Animal Messenger: The Furrier Courier

Usable By: Bard, Druid, Ranger

Spell Level: 2

School: Enchantment

Casting Time: 1 action (ritual)

Range: 30 feet

Duration: 24 hours

Components: V, S, M (a morsel of food)

By means of this spell, you use an animal to deliver a message. Choose a Tiny beast you can see within range, such as a squirrel, a blue jay, or a bat. You specify a location, which you must have visited, and a recipient who matches a general description, such as “a man or woman dressed in the uniform of the town guard” or “a red-haired dwarf wearing a pointed hat.” You also speak a message of up to twenty-five words. The target beast travels for the duration of the spell toward the specified location, covering about 50 miles per 24 hours for a flying messenger, or 25 miles for other animals.

When the messenger arrives, it delivers your message to the creature that you described, replicating the sound of your voice. The messenger speaks only to a creature matching the description you gave. If the messenger doesn’t reach its destination before the spell ends, the message is lost, and the beast makes its way back to where you cast this spell.

At Higher Levels. If you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3nd level or higher, the duration of the spell increases by 48 hours for each slot level above 2nd.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

“Bridget, Bridget, come swiftly my dear betrothed! Your father hath sent news of the campaign in the east reaches by way of dove! In less than a day’s time we shall be under siege as diplomacy has broken down over the northern territories! We must alert the council, and prepare for war!”

This scene is where Animal Messenger shines brightest. If your table isn’t really in the mood for geopolitical tactics and grand scope campaigning within 5th edition, this spell may just be the worst spell in the game. Even in circumstances where you ARE playing the long term scouting, espionage, and diplomacy game, I guarantee you carrier pigeons, teleportation magic, or any other assortment of tools will do you better than Animal Messenger.

It may seem simple enough to use, and you may think there could be some useful situations where you’d want to prepare this for! What if you need to send word back to town to get the guards while you delve into the sewer lair? How else can you contact nearby aid in times of crisis? The reality of role playing games like this is your DM is creating encounters where help isn’t required, or when it is, they have means of you getting in touch with them. You’re going into fights with the intention of being the only intervening force the vast majority of the time. Having then a tool to contact others isn’t particularly useful, even as a ritual.

Speaking of, as a ritual, you get a fun little mini-game of wrangling a wild tiny creature sometimes if you’re trying to use a squirrel or sparrow to carry your message. While the scene of four adventurer’s frantically trying to catch said tiny creature is undoubtedly delightful, at the end of it you get an effect that you could basically just handle with a familiar. This makes it so the ritual effect isn’t even that useful, as every time you still need to capture some loose nearby critter, and if there isn’t one, you’re shit out of luck.

Making matters worse, that critter has to both arrive at the specified location within a relatively short distance, and must do so alive. Natural predators in the area watching a single animal beeline for a humanoid territory isn’t long for this world. Even should it arrive, if your instructions were remotely vague, the message could be delivered to the wrong person and functionally be useless.

The final nail in the coffin for this spell to me is its limitations based on places you’ve already been. Whatever uses you’d like to find with it, the spell goes out of its way to make it harder to function. If you’re instructed to go defend an encampment or settlement you’ve never been to and need to send a warning ahead of you, this spell doesn’t have text, and that is one of the rare situations where this kind of effect could actually matter.

Animal Messenger is atrocious in 5th edition, hurt predominately by the shift in play, but also by the compounding barriers that make even the best use cases for this bad. Mundane societies across the globe throughout history have come up with way more effective communication tools than this, and we’re playing in the realm of fantasy where teleportation and divination magic exist. You don’t need Animal Messenger, and probably are better off forgetting it exists.

5e Spells

Animal Messenger: The Furrier Courier