Kid Robot has once again paired up with Dungeons and Dragons licensed Wizkids to create some stuffed toy creatures with a D&D theme. This time around they’re even smaller. You can find a 3” tall plush charm featuring a Mind Flayer, Tarrasque, Intellect Devourer, or a Flumph suitable for latching onto your backpack (or briefcase if you’re daring?) This is apparently the third wave of 3” creatures but the first set I’ve encountered (provided by the nice folks over at Wizkids.)

In terms of Tabs, Wizkids is producing a set of non-permanent sticker tabs for use with one’s main D&D books. The first set has been released with sticker tabs for the Player Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual. Upcoming sticker tab sets will be available for
Rulebooks Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything and Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, as well as the beginner-adventure Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk.

Let’s take a look at those plush charms in more detail. At 3” high they’re not going to be downy soft but they are decently soft for their size. It is a great size for putting on a backpack or other appropriate accessory but despite the presence of a keychain I would hesitate before trying to carry around my keys with one of these attached. The brass-like keychains have a great clipping action and they look study and well-made. Each plush runs about $10. Meanwhile, my thoughts on each plush:

The Intellect Devourer is the least interesting character for me. It’s a nice pink brain with legs but if it didn’t have the D&D logo attached I might not recognize it for the D&D brand monster it is. That said, anyone wanting a brain-themed charm could find a good use for it.

I desperately want to love the Flumph and I do, but somehow those 2D eyestalks and eyes really lessens my impression of the plush. If you’re unaware, Flumphs are great little friendly things that float around and speak right into one’s mind. I think my Flumph-fandom butts up against that 2D eyestalk choice and I end up with a neutral or neutral-plus rating.

The Tarrasque should be a no-brainer. One of the most feared and powerful creatures in the whole D&D setting, Tarrasques are giant godzilla-like creatures capable of destroying worlds. Reducing one into a tiny 3” plush is such a great idea. Unfortunately, unless they really know their Tarrasque lore most people will simply think this plush is a funny sort of dragon. As such, it’s great for a D&D fan who isn’t also concerned about trying to advertise their fandom.

The Mind Flayer is the best of the bunch. It’s clearly recognizable as a mind-eating style creature even if someone isn’t a D&D player (or hasn’t played Baldur’s Gate 3.) With its lovely facial tentacles, one can easily see that this one isn’t supposed to be overly friendly. I love the proportions, it’s maybe a bit stumpy but that is part of the plush character of the item.

If you, like I, missed out on the first two waves of keychain plushies, you still might be able to find copies of a Displacer Beast, Beholder, Red Dragon, Mimic, Demogorgon, Owlbear, Monodrone, and Bulette.

Moving on to the organization tabs, these are a pack of roughly ½” (1.5cm) wide sticky-note style stickers that can be placed on the edges of one of the D&D handbooks to make it easy to find important rules and references. These are a great tool for someone who really loves using an actual book at the table. There’s something pleasantly physical to be able to look up something and hand the book across the table to answer a player’s question. Searching an online book is nice and quick, but passing the results around the table – less convenient.

Each set of tabs has a wide variety of options, far more tabs than one would need, including a whole sheet of blank ones. For example, the Player’s Handbook tab includes a tab for each chapter in the book for high level browsing. These are in a pleasing rainbow-stye color scheme. There is also a set of tabs covering each character class. These are in a light tan and are included in the photo (I like classes.) Tabs for each race are in a slightly darker tan. There is a set of alphabet tabs (A-Z), for each class’ spell list, and then quite a few tabs covering very specific but often-referenced items. These include specific spells like fireball, lightning bolt, identify, counterspell, and dispel magic. More tabs include combat (like opportunity attacks, reactions, flying movement, hiding,) equipment, and other oddities like rage, ki, wildshape, sneak attacks, etc…

Verdict

The 3” plushies are pretty cool with the Tarrasque and Mindflayer my favorites. The Mindflayer wins out as it is far more identifiable than the Tarrasque (a rather niche creature only well-known in D&D circles.) The Flumph is also cool (and niche) and would probably have been my favorite if not for the flat, 2D eyestalks. The keyrings look sturdy and I don’t think any of these little ones will be abandoning you or your backpack anytime soon.

On a completely different note, the book tabs are a great idea. They stick and re-stick pretty well. I adjusted a few of mine around with no problem. There is certainly flexibility in how to use them. If they were all pasted into the same book, it would be too thick to read any of them. (One bright idea I had is to save money by applying the alphabetical tabs from the Player’s Handbook in the Monster Manual where the alphabetized list of monsters is the most important feature.) For many, I’m sure that this is a product behind its time. With readily-searchable digital versions of the books, book tabs are not an improvement. However, people who enjoy the physical books and players who want to be able to pass a book around for explanations will find the tabs useful. I suspect one of the most useful sets will be the one for the Phandelver adventure. That’s the sort of book where it’s useful to quickly find a section but used infrequently enough that it’s hard to quickly look up a specific section. Note that there will be a NEW set of core books (2024 version!) coming next fall, however I suspect that many/most of the more generic tabs (classes, races, etc…) will still be useful with the new books.

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