Magikal Familiars

The Mage's Little Helper...

Familiars are magical helpers usually associated with mages of all types, especially alchemists or witches.

General Features

The mage usually conjures his own familiar, but familiars have also passed on to mage as legacies, and premier familiars granted as rewards from higher powers.

Familiars are effectively immortal, so passing them down through the generations is possible.

Familiars are sometimes bound to rings, gems or bottles.

Familiars are naturally fully manifest, but can unmanifest at will if they wish to hide or temporarily disappear.

All familiars are sentient and fluent the languages their mage knows.

It is standard for familiars to be named, and their tenure of service is lifetime.

Mages usually have just one familiar, but some have collected two or more to be used in tandem or for individual missions.

The mage usually develops a close relationship with the familiar, asking it for advice, employing it as a bodyguard, and relying on its spell casting ability.

Besides their roles as assistant magicians, guards and councilors, they may also spy, deliver messages, and retrieve objects for their masters.

If the familiar is an imp or granted by an archdemon, it may also spy on the mage, and will try to enforce its creator’s agenda

As the mage grows in power and knowledge, so also does the familiar, gaining knowledge, spells and powers of its own.

When the mage is astrally projected and in a trance, the familiar can protect his body, and even temporarily possess the mage’s body to protect him.

Types

Imp familiars are standard for witches and necromancers, and they are a minor type of demon summoned from hell.

The form they adopt will be a “low” creature. They know all these forms, and can assume each as needed.

Bat, Bedbug, Beetle, Butterfly, Cat, Cockroach, Ferret, Flea, Frog, Hare, Louse, Owl, Pig, Rat, Raven, Sheep, Toad, Turtle, Wasp

Only premiere familiars may be dogs or horses

Witch familiars suckle blood from their spell caster’s “witch’s mark.” This is a blemish on the witch’s skin, and it is numb.

When the spell caster dies, the imp grabs the mage’s soul and immediately hauls it off to hell.

Familiar spirits were usually kept in pots or baskets lined with sheep’s wool and fed a variety of things, including milk, bread, meat and blood.

Alchemist’s familiars are most often created out of base materials, and they usually take the form of homunculus, grand homunculus or simulacrum. Golems are not familiars, because Golems are mute and thus not appropriate.

These familiars cannot dematerialize.

Standard homunculus may come with encyclopedic knowledge or even “knowing.”

Grand homunculus and simulacrum are premiere familiars.

Spirit Familiar—This familiar can be phantasmata/aquastor/thoughtform, purpose-made egregor, a repurposed human spirit or ghost, tutelary faerie, or a non-human numenius intelligence.

The individual natures and powers of these beings vary by type.

Elemental Familiar—Some mages have summoned and empowered elementals as familiars: gnomides, salamanders, undines or zephyrs. Each elemental usually has three forms, as listed, and spells that match their elemental source.

Premiere Familiar—High grade or special familiars, such as higher demons, or mage ghosts or horses, may only be granted by higher powers, not simply summoned by the mage. Here, higher power means archdemon, angel, saint, numinous intelligences, etc.

Premiere familiars may be a legacy, inherited by generations of mages. Familiars essentially are immortal, so binding them to a bloodline is feasible.

Vampire familiars are covered elsewhere are not traditional familiars.

Magikal Familiars

The Mage's Little Helper...

General Features

Types

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