Giving my party unusual mounts

[Lord Il Palazzo]

The party I DM for has recently moved from a seafaring portion of the game to a more land-based one. Since the party seems likely to have a decent amount of overland travel ahead of them, I've got the thought that it would be cool to give the party some kind of unique mounts to cut down on some of the travel time and just generally give them something cool to play with. I have a couple of ideas, but I'm kind of shopping around for suggestions too.

Anyone have any experience, either as a player or DM with cool or unusual mounts? I'm leaning toward something ground-based since flying mounts feel more like something I'd want to be a specific reward or quest goal and thinking I might build them into some kind of magic item (like Figurines of Wondrous Power or the Feather of Diatryma Summoning out of Dragon Heist) for a bit more flexibility and maybe wow-factor but I'm not completely set on that idea.

[ImproperJustice]

Mounts are often plot devices and kind of a cool “ribbon”. I bet your group will have fun with aome unique mounts.


Had a Troll PC in a Palladium game ages ago who rode a giant furry beast that was a cross between a mole and a crocodile. It was dumber than a box of hammers, and had to be guided by striking it on the side of the head. It was worthless in battle as it would stop to eat the first fallen foe.
The group thought it was fine.

By contrast, one Druid PC had an awakened horse, another a dog, an Earth Elementlalist that flew an iron Golem Butterfly, and a fairy that rode a War Sparrow.

Good times for all.

[nickl_2000]

I was about to awaken a Mammoth that I had made friends with in Rise of the Runelords converted to 5e. The DM put a kibosh on it since it was going to be to much of a pain to deal with. He did give a good story reason though.

I did awaken another PCs prized warhorse though, and I have awakened a Polymorphed PC (Staff of the Woodlands). Oddly enough, while he was polymorphed and awakened he was more intelligent than in his normal form.

[Unoriginal]

Hippogriffs are an often overlooked element of 5e. They're relatively weak but useful and flying mounts that can make things interesting for NPCs and PCs alike.

[Zanthy1]

Non-flying mounts that are not horses:

Riding dogs (for smaller PCs)
Dire Wolves (or any Dire animal for that matter)
Mammoths
Dinosaurs like a raptor or triceratops
Rhino
Giant Spider (has a nice climb speed and can shoot webs)
Making a clockwork critter can always be interesting