The Print Says Moo

It’s a little known fact that animals make excellent “scatter terrain” in DnD, so let’s highlight a darling heifer to get your creative juices flowing!

DM Ben is from America’s Dairyland, so he was especially giddy about featuring a 3D-printed cow for your RPG campaign. Some lumbering livestock deserve a spot on your gameboard, and we think we found a slick set for your printer.

STL Miniatures, a fav here at 3DRPG, has a fun Farm Animals set with all sorts of colorful creatures, but one lounging cow, in particular, leapt off the screen! It had that perfect pose that DM Ben had seen a hundred times over as he drove by countless farms in WI back in the day. Isn’t cool when a miniature sparks a fond childhood memory like that?!

STL Miniatures’ farm animal set includes three cows, and we’ll undoubtedly print all of them, but today, we’ll share the one on a break. Feel free to insert your own “we need more cowbell” joke here. 😉

Resident painter Kimmy Utah gave us a delightful color job. The skin looks so perfect that it seems like only a matter of time til some greedy goblins sneak on your property, so they whip up some leather armor for their soldiers.

We got a little crazy with our resin dryer and inadvertently cracked this cuddly cattle’s broadside. To salvage our print, we just grabbed a little of AKI’s Muddy Ground terrain effects material and pushed it around the miniature. Cows aren’t exactly winning any tidiness awards, so this tweak did the trick!

So, how might you use this marvelous mini in your DnD game, you ask?

• Ambiance: can’t a cow “just be” sometimes?
• Hired Guard Duty: protect the king’s royal dairy.
• Return to Sender: retrieve the stolen cattle!
• Holy Heifer: go the religious route.
• Magic Moo: produces a rare spell component.
• Cattle Curse: reverse witchcraft on once proud warrior.

Look at all those tasty ideas grazing there for the taking!

DM Ben likes the idea of Waterdeep’s Omin Dran posting a job board notice that the royal dairy has come under attack recently, and a group of no-nonsense adventurers is needed to end the threat. Payday will include a nice bag of coin and even a couple of prized dairy cows for their own homestead (as a way to insert this mini into the ongoing storyline).

In this spotted one-shot, several natural enemies come to mind: orcs, goblins, gnolls, a troll, an Ankheg, or a Bulette are fun choices here! Large 15-foot wide holes suddenly filling the area’s once beautifully lush fields is a great storytelling visual so that’s going to be our angle here.

Those mysterious holes are the work of several Ankhegs (AC 14, HP 39, +5/2d6+3) or one big thumper opponent like a Bulette (AC 17, HP 94, +7/4d12+4). DM Ben occasionally sprinkles in a really tough monster to remind the players what a dangerous realm they’re in, so he’s leaning towards the Bulette for his fourth-level party of six (which would be medium CR).

A SEAL Team Six squad of Gnolls trying to slip in under the cover of darkness to tip over a few coins and wander off with them would also be really fun, so he’s not sure which narrative and miniatures he’ll ultimately go with here. Sometimes, the DM needs to pick the scenario that best fits his or her creative mood on game day.

Pretty fun, right?! Get more of those animal miniatures into your game! Now all that’s left to do is tell us…what does your cow say? 😉