Familiars

A familiar is the witch’s small beast of the old craft. It is hers from the first turn, through her Familiar (level 1): a cat (catt), a toad (tādige), a raven (hræfn), a hare (hara), a bat (hrēremūs), or another small beast from her race’s list. She has one at a time. She may also keep a companion beside it; they are different things.

A familiar is a kept beast, under the same rules as a companion:

• It wears a collar.
• It has a name, drawn from those the English witch trials recorded (“Tibb, your cat, winds about your ankles.”).
• It stays until it is slain, and its level is hers (growth).
• It always comes along.
• It dies as a companion does, leaving a corpse.

It obeys the orders, and its kills pay as any ally’s do. It is not a fighter. Its blow is a scratch; what the blow carries is the hex.

The touch

When a familiar’s melee blow hits a creature and leaves it alive, the creature is hexed as if the witch had cast Evil eye on it. The hex has the degrees she would cast it at now, and costs no mana and none of her turns.

She is the hex’s giver, so anything that works on a hex of hers works on this one. Her cackle keeps it on, and her malison bites through it. The same touch also starts every other hex of hers on that creature afresh at its own degree: while the familiar scratches, her hexes stick. No other ally’s blow does this, a cat’s included. The touch is a familiar’s alone.

What it goes for

A familiar goes for what she has hexed. The nearest creature it sees under a hex of hers, within its order’s reach, comes before any other, however much nearer the others stand. With nothing hexed in sight it fights as any ally does, and its first hit hexes what it bit.

Call familiar

A familiar stays until it is slain. When hers is dead, she may call another with Call familiar, which comes with her Familiar. It is an hour’s sitting and costs nothing but the hour: no mana, no gold, no cooldown, and no limit on how often.

It is refused, for no time:

• while her familiar lives, wherever it is;
• with a hostile in her sight;
• while a status keeps her from casting (Silenced, Raging).

A creature coming into view, a blow, or any news breaks the sitting off. The time spent is spent, and she may begin again. At its end the familiar she lost comes back: the same kind of beast with the same name, grown to her level now. “Tibb, your cat, comes back to you out of the dark.” With nowhere near her for it to stand, nothing comes and the hour is lost. On the overworld it joins her at once and steps out at the next place.

So a calling never brings a different beast. Only a witch who never had a familiar draws one when she calls: “Something comes out of the dark and sits at your feet.”, a beast drawn as at the start, which is hers from then on. From level 30 of her class, that draw may answer with an imp, one more beast on her race’s list. It stings and it poisons, and its touch is the same evil eye.

Familiar’s sight

From level 25, the witch’s Familiar’s sight lets her share what her familiar has. It works while the familiar stands on the same level, not while it rides with her across the overworld.

This is the shared sight of Hunter’s bond, by the same rules. She sees every cell it sees, by its own eyes. She also sees the cell of every foe its nose finds, through the dark and even a closed door, but never a wall. For her, a familiar’s nose reaches at least as far as the rules below say, even for a kind with no nose of its own; it still hunts by eye. No buff is shared, and a companion she keeps lends her nothing.

Starting familiars

The kind is drawn by chance as the run begins. Creatures in numbers has their speed, eyes, and feet. They differ in those, never in the hex.

At 50 in a thousand (5.0 %), any race’s witch begins with one of the rares instead, each as likely: black hound (5), panther (6). The beast’s level is in brackets.

A familiar’s rules

These beasts can only be familiars. Here they are at her level, by the same growth rules as a companion’s (the rest are in that table):

Two kept beasts beside you

If a companion and a familiar are both beside you, and one of them has something to treat, the Heal ability first asks which way: a direction, or the wait key for yourself. With only one beside you it asks nothing.

See also: Allies, the witch, and Companions.