Create Familiar – A B/X Spell

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What if familiars weren’t joined to mages but came from them instead? With this spell, the caster coughs up a familiar that is far more loyal than a rabbit, but at a much greater risk than the familiar spell I posted before. This is the “weirdness turned to 11″ version for WFRP, but you can of course use it in any retroclone.

Spawn Familiar

Level 2, M-U

Duration: Up to 1 day/level of caster

The chaotic forces a mage channels when casting spells make his body more pliable to his whims. When he casts this spell, various parts of his insides are sculpted by chaos into a small creature that separates from the body by budding or exiting it (your campaign’s tone can decide where). The caster may choose to donate a spell slot and spell that will “go” with the familiar and can be cast by it at his level.

The familiar will have the general shape and texture of one of the animal/organ pairs on the table below. This does not mean the mage is without any of the organ used–some of it has just been borrowed. The familiar has eyes, ears, mouth and so forth.

The creature has 1d3+1 hit points, which are subtracted from the caster’s total. Its saving throws are at the caster’s level. It can understand any orders given and knows the locations, people and things the caster has knowledge of. It can speak any language the caster knows and can read. It cannot communicate with the caster from afar, as more standard familiars can.

As mentioned above, the familiar can cast one spell if a slot if given it at the time of creation. Once it has cast its spell, it can put another spell of equal or lower level in that spot, provided the caster (or another mage) reads to it from a spell book or scroll. It can manipulate small objects and “carry” up to five pounds. It can write and imbibe potions. While it is away, the DM is in control of its actions and fate, although it will under no circumstances betray or abandon its master. When its mission is accomplished, or when the spell duration is almost up, it will rejoin the caster, who will get his hit points and spell slot back, and remember everything the familiar experienced as if it happened to him.

If the familiar is killed, the hit points the mage invested in it are lost. The spell slot can be recovered by the caster if he can find and eat the familiar’s corpse. If the familiar is unable to make it back to the caster in time, or is abandoned, it will stalk the caster and attempt to kill him. If it succeeds, or the caster dies for other reasons before it returns, the familiar will then eat the corpse and grow a full body (with its own twisted mind).

Mages 6th level and higher can control which creature results from the spell. If the spell is cast again before the first spell ends, or the familiar is lost, then the same familiar cannot be made.

Creature/Source Organs (roll 1d6)

1. Frog-like – kidney
2. Snake-like – intestine
3. Spider-like – arteries, veins and part of the heart
4. Bat-like – fatty tissue wings and muscle body
5. Lungfish-like – lung
6. Crab-like – bone

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