Ideas for Creature Follower for Players

[Aemon]

So as I have been writing my campaign ideas down, I thought of something I'd like to add in for the players. I would like them to have a little follower/companion type thing. I don't want this to be a combat follower or a DM PC (I have a beastmaster ranger and a moon druid, so I don't want to take anything away from them), but just something to add some flavor to the campaign. Kinda something that the players keep in their backpack or pouch or something.

The creature would be found inside of a murdered wizard's tower during a murder mystery type set-up for the PCs. The real purpose of the follower will be to help open portals between planes much later on in the campaign (wanted something fun instead of just an artifact that opened the portals), but I wanted to give them either a strange characteristic or utility type ability for fun, but not anything at all unbalanced.

My too ideas so far are a Celestial Door Mouse that sorta worked like a mouse version of a lantern archon. Maybe it can glow when the party needs some light or is near undead, or something like that. The other would be a very tiny Clockwork Golem. Perhaps this could aid the wizard in scribing spells a bit faster or something.

Wondering what you all think of the idea. Is it dumb? Fun? Unbalanced? Interesting? Are there some neat ideas for follower types or special abilities that you would recommend?

Thanks for the ideas!

[Easy_Lee]

Pygmy gelatinous cube named Cubert created when the wizard tried to give intelligence to an ooze.

[mgshamster]

I'm very fond of Goober's NPC Companion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?459858-NPC-Companion-System-Idea) system. In fact, I used it in my Out of the Abyss campaign and it worked really well.

[Marvnmartian]

Could easily go the Tinkerbell route and have it be a severely injured pixie who was apart of the wizards experiment, and as the players go through their adventures the pixie could heal or find new abilities about themselves from the magical experimentation.

Then one night when you are planning on starting the whole plane hopping shenanagins have when the players fall asleep wake up with a pixie freaking out and them all be in a different plane (feywild would be my first jump for a party imo) and have the party figure out slowly that they wern't transported there by some one looking to do them harm just have it be their pixie friend having a nightmare from their time home in the feywild. and poof the party near their old village.

how I would do this situation anyway

[Hyde]

Sentient alcoholic cockroach

[Kuulvheysoon]

A pseudodragon could be a neat companion.

[EternalPrime]

a totally mundane human butler/chamber maid who only exists on the other side of a looking glass.

[Hyde]

a totally mundane human butler/chamber maid who only exists on the other side of a looking glass.

I really rather like this. Perhaps not for this, but definitely in general.

[Aemon]

Thanks for all these ideas! Totally love the idea of a butler through the looking glass, and I would have never thought of a mini gelatinous cube. Cubert would be perfect for that!

Not 100% sure what I will go with, but I have lots of ideas now, and I like the idea of the NPC companion system as well. May add in some elements of that.

Thanks all!