Bind Familiar

Bind Familiar Mystic Basic 600 hours Requires: apprentice Magic Lore and at least one other mystic skill Wizards have long been associated with animal familiars. Some magical traditions allow its practitioners to summon, bind, or create unique familiars. This ritual lets any mage bind a favoured pet animal as their familiar. Only ordinary domesticated animals (or exceptional ones, rather) may become a mage's familiar. There must already be a strong emotional bond between the binding mage and prospective bind-ee animal, to the extent that the animal is capable. That is, your best-friend doggy is a possible candidate, but your neighbour's constantly barking mutt isn't. It barks all night; don't your neighbours ever sleep? Jerks.... Similarly, a tarantula isn't really capable of loving you as its master, but it can get used to you, associate you with food, and not bite--at least, not very often. This is the reason why cats are so common as familiars--the emotional bar for them is set so low that the magic is easier to cast.

Being bound as a familiar doesn't really improve an animal's native intelligence, but it does become more aware. It will listen to your commands and respond as best as it can. The dog that used to feel actual confusion because it could not catch its own tail now can fetch your rowan wand--and tell the difference between that and your oak walking stick--and knows to resist the urge to chew on it while bringing it to you. All familiars also gain the trait Sense Supernatural Evil. Where a familiar's mind is most significantly improved is in the mystic arts. Though even the best trained parrot is still unable to cast even the simplest spells, any animal bound as a familiar automatically and instinctively understands magic as well as you do. Your raven isn't going to be throwing Blood Spike on your enemies, but all familiars can act as a competent assistant. This gives the mage a +3 bonus--or one level increase--in any ritual aided by the familiar. This help is simple, but fundamentally useful: a scorpion can hold a scroll flat, a snake could monitor a brewing potion, a wolf could draw a magic circle with a paint brush tied to its tail, et cetera. The binding also restricts the animal's normal instincts. Not only does it act very tame (at least around the wizard) but it cannot attack the mage unless strongly provoked. A familiar must win in a Willpower contest against the mage to harm or to even do anything counter to the binding wizard's wishes.

The psychic connection that gives a familiar its mystic knowledge functions in other ways as well. Binder and bind-ee both have a vague sense of the other's welfare. This does not allow a mage to see through the familiar's eyes, provide telepathic contact, let them share hit points, or anything of the sort. At best it gives each an impression of when the other is far away and in danger (but not its nature, direction, or distance), and each feels the psychic cry of the other's death. A familiar that is slain may not be replaced for one year and one day. However, one that does not die due to misadventure will see its life expectancy increased to match that of its wizard. There are Elven wizards who have kept their familiars for a long time indeed. This connection also improves the familiar's experience level automatically with the mage's. That is, when you go up in level, so does your familiar. You don't have to track experience points separately.

The ritual is long and involved. It includes being isolated with the prospective familiar for two weeks. During this time, both the mage and familiar must be kept reasonably well-fed and content. Items symbolic of the animal's type and/or name must be sacrificed in fire. Comfort items must be kept nearby as well, such as a favoured chew toy, but these do not need to be harmed. Their presence is to help with the final emotional bonding that is the most significant portion of this ritual.

A mage may have more than one familiar, but may only have one from a given source. For example, a wizard may automatically gain a familiar through her tradition, but can still use this ritual for a second one. A wizard may not, however, cast this spell in rapid succession to gain a dozen familiars. One at a time is all that you get.