So, since there was some discussion about Familiars, I thought I might as well make a post on what Fanriel knows about them, and how they work in Mercenary Mage Quest.
Familiars are a type of magical creature bonded to a wizard, connected with a symbiotic magical bond that links their souls together. In canon, the Colleges of Magic use 'homunculi', purpose-built constructs personally crafted by the wizards to suit their needs, but the elven version of the ritual honours Kurnous and they use it exclusively with animals.
So, how does one acquire a familiar? Not just any animal will do, obviously. The elves believe that suitable familiars are marked by Kurnous, and can be recognized by the touch of his power upon them. Kurnous may set such an animal on your path, or you can pray to the Horned God and head into the wilderness to seek one.
Besides that, there are no known limits to what animals can enter into a familiar bond. Fanriel knows that the elves of Chrace do so with Chracian Lions and the Cothiqueans have a tradition of bonding with Sea Serpents and Merwyrms, and there is a long-standing theory that Dragonriders enter into a familiar bond with their steeds, though as ever the Caledorians remain extremely tight-lipped about the topic.
Now, the first and most important part to understand is that the ritual requires mutual consent. Obviously, an animal can't truly make an informed decision to enter into a familiar bond, but they can't be forced into it. The familiar bond is a magical extension of the emotional bond between two individual beings, and that requires it to work from both ends. It is possible to magically bind animals against their will, but that goes beyond the scope of the term 'familiar', and whooo boy do the elves have some bad history in that regard.
Therefore, a period of emotional bonding is necessary for the familiar bond to become possible. It is impossible to say how long this takes, the elves believe that it is up to Kurnous, they just 'know' when the bond is ready for the ritual. The ritual itself is nothing special, it merely involves the familiar and mage working together to accomplish some kind of mutually beneficial task while strengthening the bond with magic. Traditionally this takes the form of hunting together and sharing the kill, but other variations are possible depending on the exact nature of the relationship and personalities of the pair.
So, what happens once the bond is complete? At first, not much, other than getting a cool animal friend. Mundane animals gain a spark of intelligence beyond what their species is normally capable of, and the pair tend to become very in-tune with one another. At first, this isn't even necessarily anything outright supernatural, both sides of the bond just tend to know what the other means and wants, despite not truly understanding each other's communications.
Where the bond develops from there is up to you and your familiar. If you hunt together, with your familiar seeking out prey for you, you might develop the ability to see through their eyes. If you fight together, you might develop the ability to communicate wordlessly and synchronize in combat. If you cast magic alongside your familiar, the bond can serve as a source of magical power as well as willpower. This evolution can also be directed with practice and training.
At the extreme end, Fanriel has even heard of cases of mages telepathically communicating with their familiars across the world, casting spells through them, familiars obtaining various magical physical traits, and mages becoming able to take on physical or mental characteristics of their familiars like somebody with an eagle-familiar being able to see as far and as sharply as an eagle, or someone with a bear familiar becoming as strong as one.
Familiars, if the bond is formed while still adolescent, will grow up to the physical prime of their species, almost always being exceptional examples of their kind, and then stop aging. They will never die of old age while the bond remains in place. The bond can be voluntarily severed by either party, or through their death, which is invariably a traumatic experience. Both sides cease to be able to actively access the bond's effects, though they may retain certain magical traits from it. Familiars whose bond has been severed start to age normally, though they can bond with another mage later.
Finally, it is possible to bond with multiple familiars, though there may be side-effects. The elves theorize that there is a practical limit, but nobody is too eager to endanger their soul by finding out where it lies. Bonding with multiple familiars tends to be easier if there is some kind of connection between the animals, like bonding with a pack of wolves.
