D&D: Five Mounts For Adventurers Who Are Smol But Mighty
Their size might be small, but their hearts are medium–and so are their mounts. Here are five special mounts for the small adventurers in your life.
Adventurers come in all shapes and sizes. And with recent leaks, it looks like they specifically come in two sizes, S and M. This stands for small and medium and absolutely nothing else. And when it comes to S and M, we all know, there are a lot of weird rules interactions you have to be mindful of.
For one, you can move through a creature whose size is two sizes larger than yours. In other words, if you’re small, you can pass through large or bigger creatures. If you’re a halfling you can duck through even a medium-sized creature’s square.
But one of the most interesting interactions is that small creatures can use medium sized creatures as mounts.
And now that Monsters of the Multiverse throws the doors wide open for creatures being able to be small OR medium, there’s gonna be a lot more smol heroes. That’s just how the internet works.
What does that mean? It means it’s time to think creatively about medium sized mounts. Let’s take a look at five excellent creatures to use as mounts on your poor, unsuspecting DM.
Kruthik
Start things off right with with a monster that comes complete with both a burrow and a climb speed, for maximum mobility. Sure, it’s normally a voracious, hive-minded creature that’s as interested in burrowing under a dungeon and feasting on whatever passes by as carrying you into battle–but that’s what Handle Animal is for, right?
And if you can tame one, you can take advantage of their Pack Tactics, giving your mount advantage on its attacks, both ranged and melee, which you don’t often get with a mount.
Blink Dog
Gnomes riding dogs is already canon. Mastiffs are great mounts, but why not go further and get yourself one that can teleport? The best boys are blink boys and everyone knows it. Now, can they teleport you with them? That all depends on whether your DM counts you as part of the “equipment they’re wearing or carrying.” Either way, they have advantage on perception checks and can appear to you suddenly, ready to go.
Perhaps you could convince your DM to let you teach them to teleport under you, leaving you saddled up and ready to br a Cavalier at a moment’s notice.
Ambush Drake
The ambush drake, out of House of the Dragon Queen, has an incredible name. But it’s also the perfect mount for a rogue, or anyone else stealthy who wants to scout ahead. Halfling assassin? You and your drake can creep into position and benefit from surprise attack.
Make your Beastmaster jealous with your ‘technically a dragon’ sneak pal.
Metal Wasp
Flying mounts are where it’s at. And these flying creatures, out of Dungeon of the Mad Mage, are perfect candidates if you can manage to wrest control of one. Not only do they have a 50ft. fly speed, but they also deliver a poison that, if it reduces a creature’s hit points to 0, doesn’t kill them, but leaves them paralyzed for an hour, even if they regain hp.
Useful, and you’re flying on a robot wasp. What more do you want?
Panther
Okay this one might seem a little more cliche by comparison. But imagine a society of gnomes or halflings that worked out a close relationship with panthers, and suddenly you get a different picture of their society.
It even works with kobolds. Panthers add a certain element of danger and the sense that you might see them being ridden into battle airbrushed on the side of a van that’s basically the epitome of D&D.
Bonus: Arkhan the Cruel
I’m not saying that you *would* convince Arkhan the Cruel to wear a battle platform and carry you into battle while wielding the hand of Vecna. Only that you potentially *could*.
