You’ve heard the stories of D&D campaigns in which the heroes adopt wolves, baby dragons and even little goblins. A trope that rarely occurs?
No matter, EN Publishing’s Pets & Sidekicks, which includes crabs and demons, has utterly devastated crowdfunding targets with hundreds of backers. Trope or not, people want it. You’ve until August 7 to back the Kickstarter.
The headline pitch from Morrus’ EN World team does not lean into the fact that this 5e supplement can also be used for nemesis. The idea is that your sidekicks can level up with you but so can the villains the PCs encounter (or create) to become a recurring thorn in their sides.
Backers are offered the chance to enrich their campaign with companions, allies, and villains that advance with the game’s characters, alongside evolving powers like Wildshape for long-term viability. As a bonus, these mechanics are designed for D&D 5E, Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, and similar 5E-based systems like Tales of the Valiant.
Pets & Sidekicks provides a comprehensive toolkit for integrating companions into your roleplaying games. It includes new character options such as a background, feats, and subclasses, alongside extensive customisation through pet tricks, heroic features, specialised equipment, and magic items. DMs will also discover over 170 stat blocks for heroic companions, from animal allies like bears and sharks to monstrous friends like owlbears and pseudodragons, complete with rules for their progression, loyalty, and motivations.
We also present tons of new companions! From animals like bears, dogs, beetles, lizards, raptors, sharks, and spiders to monsters like flumphs, pseudodragons, spirits, and owlbears, and allies including adepts, wizards, knights, goblin rogues, and kobold sorcerers, the variety is endless!
Backers at the £19 tier (Raven) get the PDF and VTT assets for Pets & Sidekicks.
At £40 (Eagle), backers get three PDFs: Pets & Sidekicks, Monstrous Menagerie and Monstrous Menagerie 2.
The EN World suggested tier is £55, and that gets the hardcover of Pets & Sidekicks, plus the PDF and VTT tokens.
Those backers who can step up to £75 get the limited edition of Pets & Sidekicks, which is a faux leather book with embossed gold detailing. That also comes with the digital assets.
At £130 (and I’ve forgotten to repeat the tier names – this is Owlbear) there are hardbacks for Pets & Sidekicks, Monstrous Menagerie and Monstrous Menagerie 2 and digital assets for the first.
There are higher tiers at £175 for more Level Up: Advanced 5e books, £210 for some of those to come as physical books and £500 for the set to arrive in paper.
Estimated delivery ranges from September 25 to January 26, depending on the format.
