Familiars Artwork by McSammi

Familiars

During my travels, I've encountered practitioners whose familiars ranged from the traditional (cats, ravens, ferrets) to the frankly bizarre.

LIVING FAMILIARS are flesh-and-blood creatures who’ve formed deep bonds with their practitioners. These partnerships typically develop naturally through extended contact, shared danger, etc.

SPIRITUAL FAMILIARS manifest as divine energy given semi-corporeal form through sustained invocation. These beings appear when practitioners have achieved sufficient divine favor to request a permanent companion from their patron. The form these familiars take often reflects both the practitioner’s personality and their patron’s domain. Rīōnne devotees typically manifest aerial creatures (hawks, butterflies, etc.) or in one memorable case I witnessed, a miniature whirlwind.

ASCENDED FAMILIARS are the blessedly rare outcome of living familiars who’ve absorbed sufficient divine energy, or who have returned after death.

Acquiring Living Familiars

Living familiars cannot be coerced, or magically compelled. The bond must develop organically. Some may bond on first sight, others might cohabitate passive-aggressively for several moontides before finding common ground. Some animals simply refuse to leave practitioners alone, appearing repeatedly until the bond solidifies. A court spellweaver in Bairora described how his familiar, a silver cat, began appearing in his. “She made her intentions quite clear,” he explained while the cat in question supervised our conversation.

Conjuring Spiritual Familiars

Creating a spiritual familiar requires both divine favor and a specific ritual requesting your patron’s direct intervention. The ritual itself demands significant preparation:

  • A sacred space aligned with your patron’s preferences
  • Offerings appropriate to their domain (see my materials correspondence table in Focuses)
  • A personal sacrifice demonstrating commitment to the partnership

Success isn’t guaranteed even with perfect execution. The gods don’t grant spiritual familiars casually to those who will not cherish them.

Ascension of Living Familiars

The transformation from living to spiritual familiar is one of deep emotional trauma, as the death of a beloved familiar is an insurmountable loss.

A war spellweaver I met during the Drethan/ Ārdmerian conflicts described the battle in which his wolf companion died protecting him. His grief-fueled attempt to heal the mortally wounded animal invoked Temrūs’s domain of righteous fury. The wolf did die, but later returned as a being of living flame, retaining all its original personality while gaining Temrūs' blessing.

Familiars & MUSE

A familiar provides practical and magical benefits:

  • +1 die to all rolls in which your Familiar can reasonably assist
  • Once per encounter, your familiar can provide comfort that allows you to ignore the effects of one Tribulation
  • Your familiar can cast Powers on targets Near to it, though doing so requires a successful Power roll

Creating Your Familiar

Familiars require their own character sheets, but forgo the selection of Paths. When creating a familiar, begin by establishing their Trait scores. All familiars start with 2 dice in each Trait, then roll a d6 for each Trait and add the result to determine final scores. Choose one Trait as the familiar’s “Natural Talent” and add +2 dice to that score.

For Life Points, Living Familiars receive your Power score + 1, while Spiritual Familiars receive your Power score + 2. Unlike Living Familiars, Spiritual Familiars will never need to rest, eat or drink.

During Combat, familiars act on their own turn. In addition to this, they cannot take the Charmed Tribulation.

You should work with your GM to create 1-2 special Talents based on your familiar’s form and type.

Familiar Death and Recovery

When a Living Familiar dies, you must make an Endurance roll. Failure inflicts the Tired Tribulation on you, and lasts until you complete proper burial rites. The loss also reduces your maximum Power score by 1 until you form a new familiar bond.

Spiritual Familiars that are destroyed can be re-summoned through 1d6 hours/ rounds (out of combat/ in combat) of prayer.