Wandering Wednesday: Pretty Bear, Pretty Bear

Greetings, fellow fur babies! Let’s wander into Wednesday with a new Wilderness Trek monster for our free random table. Just ask before you try to pet one of these new STLs.

Like many of our 3D-printed Wandering Monster entries, we sliced this STL before we knew exactly how we’d use it in our DnD campaign. To us, that is the sign of a great creator. A sculpt is so good that you print first and ask game questions later. 😉

Combining two unlikely animal species into one new monster is a pretty popular creative tactic these days. Other marvelous makers like the mighty Schlossbauer and the marvelous mz4250 are notorious for these sorta 3D prints. And best of all, a lot of their insane libraries are free.

Welp, today’s creator is no different, and we really enjoy this clever dude’s work. That’s where Toadstool Weaver comes in to play here. He has such a great eye for DnD, and his files are nice and meaty. You’ll have very few worries of fragile, thin pieces snapping during the de-plating and painting processes. Today’s featured STL is a monster he calls the Parrot Bear. He’s a free download, but of course, tips are always encouraged.

With resident painter Kimmy Utah fast at work on a fresh batch of 3D prints, ol’ DM Ben was pressed into service to color these confusing cuddly creatures up and onto our DnD game table. He found a paint scheme suggestion online and wondered how it would look on some fresh furry resin prints. So…perfect timing.

• Prime Flat Black | Grey drybrush
• Fur Base P1: Layer on FAN Monster Brown + Strong Tone Wash.
• Fur Base P2: Blend with ASP Dark Wood in shadow, backside areas.
• Ears: FAN Paratrooper Tan + White + Soft Tone Wash.
• Beak: ASP Gravelord Grey.
• Eyes: Black with FAN Lava Orange.
• Claws: ASP Grim Black.
• Chest: Very soft white drybrush.

FAN Monster Brown with a Strong Tone wash is a fantastic combo. Give that a try on a cape. You’ll love it. We tried it on a couple other minis and will show you how it looks in a future post.

As we said, these snappy creatures are nice and sturdy, and honestly, they don’t even need a base underneath ’em. DM Ben sees a forest as their natural habitat and wanted to try a woodsy base underneath one just for fun. We dig it, but alas, we were shockingly out of 1×2 d20 square bases, so we had to order some off AliExpress before we could finish the rest of ’em off. We’re also tempted to do one of their beaks in red or at least do a few subtle dark red streaks, but we’re still mulling that effect over.

DM Ben is all about monster squads or packs of creatures, and by default, we typically run off five of any Wandering Monster in groups of five. We just forgot to do the fifth one here, is all. Here’s an amusing shot of them from behind. We did try the tale in white, but it was way too strong and overpowered the model.

In terms of DnD 5e stats:

• AC: 13 (natural armor) | HP: 42 | Spd: 40 ft., climb 30 ft.
• STR: 16 | DEX: 12 | CON: 16 | INT: 3 | WIS: 12 | CHA: 9
• CR 2 | Perception +3 with Keen Smell/Sight (advantage).
• Pack Tactics: Adv on attacks if within 5 ft of an ally.
• Mimic Cry: Fake a humanoid crying | DC 11 Insight Check.
• Multi-att: Beak: +5/1d10+3 | Claws: +6/2d6+3 slashing.

Our Parrot Bears also have nifty Squawk (Recharge 5–6), which emits a piercing, tropical screech. The Range is 15 ft, and players can do a DC 13 CON save or be deafened/frightened until the end of its next turn.

Now all that’s left to do is update our table and add yet another nifty on-decker for all your DnD roaming monster needs.

Until next time!