Exchange of Realities

The familiar/companion is enough of a fantasy staple that many games incorporate it into the mechanics on principle, but it can still be very difficult to do so right. Limyaael’s covered a lot of the problems with familiars hereabouts, mostly concerning herself with the clichés that take away the individuality of the familiar like the Standard Familiar Personality, the species available, Vanishing Familiars…. short version, read it, it’ll be good for you. You might also want to look at this one, particularly the parts about the body language and the importance of food.

But that first one’s a lot of don’ts, and those mostly result in a lot of trial and error. Instead, I’m going to ask you some questions that I find highly useful in fleshing out a familiar to be as interesting a character as the person whose shoulder it rides on.

Where did it come from? If you’re nowhere near the natural habitat of the familiar’s species, that’s going to make for one heck of a story—and make the familiar almost as distinctive an identifier as anything else its person might be carrying.

How does it feel about being a familiar? There are a lot of sub-questions to this. One is the nature of becoming a familiar; is it an even relationship, or is one party in “charge”? Can it be terminated, on either end? If the familiar doesn’t like being a familiar, why does it put up with it? If it can’t leave, does it ever rebel, subtly or overtly? For the familiars who stay out of duty, I recommend a more concrete reason than having their lives saved once or twice; in the animal mind, gratitude is temporary. And don’t get me started on the innate anthrocentrism of the familiar being “grateful for having been granted intelligence.” No, thanks.

If it’s intelligent, how intelligent is it? The standard familiar seems to have about the intelligence (and possibly the self-control) of a small child, but even that can make for a pretty decent range. And some people like genius familiars, if they can get them. (One of my all-time favorite sessions for one of the games I used to play in involved the group’s three familiars accomplishing something without any help from their people; needless to say, they were insufferable for the next week.) By a similar token, how does the familiar view its person’s competence level? Who does it think needs whom? This could be useful in answering the question in the previous paragraph.

What sorts of animal-habits does it have? Does it chew on or preen its person’s hair? Does it have species-specific body language like the weasel war dance or a mockingbird’s tendency to flash the bars on its wings? If it’s a bird, does it have to deal with molting, or with feather-sheaths that just won’t detach? Does it bring back presents? Flare its feathers, fur or frills at trouble? Speaking of trouble, how does it react to danger? How big a threat does it consider too big? Why?

Does it have any more “human” quirks, picked up from its own human or from those around it? What about skills? How does it communicate with its human? With everyone else? Is its system of categorizing things more from its animal nature or its human teachings? By how much?

Answer these, and take into account some of the points in the linked articles, and you’ll end up with a familiar nobody forgets.