Tony the Anteater
A live anteater the size of a fat house-cat, sold "in a vial" (a comedy giant bottle, like a ship-in-a-bottle) by the Ponterford druid Horibus as the third of his "antitoxin, antivenom, anteater" upsell. Poured out, shaken awake, and named by Thalia for the first sound he made — "Tony!" — he is a faithful party pet who hunts ants single-mindedly, ignores everything that isn't an ant, and whips non-ants (including Renforth) with his long tongue. A purely comic companion, brandishable "to scare ants away."
Session 38 (debut)
- Bought from Horibus (10 gold) and named by Thalia; immediately begins eating ants and resenting anything left on the ground that isn't one.
- A second anteater — Tammy — is bought by Warmaiden Yngraf, who "got roped into the bet," and travels with her. (She is not eaten by Salamandine: that was a joke made before she was bought, and the party counts "+2 anteaters" on the way out of town.)
- Carried along on the Guardian hunt; thrives in the ant-rich wild, and stands up — uselessly — when Thalia asks "someone who has the answer, please stand up."
Session 55 (absent, and thought of)
- Left in the village for safety, and therefore not present when the campaign finally produced a target worthy of him: the Morkid sprayed a cone of rat-sized glowing ants at Jex, who reached for Tony by name — "we'll take care of that in a second with Anthony" — and found he wasn't there. Thalia's explanation for the absence: "He's earning his first level in wizard right now."
- A jar of ants, saved for him. Thalia out-grappled the swarm (Athletics 16 against their 5) to fill a jar with glowing ants specifically as a present. She let them go afterwards; the jar was the point.
- Why the village has no ants. The GM's aside, with the party fifty miles away: "Tony is learning that there are no ants in the village — and now you've learned the reason why."
- The party's plan for the Ant Scepter looted off the Morkid is, in its entirety, to point it at buildings and feed him.