Bag of Felines

A patchwork bag of mismatched velvet and calico that is always warm and occasionally kneads against its bearer. Opening it releases faint purring and the smell of catnip and old libraries. Inside are ten balls of yarn, no two alike, and no matter how you dig, you only ever touch one at a time. The bag decides which.

Lore

The Cat Lord, keeper of all cats and nine lives deep in legend himself, gathered ten remarkable felines whose stories had outgrown them: companions to heroes, confidantes to archmages, and one perfectly ordinary tabby who once napped through a divine visitation. He wound each of their spirits into yarn so their tales could keep being told. Where the yarn unravels, the story walks again.

Using the Bag

While holding the bag, you can use an action to draw one ball of yarn. Roll on the Ten Felines table to determine which one you draw, then either sew the yarn or let the feline adopt you (both described below). If you roll a feline whose yarn has already been used, you draw the next lowest unused ball instead.

If you do neither by the end of your turn, roll any die. On an even number, the yarn unravels on its own, and the feline appears as if sewn, but it is furious about being kept waiting and is hostile to every creature it can see. On an odd number, the feline adopts you whether you were ready or not, replacing any feline that has already adopted you.

Once a ball of yarn has been used, it cannot be drawn again until the next dawn.

Sewing the Yarn

To sew the yarn, place it on the ground in an unoccupied space within your reach, or toss it into an unoccupied space you can see within 20 feet. (Yarn thrown into water does not work. It only gets wet, and the feline inside will remember.) The ball unravels in a blur of thread, and the feline appears in that space.

The feline is an ally to you and your companions. It understands every language you speak and speaks them back when it decides something is worth saying. It rolls its own initiative and obeys your commands as it sees fit; given none, it protects you and itself, in whichever order it prefers. It remains for 10 minutes, until it drops to 0 hit points, or until you dismiss it as a bonus action. When it leaves, it curls up, rewinds into its ball of yarn, and reappears in the bag.

Adoption

Instead of sowing the yarn, you can drape it over your shoulders. It unravels, and the feline appears on or around you: across your shoulders, on your head, or underfoot at the worst possible moment. While a feline has adopted you, you gain its boon from the table below. Only one feline can adopt you at a time; a new adoption sends the previous companion back to the bag.

An adopted feline stays until you dismiss it (bonus action), until it drops to 0 hit points, or until the next dawn, when it rewinds on its own. While adopted, it avoids fighting; it is busy being magnificent. Use its stat block only if something is foolish enough to target it directly.

Unraveling

A feline reduced to 0 hit points does not die. It unravels entirely, its nine-lived spirit returns to the Cat Lord's halls, and its ball crumbles to loose thread. That feline cannot be summoned again. If someone gathers the thread and casts mending on it at dawn for seven days in a row, the ball reforms and the feline returns, acting as though nothing happened and accepting no questions about it.