has elected to keep a few ramumi in the medbay to “experiment” on. Quite a few of the experiments are studying the reactions to specific varieties of cuddles, scritches, and diet. So far, the ramumi have yet to show any sign of distress.
Any inspiration from the Voltron mice?
Surprisingly, no. Then again, ramumis aren’t as smart as those mice. Ramumis can’t understand language.
I once was in a one-shot where we encountered fey corgis (using blink dog stats). Unfortunately, they were controlled by an evil faerie and we had to fight them, but as a group we decided they were too cute to kill and settled for incapacitating them.
Did you make them go for a very long walk? Best way I’ve found to incapacitate a corgi. No stamina those dogs….
I’ve been running the Strange Aeons adventure path and the PCs just encountered Hoshbagh, an otyugh ‘merchant’ in a ruined desert city. In large part because of the voice I did for Hoshbagh, and also the fact that she reads books by eating them, the whole party finds her adorable and wants to adopt her.
So uh… What kind of voice are we talking about?
Divines help me, why did this page remind me of THIS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsGYh8AacgY
I don’t know what Magus’s Kidney AC is, but she might have to calculate it in a minute.
Hands down the most memorably cute critter a character’s had in my campaigns was Lumpy the Tumor-Squirrel.
So Chalcey, my pathfinder alchemist, dumped Charisma much to nobodies surprise. I decided to play that as her having comically over-the-top social anxieties. Based on a combination of characters, she was supposed to be incredibly awkward, but my DM has the same terrible taste in anime that I do, and found her adorable. So I had to lean into some of the alchemy weirdness to make them shudder and cringe:
When she got wings, taking inspiration from One Piece, they were made of hands holding hands. They looked pretty from a distance, but, “getting close revealed that they were not a pink feathery substance, but instead made of flesh.” Bringing up ‘Flish wings’ to said friend still makes them cringe to this day.
When it came time to get a tumor familiar, I found a particularly off-putting picture someone had edited for the squirrel to not only be hairless, but VERY asymetrical: One bulging eye, teeth going at the wrong angle, a humped shoulder, the works! I posted it as the picture of my familiar… and with the exception of the DM, people IMMEDIATELY loved it! It became the way to do all the social fun things that Chalcey would attempt, fail at, and then sit rocking in a corner chugging weapons-grade coffee. He delivered potions to the rest of the party, gesticulated wildly to get attention pointed at things others had missed, and was generally the friendliest little abomination ever.
We joked that post-campaign, Chalcey would open up a shop, never leave the 2nd floor lab, and that all purchases would go through a squirrel with a board that he could point to with prices. Last I heard, my DM took the idea and has popped her into several other campaigns.
I suspect this character of having the same voice as Foamy the squirrel.
Would have been a fun reference! But nope, Lumpy was completely taciturn. And communication between Chalcey and him was nonverbal. I saw Lumpy as every little urge she’d ever had to break out of her shell, to join in the group’s fun, to share in the comradery, to feel like she belonged… Concentrated into one tumorous growth and forced out of her body to do as it pleased so she could go back to rocking in the corner and panic-bombing any creatures that got too close.
Hm. I think, based on player reaction, probably the Grumpy Old Man bonsai treant who talks in a Yiddish accent and does the constant-deprecations-but-sneaks-you-sap-candy thing. I don’t believe he was ever described physically beyond, “bonsai Treant. Really small. Really wrinkly. Really proud of his moss-beard.” but the voice and mannerisms really seemed to hit the party’s “cute” button.
Yiddish bonsai is an amusing mix of cultural influences.
And now I’m wondering if sap candy is actually a thing….
The idea came from seeing the decor at a kosher restaurant in Tokyo. There’s actually a fairly large Jewish presence in Japan, since the country took in a lot of Jewish refugees during WWII.
And sap candy is kind of a thing?
Depends on how official you want to get and how you define stuff.
When I was little we used to drizzle birch sap on shaved ice. The adults would store the sap for a bit and then drizzle it on shaved ice (it ferments quickly). And of course if you have the patience and the resources you can boil any of the sweeter saps down into syrup and make candy from the sap syrup.
Then, of course, there’s lots of saps that people use as vaguely sweet gum, which unlike the stuff you get commercially, eventually dissolves entirely and is wholly consumable. Is it gum or candy?
I think the cutest stuff in games I’ve been in have been things I myself introduced really. Whether it was my character themself or their pets. Of course now I’m signing up for a pokemon game with an eevee as a starter, so that automatically wins for me.
Is eevee the cutest Pokemon? Does it even have challengers?
It’s the secondary official mascot with their own game where they’re fully voiced/pettable (along with Pikachu), so competition is slim.
Otherwise, there’s Wooloo, who rolled into the internet with a massive surge of approval/memes.
https://www.glitched.online/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/wooloo-featured.jpg
I think my ekolid character Formicid falls into that ugly but cute category you mentioned
https://i.postimg.cc/yYDC1pV9/Placronym-Sized-and-Cropped.png
https://i.postimg.cc/2837S60c/Direct-Hit.png
https://i.postimg.cc/9Frk8k8r/Hot-Bodies-Sized.png
https://i.postimg.cc/kXBNPPdP/The-Coloring-Book-Out-of-Space-Touched-Up-Si.png
https://i.postimg.cc/VLdFWjZP/Heart-Eat-sharp-Red-small.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/fTJxYfV7/A-Glass-of-blood-B-Sized.png
Yup. That’s freaky cute.
I’d never heard of an ekolid but you’re right! That’s pretty cute!
They’re from Fiendish Codex 1: Hordes of the Abyss
Inquisitor should let Magus have this; she’ll play to her heart’s content until she gets tired, fall asleep and wake up refreshed and relaxed. So long as her teammates haul her far from Pastel Palace before she wakes up, she’ll be ready to get back to work.
And the offered promise to let her vacation at Pastel Palace with her pseudodragon friends again if she does a good job might keep her on-target for future missions.
The problem is hauling her away. Catfolk are notoriously difficult to carry. They basically turn into a liquid when you try to pick them up.
Sounds like the problem solves itself – put them in a barrel, pitcher, vase, bowl or other liquid receptacle.
Alternately, use plenty of silk rope. For reasons.
Solution: Tempt her with the bait of a tiny wheelbarrow and see if she falls for the “it fits? It sits!” trap. Then roll her off.
My favorite pathfinder character, a half-orc inquisitor, adopted a wyrmling black dragon. So smol he didn’t even have horns yet. Later on the party fighter/cleric ended up with a newly-hatched green dragon.
http://4everstatic.com/pictures/850xX/cartoons/dark-arts/black-dragon,-dungeons–dragons,-draconomicon-139405.jpg
https://iv1.lisimg.com/image/4964084/500full.jpg
Our current Descent Into Avernus group has adopted the maine coon tressem Slobberchops and are fiercely protective of our hollyphant friend Lulu.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/381888676784766976/731272932847779860/Untitled_1.png
The tabaxti rogue in our Waterdeep campaign was basically a larger version of the player’s pet cat.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eu7mlD8XcAMCq27?format=jpg&name=large
Oh man… I don’t know if I could RP my pet. I feel like Pratchett would be super judgemental about my subpar greyhound accent.
Almost forgot the paladin in our pathfinder game adopted one of these adorable critters and named him Scampi
https://d.furaffinity.net/art/fortuna/1555173117/1555173117.fortuna_common_dragonshrimp.png
I really want to know what that adorable adopted critter is, but I’m getting a “403 Forbidden” error trying to follow the link.
(And can I steal the name “Slobberchops”? Because that is perfect for the NPC Goblin Chef my group is running errands for right now, and there’s a limit to how long they’ll let me go without giving their questgivers names)
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/667596837531942912/815907164212035624/1555173117.png
Maybe that one will work?
I feel like it can learn hydro cannon.
Not quite the same but it reminded me of Snarlbear with its colorful aesthetic which admittedly differs from what you have suggested as it handles dark subject matter.
https://www.snarlbear.com/comic/chapter-one-cover
Well damn. That is colorful.
Help me out before I dive in: What can I look forward to with snarlbear?
I would say that the closest thing I have ever encountered to “cute” was when the resident antisocial druid of the party finally had their Awakened Pot convert a cactus into an awakened shrub (removing the fire vulnerability, and treating as if wearing spiked armor, provided it hasn’t taken fire damage since its last long rest)
It had an adorably innocent personality (think all the good things about Olaf, but less grating) triggered the druid’s maternal instincts hard, and had the rest of the party saddened at how difficult it was to hug the shrub without getting needled.
Several decided it was worth the damage.
To be honest I’d argue the Grick is pretty cute especially this one. I’d say so fat it’s the cutest thing I’ve encountered so far.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16912-grick
My first encounter with one of these creatures I was essentially playing a creature obsessed Cleric. I was able to actually tame the beastly cutie.
Heh. Reminds me of the time I befriened a behir.
“He’s a monster!”
“He’s just hungry! And he says his name is Kazzzat!”
“Zat!” agreed Kazzzat.