Familiar/ Companion (mage V20)
Familiar/ Companion
Animal allies remain an integral part of the classical mage’s mystique. Who hasn’t heard of the witch’s cat, the telepathic steed, the wolf-brother, or the lab-assistant made of spare parts and ingenuity? Tradition calls such entities familiars, and most of the Nine Traditions tend to use that name as well. Other groups, as usual, employ their own names: assistants, brothers, soul-beasts, spirit animals, and so forth.
Although the Technocracy does not officially acknowledge such deviation from protocol in its ranks, certain Technocrats – especially among the Progenitors, the New World Order, and Iteration X – have been known to employ Companions: cybernetically enhanced critters, bioengineered experiments, clones, and so on. Lab animals have their intelligence and capabilities boosted with the wonders of hyperscience, and vat-grown humans with perfect skin and dazzling features stock the offices and bordellos of Syndicate bosses. Out on the murky fringes where protocol becomes a stern suggestion, Void Engineers work alongside friendly(?) aliens and technologically modified Earth creatures. These Companions, of course, are nothing like those superstitionist familiars – such comparisons would be tantamount to treason! And yet, it’s funny how much Companions and Familiars have in common. In game terms, of course, they’re pretty much the same thing. Technocrats define their bonding ceremonies and feeding procedures differently, but the Background Trait works the same way for both definitions.
A Familiar/ Companion’s primary role involves companionship. Mages lead strange lives that often remove them from normal human interactions, and just as people crave pets of various species, mages crave the company of entities that understand those strange lives they lead. It might seem weird to staff your lab with hyperintelligent mice (and downright crazy to fill it with hyperintelligent apes!), but when weirdness defines your daily life, those companions seem perfectly appropriate. With very few exceptions, these creatures have at least a human level of intelligence, enigmatic levels of perception and arcane wisdom, and at least one or two physical abilities beyond what you might expect from a normal animal or person.
What type of Familiar or Companion do you have? That depends on your approach to life and magick. Common Familiars/ Companions for various mage types include:
- • -- Charismatic megafauna: Wolves, bears, alligators,
eagles, hawks, apes, big cats, oxen, bison, horses, stags, reindeer, etc. (Shamans, nature witches, martial artists, clergy, wizards, and so forth.)
- • -- Small but capable animals: Mice, rats, domestic cats
and dogs, rabbits and hares, ravens, owls, foxes, pigeons, parrots, monkeys, snakes, etc. (Urban or rural witches, street folks, suburban mystics, mad scientists, academics, saints, and so on.)
- • -- Attack Beasts: Large dogs, domesticated big cats, raptors,
serpents, spiders, etc. (Witches, Black Suits, agents of authority, military personnel, war mages, etc.)
- • -- Machines: Robots, androids, and other mechanical assistants. (Various types of technomancer.)
- • -- Servitors: Clones; weird servants; incredibly strong,
attractive, or capable “people” who seem unusually obedient and a bit more, yet less, than human. (Executives, celebrities, criminals, mad scientists, urban witches, seers, cult leaders, decadent tempters, Infernalists, etc.)
- • -- Dead Things: Zombies, animated skeletons, disembodied
yet “living” body parts – heads, hands, etc. (Necromancers, wizards, cult leaders, gutter kids, and other dark- side mages.)
- • -- Constructs: Golems, cyborgs, technologically augmented
animals, monsters stitched together from previously dead bodies, etc. (Mad scientists and other technomancers; old-school ritual magicians make them out of clay, stone, and so forth.)
- • -- Hybrid Beings: Mermaids, centaurs, satyrs, unicorns,
and so on. (They’re attracted to high-mythic mystics, wizards, nature witches, mad scientists, Marauders, etc.)
- • -- Aliens: Greys, Bug-Eyed Monsters, Horrors From Beyond
Space and Time. (Void Engineers, Etherites, mad scientists, crazed cultists, lone geek weirdoes, Black Suits, etc.)
- • -- Imps: Little devils, demonic beasties, scary little critters,
etc. (Infernalists, wizards, scary witches, cult leaders, etc.)
- • -- Spirit Servitors: Elementals, invisible servants, minor
ghosts, nature spirits, epiphlings, etc. (Shamans of all types, seers, wizards, witches, etc.)
- • -- Data Beasts: Incarnated programs on the Digital Web. (Internet-based technomancers of all kinds.)
Whatever form your associate takes, the Familiar/ Companion has a mind and consciousness of its own, with agendas and desires you might assume but never truly know. There’s always something vaguely alien about them, and not even the greatest Mind-based Arts can completely penetrate the thought process of such entities.
In game terms, this Background – like Allies and Mentor – reflects a character affiliated with the player and yet created and run by the Storyteller. Beyond companionship, that character confers several other benefits onto his mage:
- • -- Advice: The Familiar/ Companion has access to certain
types of information and can lend insights to his associated mage. Generally, this works as a handful of Knowledges – Cosmology, Enigmas, Occult, and possibly some others – from which the Familiar/ Companion can offer suggestions to his mage. The dice pool for that Trait equals one die for each dot in the Background. Say, for example, that Spider Chase has a Familiar 3 blue tarantula. Spider needs some advice about a riddle, the Storyteller rolls three dice, and the tarantula spins some advice into a web.
- • -- Empathy: The mage and her Companion share an
emotional bond and each can sense what the other is feeling. In order to conceal those feelings, a character must make a successful Manipulation + Subterfuge roll, using the other character’s Willpower as the difficulty. Even then, the other partner will realize that the character’s trying to hide something.
- • -- The Feast of Nettles/ Paradox Nullification: When an
impending Paradox backlash threatens the Companion’s mage, or when that mage absorbs dangerous amounts of Paradox energies, the Familiar can absorb a certain amount of those energies. So long as the Companion stays close to his mage, usually within 10 yards (33 feet) or so, he can bleed off a few points from a mage’s Paradox trait or consume a pending backlash.
The Familiar can hold up to five points of Paradox for each dot in the Background; Spider’s spider, then, could retain up to 15 points of Paradox. The Familiar nullifies those points at a rate of one point per week. If the Familiar reaches maximum capacity – say, 15 Paradox for Spider’s spider – then the whole amount of Paradox explodes in a horrific backlash that affects both the mage and the Familiar equally. See Physical Backlash, a.k.a.“the Burn” under The Paradox Effect in Chapter Ten, (p. 551).
By the way, Familiars don’t enjoy this sort of thing at all, and they may get fed up (so to speak) with a mage who makes them “eat nettles” very often. A Familiar gets quite cranky when he’s stuffed with Paradox, and he may break the bond or otherwise act up if his mage keeps using him like a Paradox battery.
Quintessence Feeding: In return for those benefits, the Familiar requires a certain amount of Quintessence or Tass per week. Mystic critters devour magickal energies by suckling on the mage, bathing in her aura, or otherwise sharing physical or metaphysical contact. Technological Companions eat Quintessence-rich snacks (that is, Tass), absorb Quintessence through physical contact (affection, mind-melds, sex, and so on), or get powered up by the mage’s hypertech machines. In game terms, it’s all the same thing: the mage offers Quintessence and the Companion feeds on it. No Quintessence, no Familiar; the disgruntled Companion disappears and the mage loses all of the benefits associated with her Companion.
Familiars also crave gifts, favors, affection, and so on. The nature of those offerings depends on the individual Companion and might be weird, arbitrary, or outright horrifying.
Smart mages are protective of their Familiars... and with good reason. If a Familiar dies, the associated mage automatically loses all benefits of that relationship, plus one point of permanent Willpower plus two points of Quintessence for each level in the Background Trait. If that costs more Quintessence than the mage has to offer, then the additional points of Quintessence become points of Paradox instead. Should someone squash Spider’s tarantula, for example, she’d lose six points of Quintessence; if she has only two points to begin with, then she also gains four points of Paradox. Moral: don’t let anyone squash your Familiar!
A Familiar/ mage bond begins with an appropriate summoning ceremony. Shamans have vision quests, witches call forth a helpmeet, mad scientists make their Companions through unorthodox technologies, and so forth. Regardless of the specifics, the mage and her Companion agree to share a close bond with one another. So long as both parties survive and honor the terms of that agreement – terms that demand certain commitments and sacrifices from the mage – the bond remains intact.
This Background covers a special kind of Companion; other companion critters without the Background’s special properties would count as Allies or a Totem instead. For the game-stats of various beings, see Appendix I, and for an array of familiars and the rules for creating such characters, see the Mage 20 sourcebook Gods, Monsters, and Familiar Strangers.
- X -- No special pets.
- • -- Your Companion has access to a few scattered bits of helpful information. (Requires one Quintessence point per week and can absorb up to five points of Paradox.)
- •• -- You’ve got a pretty cool Companion. (Requires two Quintessence points per week and can absorb up to 10 points of Paradox.)
- ••• -- A magnificent Companion shares its wisdom and loyalty with you. (Three Quintessence points per week and up to 15 points of Paradox.)
- •••• -- You’re favored with the presence (if not always the good behavior) of a smart and miraculous creature. (Four Quintessence points per week with up to 20 points of Paradox.)
- ••••• -- Your Familiar probably knows more than you do, can be quite demanding, and has a very outspoken personality. (Five Quintessence points per week, may retain up to 25 points of Paradox, and will
give you lots of shit about both.)
