Companion quest
-
A quest either solo or for groups, which is very difficult, and designed for druid/ranger. The quest is you get fuggin' high as shit and go on a spirit quest and face challenges from different animal totems and stuff, and in the end get a loot token for ranger/druid (and other stuff as normal quest loot for the rest of the party) which you can exchange for a custom companion with a DM. They can then design a companion that fits the theme of the character, and appropriately scaled between rangers and druids. Options other than bears, yay!
Vermin druid? Grab you a spider companion!
Elemental worshipper? Cool here is an elemental or elemental magical beast relevant to your element.
Ranger who just really likes birds? How about a young roc or a giant eagle or something.
Nanthleenee? Ok here is a little treant and some headpats.
Would need to be a dialogue inside of the quest from a shrine that checks your class so that only rangers/druids can access that portion of it though and checks if you already have a custom companion by seeing if you possess that token, that way it isn't done by non druids/rangers who just end up trading the item or you do it and get extra tokens to trade out. Or just make the tokens non-tradeable so if you do complete this challenging quest and have multiple tokens you can use one to heal/revive your companion if it 'dies'. This gives some replayability, and means you can actually use said companion and don't have to squirrel it away for fear of an ant getting a crit and killing it forever. Yea you'll want to keep it alive and take good care of it, but shit happens. This is a videogame still and if shit happens it's not the end of the world if it dies. Just a big inconvenience to overcome so you can heal/revive it.
Alternatively this token can be a placeholder and taken by a DM when the companion is made, and replaced with a calling stone with a special power (maybe 1/day) that summons a henchman with the tag of the creature created to be their companion. Bypass the normal summoning/taming system to produce the reusable custom companion.
-
Could do a wizard/sorc version too. Obviously not as combat-centric as druid/ranger companions, but could give them alternate exotic familiars if they do some haunted library thing.
Flying spellbook that casts a bunch of ray spells and stuff maybe? Like some zappy rays and unlimited ray of frost. Or Spellbook of (School) which casts signature spells of that school then defaults to its cantrip.
More magical animals. Do you like your bat familiar? How about a... vampire bat familiar! Le-gasp. I dunno I think maybe just a Spellbook of (school) is probably the best way and the spellcaster just selects which one they want from a dialogue while reading a book in the quest and bam there you go. This is much easier to do than companions since it doesn't need to be as versatile, and when a familiar dies it doesn't die for good. Gives a comparable splash of prestige for higher level spellcasters who undertake this difficult test and come out with a special spellbook. Something that newer apprentices can strive to achieve as well and then flaunt in front of as a sign of accomplishment.
There is a quest where a knee-high child accidentally animated a ton of murderous books, so something simple like this for a studied mage should be no problem at all to do.
-
I can work on a druid quest of this nature, yes.
As for the familiar one, sadly- it isn't possible at this time.
