As you're describing the final choosing process, I imagined the three choices gazing at the player from beyond the rift. They had bee gathered there by the ritual to make the transit. Each offers themselves as a choice, giving a bit of weight to the non-first choices perhaps, offering a possible benefit (or hiding a negative through skillful speech).
Is there any version of this (up to date or not) with text data - so one can copy it directly. I would rather have half the list nicely formatted than the entire list as an image that I can not update or pick the nth element without manual counting. A spreadsheet would be ideal so one could mix and match, sort and filter, pick and choose at will.
My new character is a monk/wizard multi-class who makes his familiars out of origami paper, the first time the other characters met him, he had a small paper butterfly circling him. I explained it as him channeling his ki into his creations
When you started speak italian "Dare forma fisica alla mia anima" (give physical form to my soul) I kinda freaked out 'cause I was listening you speaking english and suddenly I heard my native language and my brain went "wait wha-". Anyway, I will use this flavour concept for sure! Thanks, magical lady.
This trial is what I did for my paladin. I took each of the paladin oaths and created a challenge based on them. And you either passed or failed that challenge and that proved whether or not you'd be able to make that oath. And then when all the challenges were done they had a book in front of them full of paladin oaths with some of the pages torn out. Now I knew the exact oath the player wanted and so I designed that one in a way I knew they would pass but it meant they also experienced failures and they felt that and it worried them because they didn't know what was going on.
@@AllThingsFascinate oh it was a blast!!! He didn't know where he was if he was awake or asleep if he would ever actually die. Probably the best session I've lead honestly.
I love your suggestions In my game my son started as a thief and multi-classed into a wizard. When he cast find familiar l gave him a porg (Star Wars Last Jedi) He hated it at first but then it started to grow on him. But because he started as a thief his porg likes to random grab gold coins in his mouth and run away with them. However being a thief he tried to make a quick coin and tried to sell his porg to someone and was gonna magically call him back at night. Well he tried to sell it to a child with an old grandmother for 3 gold. Until he her the old women tell the small boy "Looks like we are gonna have dinner tonight look how plump it is." My son freaked out and was like no deal. My son was 11 at the time lol.
This brings in elements from past versions of D&D. Back in AD&D, if a Familiar died, the wizard suffered twice it's hit points in damage. I believe it was 3.0 that granted the caster benefits based on the familiar's form (not sure on that one). The downside is that this contradicts a lot of what Find Familiar does (re-summon the creature in different forms, for instance) so it may be very important to have a discussion with the player ahead of time. Something I do for my players is to assign the familiar very specific habits or quirks that show through regardless of the form the familiar takes. This is especially important in the case of the "special" familiars (Imp, Quasit, etc). I also allow any familiar to talk, even if it's in beast form. After all, it is an otherworldly being. A little added RP is always good. Custom familiars that aren't in the 5E books are also in the mix. I might create fey winged chameleons , animated toys, robotic pocket watches or pieces of clothing or even weapons as familiars. Imbuing an item with sentience instead of summoning a creature is always a great surprise (especially when it's a Wild Mage who has somehow unlocked the ability to cast Find Familiar), and leads to great moments. Thanks for all you do Dael. You're a treasure.
Just wanted to say that I am so glad that Matthew Colville's didgeridoo brought me here because your out-of-the-box ideas are fantastic and entertaining and help keep GM'ing fresh and interesting.
I'd love it if you made a ritual series, I always struggle with coming up with ideas for rituals - bringing people back from the dead, summoning familiars, opening portals to other realms etc. It's the classic conundrum that you actually mentioned in this video - you want the players to work for it so it feels earned, but it needs to be fun so it doesn't become tedious.
Epic flavor for right after the trial... "You gaze through the tear and see.. yourself sitting at the edge of the spell circle." Have them already sharing the senses of their familiar, which is a part of them!
I really like many of these suggestions, however, I do believe that pocket-dimensioning your familiar should still be allowed. My reason for this being that familiars have so little health, that almost any AOE can simply eradicate them, quickly turning the familiar into more of a debuff than a bonus if they are going to lose HP and their given buff for each that dies. This problem likely wouldn't arise until later in levels for the campaign, but eventually, more and more enemies will have the ability to cause AOE damage. I will say, though, that I like the idea of them turning into something like a tattoo or maybe a figurine that the caster carries around instead of them simply disappearing.
The familiar and the wizard could share their life pool. Kind of interesting if someone captured your familiar they could damage you by torturing your familiar until you broke the link.
Anthony Sladky could flavour it that the link is strongest right beside you, so the familiar becomes part of you again. When you send it to retrieve things or attack, the link is weaker. It's like sticking your neck out
Yeah. No snaping them, and permadeath can be really harsh, making the player overprotective, or on the contrary not really care about this disposable thing they already replaced 3 times at level 5. If I really wanted to make them feel the loss, I'd keep the familiar resummonable, but after a delay - a few days to recover. With maybe a temporary malus for the character while the familiar is away. But I really love the tatoo thing btw, it's just a reskin of the pocket dimension mostly, but way cooler.
I like how when you're describing bounded choices you give us a bounded choice on how to present the bounded choice of familiars to the player. I like the idea of two from the preferred category, btw.
I love the way your dm style sounds, very tied in with folklore and it just feels very mystical, just the right kind of fantasy i love. I'd adore to play or run a game with the same flavor you do
I'm a fan of the thought that a Warlock's patron could observe the warlock and their actions through their familiar. That way it makes the patron feel more present to the warlock as well.
That thing about the Wizard bringing their animal familiar into the real world reminded me of the Dream Eaters from Kingdom Hearts! In one of the games, Sora and Riku can shape their dreams and give them physical form to help them in combat. Really cool concept, I’m definitely using that in my next campaign!
With the permission of my DM, my Orc Necromancer's familiar was the spirit of his Necromancer grandfather and took the form of a weasel! The spell was a gift sent to my Necromancer through a message contained on a coin by his grandfather.
Ooo! I had a neat idea. At the beginning of the ritual, the caster is on the outside of the magic circle, but upon the completion of the ritual, they are at the center of the circle, and the familiar comes out of them! Or it could just be on them - like in their clothes, perched on their shoulder, curled up in there lap. It doesn't have to be some sort of terrible body-horror birth thing...because most people probably don't want that.
I love the idea of the tattoo spell. I feel a familiars hit points are added to the wizard or whatever, then the two of them share hit points out of this pool. Yes, damage to the familiar hurts the wizard, but healing the familiar will heal the wizard also.
I raised chickens. I would suggest: Rooster: may chose advantage on all intimidation checks so long as any unrelated Int checks have disadvantage. Effect ends after short rest.
Dael Kingsmill - "We want to make them cry, right?" Permanent hp loss on the class with the least hp will do that for you haha xD Lovely video, thanks! Some really creative ideas; I do like the turning it into a tattoo instead of banishing, very flavourful.
I really liked this! I’d probably still let my players bamf their familiar away and resummon it, but that’s just me. I might say when their familiar dies, they can resummon it, but they have 1 hit point permanently lost from their maximum. Of course, communication, communication, communication.
I do this different for each class. I do something like this system for sorcerers. Wizards summon and bind an extradimensional creature to make a familiar, like in the phb. Warlocks make their own little sub-contract with an animal. They are that animal's warlock patron. You can use the phb spell for all of these cases, this is just how I flavor it.
instead of bonuses to random stuff, consider having the familiar teach the wizard new spells based on the kind of familiar! familiars can grant an extra spell known that’s always prepared for 1st through 5th spell levels. this can build up familiars as the spirits who teach mages their magic flavor. it’s especially nice to give them spells not frequently taken. a falcon can give them feather fall, an owl can give darkvision, an octopus can give water breathing, etc.
I've always flavored the becoming of the familiar as the herbs and oils needing to be packed into a ball and lit on fire with a drop of the caster's blood, then as the ritual completes, the embers of the ball burn out, and after a moment the ball unfurls itself into the form of the animal familiar, shakes off the ash, and there stands the familiar the wizard (or warlock) chose.
Here’s an interesting addition: each time they have to re-summon, they have to do this all again, although you basically tell them it happens again and summarize what happened. After awhile, it becomes less painful and easier to do, but it happens every single time. And then tell them “This is what all magic has been like for you. Truly Painful memorization to which you become numb over time.”
I ran a warlock who had a litch patron. His familiar was a large ( about 8 inches long)scarab beetle. And the cool part all the warlock spells were cast by the beetle. I love the idea of this bug shooting eldrith blast or crown of thorns.
Oh also also I DM-ed my first ever D&D session a week ago today! We rolled up characters and started killing baddies. I couldn't have done it without you and Matt Colville to fill me up with D&D ideas/inspiration. So a big cheers from me. Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray! And one for good luck, hip hip, hooray! 🙂
YES. My Wild Magic Sorcerer has the feat that lets her cast wizard rituals and adding that element of randomness every time she summons her familiar is very thematically appropriate.
Imagine a big burly dragonborn wizard with a tiny hedgehog familiar. Even better, they are scary and gruff, but the hedgehog comes out and they turn into the biggest softie ever. I want a hedgehog.
I like this. It makes the Familiar more personal to the caster. It feels kinda like your Avatar from Mage: The Ascension/The Awakening, where you have to pass Trials personal to your character to advance. And PS: I prefer Necromancy over evocation. Never know when a few debuffs and skele-bros help a situation.
On your subject of Warlocks, that's how Warlock Familiars work in my setting, and there's an even further degree to this. My setting started with Pathfinder where the Witch, Paizo's version of Warlock, gets a familiar from level 1 that acts as both their connection to their Patron and their "spellbook" in a sense as they too prepare spells from a list of known, and other familiars can share spells among each other. That all being said, in my setting a Warlock/Witch with a familiar is often times found by said familiar: you're just minding your own business then BAM, owl swoops in and never leaves you alone, suddenly you're setting stuff on fire and you accidentally put your mom to sleep. An example I had a Warlock who's familiar was an Owl, he had a bunch of necromancy focused abilities and spells. In my setting, the Elvish god of death is represented by an Owl. In reality though, this was a shadow demon from the Shadowfell trying to trick my PC into basically committing genocide to allow the shadow demon to venture into the material plane (more lore stuff) and when my PC eventually broke his pact, his powers were restored by the actual Elvish Death God who was offended someone was posing as them.
Oh man, glad my DM hasn't seen this before my wizard took Find Familiar. Hoshi's familiar is a fey owl (but reskinned to be a shikigami a la Shaman King, to fit my aesthetic), who I refer to as simply Shikigami. The DM tries to make everything Shikigami does super adorable, and I pay it zero attention until I'm giving it orders. Probably because Hoshi himself wants to quash the light and fluffy parts of him and focus on his duty. He loves cute things...but the cute thing made from himself? Detestable.
One thing in His Dark Materials that I love is the connection between the Daemons and innocence and experience. When people in Lyra' world are young, the form of their daemons is very fluid and can fluctuate with moods. As they grow up, the daemon starts to prefer a select few shapes and eventually fixes. Other points to note are that the daemons are almost always the opposite gender to their human, they can't be separated from their human (Witches daemons, dead people and cut children being the exceptions), and once fixed are always fixed as real animals where children's daemons can be fantastical creatures such as hippogriffs and dragons when necessary. These aspects could be useful for thinking up guidelines for familiars, or not. Either way, I think that it is important that if a player has a familiar the reality of that familiar should be expressed throughout the game rather than being left in the bag of holding and forgotten. Excellent video as always.
@@MonarchsFactory Only when young, Pantalaimon (Lyra's daemon) starts out switching between a moth shape for stealth, an ermine for comfort and a wildcat and a panther for aggression but later starts to prefer the striped polecat shape which is a mix of all. I would highly recommend reading His Dark Materials for a fresh fantasy world that is spookily similar to our own. Also if you listen to the audiobook, it is read aloud by Mr Pullman himself. Have fun.
Another way of approaching warlock familiars is as a direct representation of the patron. The patron gives the warlock the familiar as a means of communication with the warlock. Perhaps it offers a quality static bonus for keeping it alive and with the party. This could serve as a microcosm of the greater pact the warlock possesses.
One of my favorite characters was a demon pact of the chain warlock whose imp familiar WAS the patron. A Pit Fiend ran afoul of the more powerful lords of the hells and was demoted, but put the last vestiges of his pit fiend into a random contract before turning into an imp.
A dwarf wizard familiar should be a parrot that, instead of saying he wants a cookie, screams profanities at everybody he sees, especially elves. It truly embodies the essence of a dwarf.
Here's an idea I'd like to tack on : The familiar's hit-points add to the bottom of the wizard's. This means that when the wizard gets their familiar, they get a little HP boost, which helps the feeling that they're going through growth by manifesting a part of themselves into reality. The knifey part comes in with combat encounters: when the wizards starts to dip into the last of their HP, the pain/dmg is shared with their familiar. So the closer the master is to death, the more the familiar is visibly distressed/in pain. And finally when the wizard is unconscious, the familiar loses consciousness too, and only awakes along with their master. Also re: warlocks, I like the idea that just as the creature that's supposed to be summoned by the ritual manifests, it is abruptly consumed by the familiar that is provided by the patron. Really gives a bitter-sweetness that feels appropriate to the class' flavour.
I love this idea, im gonna call it "Enhanced Familiar" and it replaces Find familiar in your spell book once you complete the ritual (also the tattoo idea could be part of the spell, it should take a spell slot to turn it into a tattoo but free to release)
For warlocks you could go through the normal ritual and have the familiar at the end be possessed or devoured by the patrons replacement, the new "stand-in" familiar houses the divided piece of your soul as an offering to your patron it will with it take when it "dies".
The last bit of the title was cut off when I clicked on this. My brain read the title as "Homebrew Wizard's Families"........I mean, this is good too, but........
In the land the familiar is like the missing part of their sole. The spell searches all the multivere to find the missing part of yourself. The protagonist gets a naging psy dragonling. :)
Steven Brust wrote a series of books about a magic using rogue Vlad. In the first or second book he goes thru the ritual to get a familiar. It is very well written and reminds me a bit of your system. They are great books by the way and very easy to read.
@MonarchsFactory I will be using this idea, though I tend to lean more toward the warlock than the wizard, each caster being different and you could touch more on the culture the character grew up in as well. I mean it's true wizards all come up through study, some through a college but others are the apprentice of the village wizard, or met a wandering sage so they could have a more almost barbarian feel to their trials. With the warlock the patron I am sure would give them a familiar, with the fiend pact it would depend on what type of devil offered the bargin, the same with the fey or the old ones. The hexblade would be interesting as the weapon could act as something of a familiar, but what it has me thinking about is Harry Dresden with Bob who was (at least in the show) a former wizard cursed into his own skull for the presumption of attempting spells of immortality. He acts as a guide and resevior of knowledge for Dresden when he needs it and I couldn't help thinking of this for a warlock familiar.
I really loved all of these ideas, I may implement these into a game. I think I'd tweak the "no pocket dimension" into maybe instead of a pocket dimension, since it is a part of them and their essence, maybe it flows back into them and leaves some sort of a mark until it is called back out.
My Idea of the find familiars spell was that there were ways to find the spirit tied to it. It could be a baited trap that then forces the spirit into servitude, a baited trap that puts the spirit into a position to barter/ negotiate a contract of a sort, or it could just be a sort of want ad, on first casting the caster waits for x amount of time depending on if there is a spirit that wants to join them, and then a conversation of what the spirit and caster want ensues that ends with a pact. Thus if it is a spirit from another plane it is a true outsider and by those rules if the body it has on the prime material plane is destroyed that wizards subsequent castings of the spell are just making a new body for the spirit to inhabit. Which I liked as a role player that hates the Idea of getting a loved one killed in that fashion. Which is really easy to do, because familiars are so absurdly easy to kill, even accidentally. And if the familiars are loved and are permanently killed then the person would either never use them, making them pointless. If they are not loved then they just won't care about them at all and think of them as just another resource.
Fun fact, I have never made an evocation wizard. When I started I thought they were the best thing ever due to the party warlock knocking out a rogue with an AOE Spell. Now, I love the Illusion and Conjuration, along with all the traditions from outside the players handbook(Haven't read Wildemount).
Could be fun to have another category of Familiars for when something goes wrong in the summoning, or if the character is evil (or chooses evil during their trials). A chance for something like a Gazer or a Crawling Claw could be a neat "Oh, you done fucked up!" moment for the spellcaster… or an opportunity!
I have an arcane trickster in my group I dm and I have him a boggle familiar recently. Really proud of how I did it. Totally wish I had this video then lol. Keep up the good work Dael!
I love your in depth and, how you put into even the small things, where most DM's just sorta hand-wave it. Love the additional rules if I ever DM will definitely be using them!!!
Had a fun idea for a replacement to the "trials" you put forth that still carries a lot of flavor but also more represents the wizard severing a piece of themselves to make their familiar. As the player is casting the ritual, they are presented with a vision: three fragments of their own personality manifesting before them. How these manifestations could appear might be based on the character's own background or personality. Perhaps they are disembodied, ghostly heads chained to the caster... and in the caster's hand a single ghostly key with which to open the lock and release a single chain. Perhaps the caster's personalities are presented on an altar, and in the caster's hand a dagger. My personal favorite is three duplicates of the caster, and a raft tied to a great river... the raft only has room for three (I'll explain why I love this one in a bit). Have the personalities talk, express themselves differently and maybe put them in situations that reflect on the caster's past. They'd be a great way to really help flesh a character out. Whichever personality the caster frees (or kills, or leaves behind... depending on your vision) becomes the personality reflected in the familiar. The reason I like the raft example is because there's a possibility that the player would opt to let all three personalities take the raft, and stay behind themselves... which would cause a bizarre failure state in which the caster's consciousness has been transferred to the familiar. Of course, this would be reversable thing should the party track down a priest or wizard high enough level to undo the damage, but it could be a lot of fun in and of itself to really see how that plays out.
Thinking about what permanent losses could mean to a wizard, maybe losing an important memory forever, simbolozing a bit of their soul being destroyed: they can't recall how a loved one sounds like laughing anymore. Or they have trouble remembering what (or where) 'back home' means for them. Maybe them know there was a dish they used to love during childhood but can't remember which was that anymore. Or salt tastes like ashes at night...
I love the way you came up with transmitting character's persona into the familiar !!!! And imbed decisions into creating it! That is very intimate AND bonding to the entity they create. Now that I think of it.... that is actually precisely why I love my daughter )))
I imagine that if you are a warlock summoning a familiar, you have to find extra odd pieces for the ritual. Like if you were summoning an imp, you had to find the hoof of a goat and the stinger of a scorpion. If you were summoning a sprite or pixie you have to find the wings of a dragonfly.
The way you describe these familiars is basically how pathfinder handles them for few classes,most notably witch. For that class the familiar is also basically their spellbook,as in you prepare your spells with assistance of your familiar. In fact if you want robust rules for creating a familiar you might as well just steal the familiar creation rules from pathfinder. I may or may not be serious when I say that there are more mechanics for creating a familiar in that game than there are for creating PCs for 5e.
I loved this one! I’m about to start a new campaign tomorrow with my family, and I’ll will be incorporating some of this. Thank you very much! I hope you have a wonderful day.
Thank you! Especially for your thoughts on making the familiar a part of you - so many people are happy to have the "spirit" version of a familiar, but there is no stake in the game then - who cares if you can just re-summon it or send it to a pocket dimension? There is no gravitas, no risk - no incentive not to just bring it into battle or use it as a shield, etc. The old system of getting a familiar is better, where it actually MEANS something.
Love it. Adds a more robust interaction with a typically glossed over aspect of character creation that could really add flavor and uniqueness to the persona as a whole. Good job. Grandma says hi. Her level 2 rogue's still a little squishy but she's already picking pockets like a pro.
Love this. I had my warlock have a quest given to him to earn his familiar. Obviously, it served the patron's needs in the overall picture (which the warlock couldn't see).
I have a Firbolg half Tiefling bard DnD OC who has a "Nomad" background who is a massive grump and has a flaw of not trusting anyone. So I gave him a familiar hybrid which was a Sea Mink & Axolotl to represent his darkness but his hidden innocence & longing for kindness, friendship & company They have a good relationship but the familiar clearly wears the pants in their relationship but my boy is a stubborn grump and doesn't always listen to the familiar lol Also I LOVE the ideas behind all this it's how I came up with my OCs familiar to begin with!
What your are describing is essentially 1st edition familiars. In 1st edition, you summon a normal animal and infuse a portion of youself, body soul and mind, into it to create the bond and augment your familiars abilities. When it dies, the wizards hit point max total is permanently lowered by the familiar's hit points x 2. In 1E, you cannot pocket dimension the familiar. You cannot change its shape. The animal summoned is completely random. You cannot cast touch spells through 1e familiars. They were mostly used for scouting and hit point augmentation, since you can add the 1e familiar's hp if within 12ft. If it dies, you may not summon another familiar for at least one year. Find Familiar was pretty hardcore. They were mostly used for scouting and hit point augmentation. There is a cartoon in the 1e DMs guide that is very true about 1e familiars. It showed a thug holding a dagger to a cat's throat. The thug says to the wizard before him, " One false move and the familiar gets it." The wizard is drawn with a terrified look on his face. In Dark Materials form, our group has had a tradition that the familiar is the opposite sex from the summoner.
In the current campaign I’m DMing, I have two characters who both chose the Find Familiar spell. I had them each role-play casting this ritual. I wanted to make it more fun and interesting, so I chose familiars that matched the personalities of the characters. One is an Eladrin Arcane Trickster, and he was given a Flying Snake. The other is a gnome Artificer, and he was given a Flying Sword! 😊
My gnome wizard has a different approach to his familiar. His familiar is formless spirit from the plane of fey, who doesn't feel anything and can't do anything unless he is called to the Material plane and turn into animal by the Find Familiar spell. My gnome knows, that this is unkillable spirit, which leaves in a constant state of boredom, unless it's called to a adventure by spellcaster, which is why he uses him in most of the dangerous situations.
Here's my up-to-date list of example familiars for all the people asking to see it: imgur.com/y0BXbzM
As you're describing the final choosing process, I imagined the three choices gazing at the player from beyond the rift. They had bee gathered there by the ritual to make the transit. Each offers themselves as a choice, giving a bit of weight to the non-first choices perhaps, offering a possible benefit (or hiding a negative through skillful speech).
everyone: oh no, none of us can get through that tiny hole to reach the key, what are we going to do?
wizard: it’s all cool. i got my chipmunk
using italian as magic language, nice XD
Is there any version of this (up to date or not) with text data - so one can copy it directly. I would rather have half the list nicely formatted than the entire list as an image that I can not update or pick the nth element without manual counting. A spreadsheet would be ideal so one could mix and match, sort and filter, pick and choose at will.
Dad! Dad! Can I have a dog? Only if you split off a piece of your soul, son.
That's certainly how it's felt every time I've had a dog... especially when they died.
@@Wizardously Dogs teach a valuable lesson about life and death.
Sounds reasonable.
There is a tutorial in Harry Potter on how to do that 😀
My new character is a monk/wizard multi-class who makes his familiars out of origami paper, the first time the other characters met him, he had a small paper butterfly circling him. I explained it as him channeling his ki into his creations
That... Is awesome.
I'd recommend checking out Kubo and the Two Strings if you haven't already seen it yet. It's right up your alley.
that’s actually so cool
@@deKahedron thank you! I don't remember what inspired the idea but this guys my favourite character so far
@@karpmageddon4155 I still haven't seen that film, thanks for reminding me about it!
When you started speak italian "Dare forma fisica alla mia anima" (give physical form to my soul) I kinda freaked out 'cause I was listening you speaking english and suddenly I heard my native language and my brain went "wait wha-". Anyway, I will use this flavour concept for sure! Thanks, magical lady.
I thought it was Latin, maybe because I'm a spanish speaker
Idem, mi ha colto alla sprovvista 😂
Same here, but I'm Portuguese speaker.
Everytime this happens in movies and tv series i need a while to recalibrate...
huilt
e5r
This trial is what I did for my paladin. I took each of the paladin oaths and created a challenge based on them. And you either passed or failed that challenge and that proved whether or not you'd be able to make that oath. And then when all the challenges were done they had a book in front of them full of paladin oaths with some of the pages torn out.
Now I knew the exact oath the player wanted and so I designed that one in a way I knew they would pass but it meant they also experienced failures and they felt that and it worried them because they didn't know what was going on.
You're a good DM.
Man, I'm impressed. That sounds like such a great time
@@AllThingsFascinate oh it was a blast!!! He didn't know where he was if he was awake or asleep if he would ever actually die. Probably the best session I've lead honestly.
Reminds me of the Stormlight Archive
@@jonahbardwell551 I'm not familiar. What is that?
They aren't cardinal positions, they're archbishop positions.
I don't think I've ever watched someone be more endearing when they talk.
I love your suggestions In my game my son started as a thief and multi-classed into a wizard. When he cast find familiar l gave him a porg (Star Wars Last Jedi) He hated it at first but then it started to grow on him. But because he started as a thief his porg likes to random grab gold coins in his mouth and run away with them. However being a thief he tried to make a quick coin and tried to sell his porg to someone and was gonna magically call him back at night. Well he tried to sell it to a child with an old grandmother for 3 gold. Until he her the old women tell the small boy "Looks like we are gonna have dinner tonight look how plump it is." My son freaked out and was like no deal. My son was 11 at the time lol.
That is the cutest thing
This brings in elements from past versions of D&D. Back in AD&D, if a Familiar died, the wizard suffered twice it's hit points in damage. I believe it was 3.0 that granted the caster benefits based on the familiar's form (not sure on that one).
The downside is that this contradicts a lot of what Find Familiar does (re-summon the creature in different forms, for instance) so it may be very important to have a discussion with the player ahead of time.
Something I do for my players is to assign the familiar very specific habits or quirks that show through regardless of the form the familiar takes. This is especially important in the case of the "special" familiars (Imp, Quasit, etc). I also allow any familiar to talk, even if it's in beast form. After all, it is an otherworldly being. A little added RP is always good.
Custom familiars that aren't in the 5E books are also in the mix. I might create fey winged chameleons , animated toys, robotic pocket watches or pieces of clothing or even weapons as familiars. Imbuing an item with sentience instead of summoning a creature is always a great surprise (especially when it's a Wild Mage who has somehow unlocked the ability to cast Find Familiar), and leads to great moments.
Thanks for all you do Dael. You're a treasure.
Just wanted to say that I am so glad that Matthew Colville's didgeridoo brought me here because your out-of-the-box ideas are fantastic and entertaining and help keep GM'ing fresh and interesting.
I'd love it if you made a ritual series, I always struggle with coming up with ideas for rituals - bringing people back from the dead, summoning familiars, opening portals to other realms etc.
It's the classic conundrum that you actually mentioned in this video - you want the players to work for it so it feels earned, but it needs to be fun so it doesn't become tedious.
That opening flourish with the notebook was _impeccable._
Epic flavor for right after the trial... "You gaze through the tear and see.. yourself sitting at the edge of the spell circle." Have them already sharing the senses of their familiar, which is a part of them!
I really like many of these suggestions, however, I do believe that pocket-dimensioning your familiar should still be allowed. My reason for this being that familiars have so little health, that almost any AOE can simply eradicate them, quickly turning the familiar into more of a debuff than a bonus if they are going to lose HP and their given buff for each that dies. This problem likely wouldn't arise until later in levels for the campaign, but eventually, more and more enemies will have the ability to cause AOE damage.
I will say, though, that I like the idea of them turning into something like a tattoo or maybe a figurine that the caster carries around instead of them simply disappearing.
The familiar and the wizard could share their life pool. Kind of interesting if someone captured your familiar they could damage you by torturing your familiar until you broke the link.
I always just go 4th Edition style. If the Familiar is on your person, it can't be attacked or damaged. It's a little gamey, but I think it's fine.
Anthony Sladky could flavour it that the link is strongest right beside you, so the familiar becomes part of you again. When you send it to retrieve things or attack, the link is weaker. It's like sticking your neck out
Yeah. No snaping them, and permadeath can be really harsh, making the player overprotective, or on the contrary not really care about this disposable thing they already replaced 3 times at level 5. If I really wanted to make them feel the loss, I'd keep the familiar resummonable, but after a delay - a few days to recover. With maybe a temporary malus for the character while the familiar is away.
But I really love the tatoo thing btw, it's just a reskin of the pocket dimension mostly, but way cooler.
@@pskovca Dude that's dark XD you're one cruel son of a gun.
I really like this channel's story and "vibe" focus. To me it's what sets it apart from other, often-more mechanics focused d&d channels
I like how when you're describing bounded choices you give us a bounded choice on how to present the bounded choice of familiars to the player. I like the idea of two from the preferred category, btw.
I love the way your dm style sounds, very tied in with folklore and it just feels very mystical, just the right kind of fantasy i love. I'd adore to play or run a game with the same flavor you do
I'm a fan of the thought that a Warlock's patron could observe the warlock and their actions through their familiar. That way it makes the patron feel more present to the warlock as well.
That thing about the Wizard bringing their animal familiar into the real world reminded me of the Dream Eaters from Kingdom Hearts! In one of the games, Sora and Riku can shape their dreams and give them physical form to help them in combat. Really cool concept, I’m definitely using that in my next campaign!
Your players must have so much fun in your campaigns. You put so much thought into details like this. Really inspiring. Thanks for these ideas!
this seems... familiar >_>
But not too... familiar
But not too not familiar
@@justinberling4946 But not too not familiar!
You're all dweebs and I love you
With the permission of my DM, my Orc Necromancer's familiar was the spirit of his Necromancer grandfather and took the form of a weasel! The spell was a gift sent to my Necromancer through a message contained on a coin by his grandfather.
Ooo! I had a neat idea. At the beginning of the ritual, the caster is on the outside of the magic circle, but upon the completion of the ritual, they are at the center of the circle, and the familiar comes out of them! Or it could just be on them - like in their clothes, perched on their shoulder, curled up in there lap. It doesn't have to be some sort of terrible body-horror birth thing...because most people probably don't want that.
I love the idea of the tattoo spell. I feel a familiars hit points are added to the wizard or whatever, then the two of them share hit points out of this pool. Yes, damage to the familiar hurts the wizard, but healing the familiar will heal the wizard also.
I raised chickens. I would suggest:
Rooster: may chose advantage on all intimidation checks so long as any unrelated Int checks have disadvantage. Effect ends after short rest.
Dael Kingsmill - "We want to make them cry, right?" Permanent hp loss on the class with the least hp will do that for you haha xD
Lovely video, thanks! Some really creative ideas; I do like the turning it into a tattoo instead of banishing, very flavourful.
I really liked this!
I’d probably still let my players bamf their familiar away and resummon it, but that’s just me. I might say when their familiar dies, they can resummon it, but they have 1 hit point permanently lost from their maximum. Of course, communication, communication, communication.
Those trials put me in mind of the personality quizzes at the start of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games
I now have Don Spencer's Feathers Fur Or Fins stuck in my head. Cheers for that.
Ooo, I like the tattoo idea, also I wish there were more options for familiars for celestial warlocks
I do this different for each class.
I do something like this system for sorcerers.
Wizards summon and bind an extradimensional creature to make a familiar, like in the phb.
Warlocks make their own little sub-contract with an animal. They are that animal's warlock patron.
You can use the phb spell for all of these cases, this is just how I flavor it.
9:25
_"Dare forma fisica alla mia anima!"_
Thats a pretty good italian to say: "to give physical shape to my soul!" ^_^
instead of bonuses to random stuff, consider having the familiar teach the wizard new spells based on the kind of familiar! familiars can grant an extra spell known that’s always prepared for 1st through 5th spell levels. this can build up familiars as the spirits who teach mages their magic flavor.
it’s especially nice to give them spells not frequently taken. a falcon can give them feather fall, an owl can give darkvision, an octopus can give water breathing, etc.
I question your choice of feather fall not being taken often. but yeah, I agree that sounds cool.
I've always flavored the becoming of the familiar as the herbs and oils needing to be packed into a ball and lit on fire with a drop of the caster's blood, then as the ritual completes, the embers of the ball burn out, and after a moment the ball unfurls itself into the form of the animal familiar, shakes off the ash, and there stands the familiar the wizard (or warlock) chose.
Here’s an interesting addition: each time they have to re-summon, they have to do this all again, although you basically tell them it happens again and summarize what happened. After awhile, it becomes less painful and easier to do, but it happens every single time. And then tell them “This is what all magic has been like for you. Truly Painful memorization to which you become numb over time.”
I also like the Warlock's familiar being loyal first to the patron, and second to the Warlock.
I ran a warlock who had a litch patron. His familiar was a large ( about 8 inches long)scarab beetle. And the cool part all the warlock spells were cast by the beetle. I love the idea of this bug shooting eldrith blast or crown of thorns.
Who chooses Evocation?? Transmutation and Divination are so cool!
22:50 Yes, bouncy, bouncy ideas abound. And bounce. Oh, my brain!
Oh also also I DM-ed my first ever D&D session a week ago today! We rolled up characters and started killing baddies. I couldn't have done it without you and Matt Colville to fill me up with D&D ideas/inspiration. So a big cheers from me. Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray! And one for good luck, hip hip, hooray! 🙂
YES. My Wild Magic Sorcerer has the feat that lets her cast wizard rituals and adding that element of randomness every time she summons her familiar is very thematically appropriate.
Imagine a big burly dragonborn wizard with a tiny hedgehog familiar. Even better, they are scary and gruff, but the hedgehog comes out and they turn into the biggest softie ever.
I want a hedgehog.
I like this. It makes the Familiar more personal to the caster.
It feels kinda like your Avatar from Mage: The Ascension/The Awakening, where you have to pass Trials personal to your character to advance.
And PS: I prefer Necromancy over evocation. Never know when a few debuffs and skele-bros help a situation.
On your subject of Warlocks, that's how Warlock Familiars work in my setting, and there's an even further degree to this. My setting started with Pathfinder where the Witch, Paizo's version of Warlock, gets a familiar from level 1 that acts as both their connection to their Patron and their "spellbook" in a sense as they too prepare spells from a list of known, and other familiars can share spells among each other. That all being said, in my setting a Warlock/Witch with a familiar is often times found by said familiar: you're just minding your own business then BAM, owl swoops in and never leaves you alone, suddenly you're setting stuff on fire and you accidentally put your mom to sleep. An example I had a Warlock who's familiar was an Owl, he had a bunch of necromancy focused abilities and spells. In my setting, the Elvish god of death is represented by an Owl. In reality though, this was a shadow demon from the Shadowfell trying to trick my PC into basically committing genocide to allow the shadow demon to venture into the material plane (more lore stuff) and when my PC eventually broke his pact, his powers were restored by the actual Elvish Death God who was offended someone was posing as them.
Love your videos! The way you describe things is awesome. So vague... And yet, so evocative...
i'll be honest i wasn't on board at first but after watching the entire video i love it. i still don't know about permanently killing the familiar.
I can't get on board with that either
Oh man, glad my DM hasn't seen this before my wizard took Find Familiar.
Hoshi's familiar is a fey owl (but reskinned to be a shikigami a la Shaman King, to fit my aesthetic), who I refer to as simply Shikigami. The DM tries to make everything Shikigami does super adorable, and I pay it zero attention until I'm giving it orders. Probably because Hoshi himself wants to quash the light and fluffy parts of him and focus on his duty. He loves cute things...but the cute thing made from himself? Detestable.
One thing in His Dark Materials that I love is the connection between the Daemons and innocence and experience. When people in Lyra' world are young, the form of their daemons is very fluid and can fluctuate with moods. As they grow up, the daemon starts to prefer a select few shapes and eventually fixes. Other points to note are that the daemons are almost always the opposite gender to their human, they can't be separated from their human (Witches daemons, dead people and cut children being the exceptions), and once fixed are always fixed as real animals where children's daemons can be fantastical creatures such as hippogriffs and dragons when necessary. These aspects could be useful for thinking up guidelines for familiars, or not. Either way, I think that it is important that if a player has a familiar the reality of that familiar should be expressed throughout the game rather than being left in the bag of holding and forgotten. Excellent video as always.
The daemons can change shape?? I never knew...
@@MonarchsFactory Only when young, Pantalaimon (Lyra's daemon) starts out switching between a moth shape for stealth, an ermine for comfort and a wildcat and a panther for aggression but later starts to prefer the striped polecat shape which is a mix of all. I would highly recommend reading His Dark Materials for a fresh fantasy world that is spookily similar to our own. Also if you listen to the audiobook, it is read aloud by Mr Pullman himself. Have fun.
Another way of approaching warlock familiars is as a direct representation of the patron. The patron gives the warlock the familiar as a means of communication with the warlock. Perhaps it offers a quality static bonus for keeping it alive and with the party. This could serve as a microcosm of the greater pact the warlock possesses.
Not going to lie, got a bit of a shiver when you started that incantation.
Hahaha, the Italians probably disagree, but thank you
"Because everyone rolls an Evocation Wizard."
*Faux Offended Divination Wizard face.*
I'm playing a Divination Wizard right now and reacted the same way lol Evocation is the *commoner's* magic ;)
Divination wizards are for players who wanted to try DMing but couldn't be bothered with all the work.
@@Madhattersinjeans Or for people who generally DM, but occasionally have to be players, lol
sounds like you should've seen it coming...
@@abiggs4828 Yeah... Those guys just waited for this video to come out to act shocked.
One of my favorite characters was a demon pact of the chain warlock whose imp familiar WAS the patron. A Pit Fiend ran afoul of the more powerful lords of the hells and was demoted, but put the last vestiges of his pit fiend into a random contract before turning into an imp.
A dwarf wizard familiar should be a parrot that, instead of saying he wants a cookie, screams profanities at everybody he sees, especially elves. It truly embodies the essence of a dwarf.
Here's an idea I'd like to tack on :
The familiar's hit-points add to the bottom of the wizard's. This means that when the wizard gets their familiar, they get a little HP boost, which helps the feeling that they're going through growth by manifesting a part of themselves into reality.
The knifey part comes in with combat encounters: when the wizards starts to dip into the last of their HP, the pain/dmg is shared with their familiar. So the closer the master is to death, the more the familiar is visibly distressed/in pain. And finally when the wizard is unconscious, the familiar loses consciousness too, and only awakes along with their master.
Also re: warlocks, I like the idea that just as the creature that's supposed to be summoned by the ritual manifests, it is abruptly consumed by the familiar that is provided by the patron. Really gives a bitter-sweetness that feels appropriate to the class' flavour.
Warlock ideas are phenomenal! DM’s for breaking the rules!
I love this idea, im gonna call it "Enhanced Familiar" and it replaces Find familiar in your spell book once you complete the ritual (also the tattoo idea could be part of the spell, it should take a spell slot to turn it into a tattoo but free to release)
For warlocks you could go through the normal ritual and have the familiar at the end be possessed or devoured by the patrons replacement, the new "stand-in" familiar houses the divided piece of your soul as an offering to your patron it will with it take when it "dies".
The last bit of the title was cut off when I clicked on this. My brain read the title as "Homebrew Wizard's Families"........I mean, this is good too, but........
I'd suggest design that idea based on the world you are in and how dark it is
"Warlock familiar"? Oh, shoot, now I really want a warlock as familiar! :D
In the land the familiar is like the missing part of their sole. The spell searches all the multivere to find the missing part of yourself. The protagonist gets a naging psy dragonling. :)
Steven Brust wrote a series of books about a magic using rogue Vlad. In the first or second book he goes thru the ritual to get a familiar. It is very well written and reminds me a bit of your system. They are great books by the way and very easy to read.
@MonarchsFactory I will be using this idea, though I tend to lean more toward the warlock than the wizard, each caster being different and you could touch more on the culture the character grew up in as well. I mean it's true wizards all come up through study, some through a college but others are the apprentice of the village wizard, or met a wandering sage so they could have a more almost barbarian feel to their trials.
With the warlock the patron I am sure would give them a familiar, with the fiend pact it would depend on what type of devil offered the bargin, the same with the fey or the old ones. The hexblade would be interesting as the weapon could act as something of a familiar, but what it has me thinking about is Harry Dresden with Bob who was (at least in the show) a former wizard cursed into his own skull for the presumption of attempting spells of immortality. He acts as a guide and resevior of knowledge for Dresden when he needs it and I couldn't help thinking of this for a warlock familiar.
I finally have a campaign and a wizard! Going to give him a shopping list tonight
I really loved all of these ideas, I may implement these into a game. I think I'd tweak the "no pocket dimension" into maybe instead of a pocket dimension, since it is a part of them and their essence, maybe it flows back into them and leaves some sort of a mark until it is called back out.
My Idea of the find familiars spell was that there were ways to find the spirit tied to it. It could be a baited trap that then forces the spirit into servitude, a baited trap that puts the spirit into a position to barter/ negotiate a contract of a sort, or it could just be a sort of want ad, on first casting the caster waits for x amount of time depending on if there is a spirit that wants to join them, and then a conversation of what the spirit and caster want ensues that ends with a pact. Thus if it is a spirit from another plane it is a true outsider and by those rules if the body it has on the prime material plane is destroyed that wizards subsequent castings of the spell are just making a new body for the spirit to inhabit. Which I liked as a role player that hates the Idea of getting a loved one killed in that fashion. Which is really easy to do, because familiars are so absurdly easy to kill, even accidentally. And if the familiars are loved and are permanently killed then the person would either never use them, making them pointless. If they are not loved then they just won't care about them at all and think of them as just another resource.
Not only are you amazing - you are BRILLIANT!
Fun fact, I have never made an evocation wizard. When I started I thought they were the best thing ever due to the party warlock knocking out a rogue with an AOE Spell. Now, I love the Illusion and Conjuration, along with all the traditions from outside the players handbook(Haven't read Wildemount).
Just did this, we had the druid's feathers, the wizard's scales and the rouges fur end up being used.
I love this so much! Makes the familiar much more precious than just a spell. I love the Old Magic, mystical vibe of this whole process.
Could be fun to have another category of Familiars for when something goes wrong in the summoning, or if the character is evil (or chooses evil during their trials). A chance for something like a Gazer or a Crawling Claw could be a neat "Oh, you done fucked up!" moment for the spellcaster… or an opportunity!
I have an arcane trickster in my group I dm and I have him a boggle familiar recently. Really proud of how I did it. Totally wish I had this video then lol. Keep up the good work Dael!
That's funny. I play a modified arcane rogue and our druid adopted two boggles while I was dming a side quest of our dms campaign.
I've always wanted my familiars to feel more important than just, "casting a spell". These rules are really inspiring!
I love your in depth and, how you put into even the small things, where most DM's just sorta hand-wave it. Love the additional rules if I ever DM will definitely be using them!!!
It's worth looking into pathfinder 2ed familiars. I like the idea of a flying cat or a talking snake. Maybe a mouse lab assistant.
I don't think Pinkie or Brain would make very good lab assistants.
Had a fun idea for a replacement to the "trials" you put forth that still carries a lot of flavor but also more represents the wizard severing a piece of themselves to make their familiar. As the player is casting the ritual, they are presented with a vision: three fragments of their own personality manifesting before them. How these manifestations could appear might be based on the character's own background or personality. Perhaps they are disembodied, ghostly heads chained to the caster... and in the caster's hand a single ghostly key with which to open the lock and release a single chain. Perhaps the caster's personalities are presented on an altar, and in the caster's hand a dagger. My personal favorite is three duplicates of the caster, and a raft tied to a great river... the raft only has room for three (I'll explain why I love this one in a bit). Have the personalities talk, express themselves differently and maybe put them in situations that reflect on the caster's past. They'd be a great way to really help flesh a character out. Whichever personality the caster frees (or kills, or leaves behind... depending on your vision) becomes the personality reflected in the familiar.
The reason I like the raft example is because there's a possibility that the player would opt to let all three personalities take the raft, and stay behind themselves... which would cause a bizarre failure state in which the caster's consciousness has been transferred to the familiar. Of course, this would be reversable thing should the party track down a priest or wizard high enough level to undo the damage, but it could be a lot of fun in and of itself to really see how that plays out.
Oh, that tattoo thing is genius! Will definitely use that if I ever get the chance!
I love how you make videos that are exactly relevant to my campaigns at the time that you post them and i know that its coincidence but it feels nice.
This is actually a neat system. I'll have to pitch it to my spellcasters.
Thinking about what permanent losses could mean to a wizard, maybe losing an important memory forever, simbolozing a bit of their soul being destroyed: they can't recall how a loved one sounds like laughing anymore. Or they have trouble remembering what (or where) 'back home' means for them. Maybe them know there was a dish they used to love during childhood but can't remember which was that anymore. Or salt tastes like ashes at night...
I love the way you came up with transmitting character's persona into the familiar !!!! And imbed decisions into creating it! That is very intimate AND bonding to the entity they create.
Now that I think of it.... that is actually precisely why I love my daughter )))
I imagine that if you are a warlock summoning a familiar, you have to find extra odd pieces for the ritual. Like if you were summoning an imp, you had to find the hoof of a goat and the stinger of a scorpion. If you were summoning a sprite or pixie you have to find the wings of a dragonfly.
Congrats, you made a familiar into a homunculus :P
Love your vids
The way you describe these familiars is basically how pathfinder handles them for few classes,most notably witch. For that class the familiar is also basically their spellbook,as in you prepare your spells with assistance of your familiar. In fact if you want robust rules for creating a familiar you might as well just steal the familiar creation rules from pathfinder. I may or may not be serious when I say that there are more mechanics for creating a familiar in that game than there are for creating PCs for 5e.
I loved this one! I’m about to start a new campaign tomorrow with my family, and I’ll will be incorporating some of this. Thank you very much! I hope you have a wonderful day.
You look so happy in the thumbnail!!!
That's a rad jacket.
And thank you for this video.
wonderful, I love this!
Thank you! Especially for your thoughts on making the familiar a part of you - so many people are happy to have the "spirit" version of a familiar, but there is no stake in the game then - who cares if you can just re-summon it or send it to a pocket dimension? There is no gravitas, no risk - no incentive not to just bring it into battle or use it as a shield, etc. The old system of getting a familiar is better, where it actually MEANS something.
Love it. Adds a more robust interaction with a typically glossed over aspect of character creation that could really add flavor and uniqueness to the persona as a whole. Good job.
Grandma says hi. Her level 2 rogue's still a little squishy but she's already picking pockets like a pro.
Love this. I had my warlock have a quest given to him to earn his familiar. Obviously, it served the patron's needs in the overall picture (which the warlock couldn't see).
I have a Firbolg half Tiefling bard DnD OC who has a "Nomad" background who is a massive grump and has a flaw of not trusting anyone. So I gave him a familiar hybrid which was a Sea Mink & Axolotl to represent his darkness but his hidden innocence & longing for kindness, friendship & company
They have a good relationship but the familiar clearly wears the pants in their relationship but my boy is a stubborn grump and doesn't always listen to the familiar lol
Also I LOVE the ideas behind all this it's how I came up with my OCs familiar to begin with!
What your are describing is essentially 1st edition familiars.
In 1st edition, you summon a normal animal and infuse a portion of youself, body soul and mind, into it to create the bond and augment your familiars abilities. When it dies, the wizards hit point max total is permanently lowered by the familiar's hit points x 2. In 1E, you cannot pocket dimension the familiar. You cannot change its shape. The animal summoned is completely random. You cannot cast touch spells through 1e familiars. They were mostly used for scouting and hit point augmentation, since you can add the 1e familiar's hp if within 12ft. If it dies, you may not summon another familiar for at least one year. Find Familiar was pretty hardcore. They were mostly used for scouting and hit point augmentation.
There is a cartoon in the 1e DMs guide that is very true about 1e familiars. It showed a thug holding a dagger to a cat's throat. The thug says to the wizard before him, " One false move and the familiar gets it." The wizard is drawn with a terrified look on his face.
In Dark Materials form, our group has had a tradition that the familiar is the opposite sex from the summoner.
Kingfisher!! That's my Patronus :)
This video earns a "like" from the thumbnail picture alone.
In the current campaign I’m DMing, I have two characters who both chose the Find Familiar spell. I had them each role-play casting this ritual. I wanted to make it more fun and interesting, so I chose familiars that matched the personalities of the characters. One is an Eladrin Arcane Trickster, and he was given a Flying Snake. The other is a gnome Artificer, and he was given a Flying Sword! 😊
"What we, the DM, douche"
That's how I feel most of the time when DM'ing xD
Fur, feathers and scales! My turtle is offended
Your face is adorable and 100% why I clicked this video
My gnome wizard has a different approach to his familiar. His familiar is formless spirit from the plane of fey, who doesn't feel anything and can't do anything unless he is called to the Material plane and turn into animal by the Find Familiar spell. My gnome knows, that this is unkillable spirit, which leaves in a constant state of boredom, unless it's called to a adventure by spellcaster, which is why he uses him in most of the dangerous situations.
The screencap for this one is absolutely adorable