In my many years of running these games, several peculiar patterns have emerged. One is a certain fondness some Players seem to demonstrate for acquiring “Pets.” Whether it’s the Ranger with their loyal Animal Companion, a Paladin's peerless Mount, the Witch with their fantastic Familiar, or even the well-trained “key-retrieving” Rodent, some Players just can’t seem to get enough of obtaining a mini-menagerie to accompany them on their Adventures.
Like Horses and Mules, I tend to like to make these Animals Memorable, and by far one of the most frequent of these are Canines. Dangling the prospect of Dogs in front of Players nearly always gets a taker, and some more canny ones even like to acquire them in advance of Adventure (they even show up in some Hireling Generators like this one). So, in order to have an appropriately interesting Kennel to cull from, I decided to put together a table of Hundred Hounds to ensure that I had plenty of inspiration for a distinguishing feature or so.
At some point down the road, I might go into more detail with how I handle these Pets in my games. For Dogs, it’s usually a question of Training (Watchdog, Hunting, Tracking, War, Service, Herding/Harrying, and Work types are all some options that have come up before). These tend to dictate some of the capabilities an acquired canine might possess or be able to learn via Downtime gold expenditure and Time with an Animal Trainer Specialist. Much like how I handle Henchmen/Hirelings, they aren’t automatons to be ordered about generally, and I’m not terribly fond of them turning into just another series of Combat Rolls either.
But this can wait for another time, for now hopefully this list of 100 Compelling Canines will at least provide some inspiration for making those Mutts more Memorable in your games:
Brilliant!
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