Are you looking for a solution to add a slight difficulty bump to your fights to challenge your min-maxers? Or are you looking for a party mascot that does more than whittle the enemy down slowly and take up the Cleric’s spell slots? The Goblin Rallyer is a good choice for both. This monster started as a challenge to design a non-spellcasting support monster without ripping off the inspiration mechanic and a gift to my players after solving some tricky puzzles. As an enemy though, it can increase a monster’s difficulty while being an easy target to kill. It can even be useful to high level monsters who keep the Goblin Rallyer around against the creature’s will – though they need to be protective of their squishy buddy.

Sorovian Lore: Groblin the Goblin, fanatic of the party and one time barkeep was a Goblin Rallyer. Conscripted to the Hobgoblin army, he was freed by the party after they defeated his commanding officer.

This piece of homebrew is a bit strange. It’s my way to explain a magic item I gave to my players for loyalty to their guild. They are able to summon a messenger by speaking a command word to a ring. This provides game rules if a player ever wanted to do the same thing and a foundation for how the magic actually works.

Sorovian Lore: Each party member received a magic ring with a similar infusion from the Hapzard Adventuring Guild after reaching high enough renown.

This item arose as an alternative to sidekicks to give players more control over their NPC companions. You could easily swap out the occupant of the bag with a small sized monster that wants to accompany the party (or the party has forced to become its mascot). Because the user must use a bonus action, this item can be less powerful than sidekicks. However, it is a good option for spellcasters who lack proficiencies with weapons.

Sorovian Lore: Joff the Deep Gnome created a bag for himself and Groblin to be carried around by the party.

I created this stat block to add some flavor to the somewhat boring and overlooked deep gnomes. The Tinkerer may have some rock gnome blood running in them since they display a similar love for machinery. They are isolated loners, shunned by the rest of deep gnome society, neglecting their usual innate magical abilities to focus on creating fantastic devices. These Tinkerers often leave the underdark to search for new opportunities, or bend bands of their brethren to their will.

While they add a flavor of comedy, they can also be used to spice up a low level encounter. Their actions leave the weaker party members exposed to potentially being temporarily removed from combat and a Tinkerer uses their intelligence to seek these defenseless creatures out. Fighting from the back lines, they use their ranged attacks to their advantage, knocking those prone who come too close.

Sorovian Lore: Originally, I used this stat block for a quirky inventor named Joff who could help the party with some strange inventions. His most proud of these inventions is his chair Living alone in the underdark, he had never before seen a chair and thought he was the first to think it up. He first met the party in Groblin the Goblin’s Tavern and joined them since he had nothing better to do.

Have you ever had a kleptomaniac in the party who takes grotesque trophies from their fallen enemies? I do, and when our table’s klepto removed the face from what he thought was a witch, I decided to put a twist to it. Our klepto went a step further by attempting to turn the mask into a deep sea breathing apparatus, attaching a hose to the mouth. It didn’t work, and the second time the player tried to use it (this time in battle), they were forced to make a saving throw, which they failed. Suddenly, they didn’t have control of their character and chaos broke loose as the party was forced to face threats from within their own ranks as well as without.