Brownie Beastrider

Family: Brownie

Tiny fey, neutral good

Armor Class 15
Hit Points 54 (12d4 + 24)
Speed 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
4 (–3) 20 (+5) 14 (+2) 10 (+0) 14 (+2) 12 (+1)

Saving Throws Cha +3
Skills Nature +2, Perception +4, Stealth +7
Senses passive Perception 14
Languages Common, Sylvan
Challenge 3 (700 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +2

SPECIAL TRAITS

  • Magic Resistance. The brownie has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
  • Mounted Warrior. While mounted, the brownie’s mount can’t be charmed or frightened.
  • Speak with Beasts. The brownie can communicate with Beasts as if they shared a language.

ACTIONS

  • Multiattack. The brownie makes two Branch Spear attacks, or it makes one Branch Spear attack and its mount makes one melee weapon attack.
  • Branch Spear. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d4 + 5) piercing damage.
  • Domestic Magic. The brownie can cast the mending and prestidigitation cantrips at will, requiring no material components and using Wisdom as the spellcasting ability.
  • Invisibility. The brownie magically turns invisible until it attacks, uses Domestic Magic, or Beasts of the Forest, or until its concentration ends (as if concentrating on a spell). Any equipment the brownie wears or carries is invisible with it.
  • Beasts of the Forest (1/Day). The brownie magically calls 2d4 hawks or ravens, or it calls 1 black bear or wolf. The called creatures arrive in 1d4 rounds, acting as allies of the brownie and obeying its spoken commands. The Beasts remain for 1 hour, until the brownie dies, or until the brownie dismisses them as a bonus action.

ABOUT

Hidden Wonders. Brownie mystics are elders who have defeated great creatures and secured their forests from marauding ogres, rapacious drakes, or similarly dangerous foes. These brownies discovered old fey magics and gained the respect of not only other brownies, but dryads, satyrs, and pixies. They’re more likely to be invited to serve at a fey court, but they rarely accept the invitations, preferring to protect their homes and their kin. They work toward improving relations with mortal communities, growing the brownie population, and keeping the land free of cruel and bloodthirsty beasts.

A tiny humanoid with pointed ears darts from the cover of the underbrush. A helmet made from an acorn protects its head, and it wields a sharpened branch as a spear.

Brownies look like miniature humans with slightly elven features, sporting acorn helms, and clothed in leaves, mosses, animal skins, or even occasionally doll clothing.

Bucolic Fey. Brownies are the wee folk of the forest and its remote, secluded villages. They always carry spears made from fallen branches, but some have acquired blades, either by earning them as boons or stealing them when found unattended. Rarely, they serve fey courts, though most noble fey find them to be too rustic for palace intrigues, or too uncultured to join their retinues. Brownies, if associated with fey nobles, often serve as gamekeepers, hunters, or keepers of the hounds. They don’t fear iron, unlike many other fey, and are all too happy to steal from mortals who irritate them. In mortal communities, they regularly become the source of wild rumors of haunted locations or structures. In truth, such places have usually simply gained a brownie or two as residents.

Helpful Pranksters. Brownies strongly dislike alps and morkos, thinking them both to be outsized louts and miserable killjoys. With proper bribes or very effective verbal manipulation, brownies can be lured into communities suffering from these fey and attempt to drive them out. Such conflicts can escalate quickly, however, as neither side really considers the collateral damage to the homes and property of the mortals they’re fighting among.

Brownies tend to fear hags and alas, who find the tiny brownies to be a prized delicacy. When an ala or hag is in an area, brownies will band together to chase off the creature (or ask a mortal adventurer to do it). Brownies are tricksy and love a good prank; however, they never allow a prank to do permanent harm, unless the target of their shenanigans responds with violence. They can appreciate when a mortal attempts to outwit them, respecting such attempts.

Household Benefactor. Occasionally, a brownie adopts a residence and its people, living among the rafters, beneath the stairs, or even in a cozy crawlspace. The brownie coexists with the family while performing small tasks, like cleaning or repairing objects in exchange for gifts of bread, milk, honey, or even small trinkets or handkerchiefs. Brownies dislike braggarts, however, and any mortal who boasts about having a brownie living in their home soon finds they’ve been abandoned.

Woodland Guardian. Brownie beastriders serve as champions among the brownies in the area, leading warbands as the vanguard against creatures they wish to drive away. Their ability to rally local wildlife to their cause and summon up fey reinforcements makes them an asset to the brownie communities they call home.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Tome of Beasts 3 © 2022 Open Design LLC; Authors: Eytan Bernstein, Celeste Conowitch, Benjamin L. Eastman, Robert Fairbanks, Scott Gable, Basheer Ghouse, Richard Green, Jeremy Hochhalter, Jeff Lee, Christopher Lockey, Sarah Madsen, Ben Mcfarland, Jonathan Miley, Kelly Pawlik, Sebastian Rombach, Chelsea Steverson, Brian Suskind, Mike Welham

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