I need help coming up with challenges set by mystical animals for the player characters. Basically in my world there are a handful of ancient, mystical beasts that the players must befriend to enlist their aid. I want to tailor each beast to specific classes. But I'm still in the planning stages so I'm trying to plan for all classes. I do not want the players to use magic. This is supposed to be more of skill and tool challenges. And these ancient beasts are very mistrustful of magic. The beasts are not magical, but they are faster, stronger, or just better than other non ancient beasts. So far I have:

Artificer- Beaver challenges them to a building contest. Either both build a small river dam, or the player builds something else of similar size and complexity.

Bard- Mockingbird challenges them to a contest of calls and songs. I might make this a series of musical instrument, singing, or performance checks going up higher in difficulty.

Barbarian or Fighter- Boar challenges them to a fight with no weapons. If the player can pin the boar down they win. But this boar is very tough.

Ranger- I thought of some sort of tracking contest. But I'm not sure what exactly and what they'd be tracking. And I don't know what beast. Maybe wolf.

Any other suggestions would be very helpful. And mechanical help with the challenges would be nice too.

What values do these beasts hold? What aid would they be able to offer, and why would the players want it?

If you are aiming for skill-based challenges, might I recommend skill-based beasts rather than class based?

• Acrobatics: a monkey or gibbon, or perhaps a Ferret.
• Animal Handling: Unsure on this one!
• Arcana: a Fantastical beast, such as an elder familiar, or a unicorn?
• Athletics: Wolf (100 miles per day, and very powerful. Cheetahs are sprinters.), or Horse.
• Deception: a Chameleon, mimic octopus, or another camoflage creature. If fantasy, perhaps a Roper?
• History: Elephant, naturally. Or an arctic whale, they live so, so long.
• Insight: Something peaceful and wise, like a white elk.
• Intimidation: Rattlesnake
• Investigation: Unsure on this one
• Medicine: Again, not certain here. Maybe Bees, as Honey is very medicinal, depending on the flowers they use, so they're basically alchemists.
• Nature: Not certain here either
• Perception: Mantis Shrimp (they see everything.)
• Performance: Mockingbird
• Persuasion: Puppy.
• Religeon: Cow?
• Sleight of Hand: Monkey
• Stealth: Panther, or Owl (silent flight)
• Survival: Honey Badger (the things are basically unkillable)

Then you can prepare a skill challenge for each of them, to prove yourself worthy. This is where we're back to the question of why. Why would the ancient wolf care if you can run faster than it? Proving yourself is one thing, but perhaps it needs to be a challenge based on the creature's needs. Maybe the Wolf will bid you catch a deer every hour for two days, to show your tracking, commitment, endurance, and skill. Perhaps the Monkey will ask you for a dozen things stolen in a day from the pockets of the guards in the town. Maybe the Honey Badger will send them into an ancient tomb of traps which could kill them, to prove that they can survive being hit. The Insight Elk might ask them to bring them someone who would be happy to see them, but would not covet their antlers. The Puppy might simply challenge them to take their favourite toy. Rattlesnake might be a staring contest, or they might challenge them to drive a bear from a cave without harming it. Acrobatics may be to cross the forst without touching the floor (overland travel, difficult terrain, and you can throw in some tough encounters for added difficulty), or to pick the fruit from a tree which grows on a pillar in a basin of water, and the water is death.

I encourage you to consider what the beasts want, now that you have the cool idea - it's the difference between building around something and shoehorning it in!

Story wise, these beasts will help to patrol an open rift to the Feywild and keep the number of Unseelie and worse fey coming through. Up to this point, the beasts are just a completely neutral force of nature, not caring if invading fey are causing chaos or not.

Each player character that succeeds on these will receive a permanent buff, a custom feat I'm going to be making. I haven't put a whole lot of thought into these yet, but they won't be anything game breaking. They will each fit the theme of the beast. And not all of these beasts' aid are required to beat the game.

The way I have pictured it so far is that any player can attempt these challenges, but only one. It will be strongly hinted at who will be good at what though.

And those beast suggestions do give me some inspiration so thank you. Although I think some are odd choices lol.

for the tracking, you're tracking an octopus(stupid camouflage) through a coral reef and the beast is a Shark

for the barb/fighter i might go with either a mantis shrimp(they can punch through aquarium glass) or some kind of giant insect(covered in armor, most of them can fly)

for the persuasion thing, I would do the cuocuo bird.(they lay their eggs in other birds nests, then the chick pushes the other chicks out of the nest so the mother bird only feeds the cuocuo chick)

Wizard: A ancient owl asks them for a lesson. They must teach it something it does not already know.

Rogue: A monkey/cat/magpie gives them a pickpocketing challenge. They must find something and steal it. 

Monk: An orangutan challenges them to a fight with no weapons. I know you wanted a fight with no weapons for the Barbarian or Fighter but unarmed combat is really the Monk's thing.

Fighter: This could be the one where they have to fight the boar. The boar is not unarmed, it has tusks, so it challenges the to become one with their weapon.

Barbarian: A bear is on a wrathful rampage and they must stop it before it destroys an entire town.

Druid: A frog/moth challenges them to change according to a situation. This one is hard, but maybe its theme is metamorphosis. Or it could be a great elk who challenges them to guard a natural habitat from some threat. 

Warlock: Maybe a rattlesnake or a fox comes and makes a deal with them.

Cleric: An elephant maybe? I don't know about this one. 

Cleric maybe a sheep who challenges the players to sacrifice its lamb correctly. This is pretty dark, but it's the only thing I can think of.

Sorcerer could be like a Dragon, Unicorn, something like that that seems like it could technically start its own sorcerer class (Shapeshifters). It could challenge the Party to learn about their history, possibly providing a story based multiclass (i.e. one finds out he's related to an Elder Wyrm dragon so takes the Draconic bloodline subclass).

For the Ranger, it could be a hunting contest, maybe a navigation contest or race. Whoever gets the most animals wins, or whoever makes it to piont B first wins.

Quote from ThorukDuckSlayer >>

Then you can prepare a skill challenge for each of them, to prove yourself worthy. This is where we're back to the question of why. Why would the ancient wolf care if you can run faster than it? Proving yourself is one thing, but perhaps it needs to be a challenge based on the creature's needs. Maybe the Wolf will bid you catch a deer every hour for two days, to show your tracking, commitment, endurance, and skill. Perhaps the Monkey will ask you for a dozen things stolen in a day from the pockets of the guards in the town. Maybe the Honey Badger will send them into an ancient tomb of traps which could kill them, to prove that they can survive being hit. The Insight Elk might ask them to bring them someone who would be happy to see them, but would not covet their antlers. The Puppy might simply challenge them to take their favourite toy. Rattlesnake might be a staring contest, or they might challenge them to drive a bear from a cave without harming it. Acrobatics may be to cross the forst without touching the floor (overland travel, difficult terrain, and you can throw in some tough encounters for added difficulty), or to pick the fruit from a tree which grows on a pillar in a basin of water, and the water is death.

 

I just wanted to second these ideas. They are the best of the suggestions you've been given.

I would advise you to let all the players particapate. If not, you're forced to keep the challenges short and simple, as all but one player are left with nothing to do. You should be able to do that and at the same time specify that only one PC will benefit if they win.

The idea was that each of these challenges would be short and concise, taking no more than 10 or 15 minutes table time at the most, probably less.

Also, I know that with these same people I've been playing with for years now are okay with things like this. They love having the spotlight on them and having individual character moments brought on by either the dm or just circumstance. They are also very used to the idea of individual character upgrades and buffs, usually homebrew that are earned over the course of the campaign.

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. Good stuff.