[Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition] Familars

Out of Character (OOC):

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen

Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition

Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

Familiars

These rules supplement Mage: The Awakening to expand upon Familiars and their use.

- Text in grey is from source material.

- Text in orange are elaborations we have added to make things clearer and offer our perspective.

- Text in green is new tweaks to rules.

From Mage: The Awakening 2^nd Ed: 

Merit: Familiar (•• or ••••)

Effect: Your character has been bonded to a Familiar, an ephemeral entity (a ghost, spirit, or Goetia) that has agreed to partner her in exchange for safety from bleeding Essence. Design your familiar with the rules for ephemeral entities in Chapter Six; it may be wholly in Twilight or Fettered to an item or animal. Two dots in this Merit indicate a Rank 1 entity. Four dots indicate a Rank 2 entity.

Spell: Familiar (Spirit ••••)

Practice: Patterning Primary Factor: Duration Suggested Rote Skills: Athletics, Expression, Intimidate The mage creates a Familiar bond between a spirit and a mage, who must both be subjects of the spell. The spirit may not be greater than Rank 2. The mage gains the Familiar Merit and the spirit the Familiar Manifestation Condition for the Duration of the spell. Both parties must be willing, and can end the bond whenever they wish. Substitute Death •••• or Mind ••••: The mage may bind a ghost or a Goetia as a familiar instead.

Familiars

A Familiar is an ephemeral being bonded to a mage. The ephemeral being receives the Familiar Manifestation effect. A mage always has a Connected sympathetic connection to her Familiar, and if another mage created the Familiar bond, the Familiar has a strong connection to that mage. The Familiar Merit above.The Familiar Manifestation lasts until the mage or the Familiar chooses to end it, or until another mage severs the bond (this requires an Unmaking spell using the appropriate Arcanum). Once bound, the Familiar retains its personality, free will, and moral compass (which can vary widely depending on the being in question). Forcing the Familiar to do something that would compromise its ethics or violate a ban is an Act of Hubris against Enlightened or Understanding Wisdom.

Manifestation Condition: FAMILIAR

The entity has been bonded to a mage. It may use any other Manifestations freely, but is protected from Essence bleed. The entity and its bonded mage have a Connected Sympathetic link to one another, may use one another’s senses with a reflexive action (casting magic through a Familiar requires a Reach for remote viewing, but does not require the Sympathetic Range Attainment), and can pass Mana and Essence between them — Mana given to the Familiar converts into Essence, and Essence given to the mage converts into Mana, but one point of the transferred resource is lost with the exchange. If an entity under the effects of Familiar is discorporated, it will reform in a location bearing the mage’s Signature Nimbus. Causing the Condition: This Condition is created with the Familiar spell.

Rank                                       Trait Limits            Attribute Dots                    Max Essence                         Numina 

• Squire/Lesser Gaffling               5 dots                   5–8                                          10                                      1–3

•• Knight/Greater Gaffling           7 dots                   9–14                                        15                                      3–5

••• Baron/Lesser Jaggling             9 dots                   15–25                                      20                                       5–7

•••• Count/Greater Jaggling          12 dots                 26–35                                      25                                       7–9

••••• Marque/Lesser Incarnea        15 dots                 36–45                                     50                                       9–11

Merit: Potent Familiar (••)

Original Source: Tome of the Watchtowers p. 154

Owing to the mage’s (or perhaps his mentor’s) facility with the Spirit Arcanum, or perhaps some especially difficult vision quest the mage completed in the Realms Invisible, the Shaman’s familiar is more powerful than most beginning familiars. This may be just the advantage a mage needs to survive the difficult early days after his Awakening.  This Merit provides the mage with 3 Experience Points that he can use only to upgrade his familiar. This Merit may be purchased multiple times, but may only be purchased at character creation. After that, the mage must raise his familiar’s stats by spending experience points accrued during play.

The Potent Familiar merit is no longer a Character Creation only merit.  Instead it must be purchased when the familiar merit is first purchased and can be bought multiple times to get Familiar specific XP that can be used to increase the Rank of the spirit.  This merit and associated experience costs represent the extra time, care and effort made to summon and bind a more powerful spirit to them.  Approval for taking this Merit more than once must be discussed with the Storyteller.

Ranks: While it might be possible to strengthen a Familiar to Rank 5 and beyond, it is exceedingly unlikely to get a Rank 3 Familiar or higher it is also dangerous to the mage.  Being spiritually chained to a minor god would not be healthy and the chances of retaining free will also decrease.  At what point does the mage become the Familiar.

PC Controlled Familiars & Spirits

Usually a spirit should never be played by a player, they are special tools scalable for use as a storyteller and usually can only change through growth but never can change their nature (through will).  However, the Storyteller may approve that a Player may roleplay his character’s familiar.  First, the link between the Mage and Familiar also links this familiar to the Supernal. Magic quickens the spirit, allowing the Spirit to gain sustenance from Mana converted into Essence.  The Mana of a mage holds the same resonance as the Mana source and when it passes through the Mage it also gains the added flavor of the Mage’s personality and magical composition.  This allows familiars to be a bit more dynamic than a normal spirit would.  For instance, they can learn!

Familiars cannot have Social Merits but can take advantage in some cases the External Social Merits of their master (Contacts, Allies, Retainers, Staff, etc).  If they possess at least close to human intelligence they may help develop or sustain the relationships represented by these merits. Utilizing these merits usually limits the Familiar to using ones that only interact with other spirits and supernatural sources.  These uses require Storyteller Approval.  If the Familiar is helping build Shared Merits like Sanctum: Security or Social Merits like Allies: Air Spirits, these should be purchased by the Familiar’s Master instead.  Any property or resources that a Familiar develops are really the property of the mage.  Ranks of Spirits increases when they cross the minimum total dots meets the threshold on the spirit hierarchy table listed above.

Improving Familiars takes the Mage’s own Experience Points and Arcane Experience points. If the familiar takes a central role in a story the player may reward experience points as if the character were present and acting where ever the familiar was and may split the experience points rewarded to the Familiar and Master.  If a character was not directly involved they may also opt to have their familiar retain all the experience points they gain.

• Attribute Costs: Power, Finesse, and Resistance are increased with 2 Experiences, this does not require Storyteller approval unless it increases the Rank of the Spirit. 

• Influence Costs: Influences can be bought up to the Rank of the Spirit and are 3 Experiences for each point of influence but are limited in how many dots any one influence can have by their Rank.

• Numina Costs:  Numina are special tools that allow an ST to represent varied powers of spirits and entities and are not rated based on their rarity or effectiveness.  If a Familiar dedicates themselves to learning a lot of new tricks it is at the expense of increasing the spirits overall power instead.  Each Numen desired must be approved by the Storyteller on a case by case basis and cost 1-3 Experiences each depending on their power and rarity.
• Using Spell-Like Numina : Sometimes it makes sense for Spirits to gain powers similar to those of their masters, gaining some aspect of the Supernal transitively through the connection in the Mage and a Mage’s Arcana or Path may justify the Familiar getting abilities that mirror that.  Or sometimes it is just a matter something Resonant with the Spirit that the current books and systems really don’t have a Numina for.  First and foremost, all Spell-Like Numina must Resonant with a Spirit nature and cannot be purchased without that.  Spell-Like Numina take penalties for spell factors and each Reach costs an Essence and levies an additional -3 penalty to the roll.  The spirit’s Max reach for any given Numen is equal to their Rank and they get one free Reach that can either be used to create the effect instantly or save the free reach and take an hour of preparation.   The ST has final say on whether certain powerful abilities can be bought at all.  Lastly, their costs vary based on the number of dots in an Arcanum needed to achieve the effect.  Numina that replicate Arcana dot practices require the Rank to support that.  A 2 dot spell-like Numina requires a Rank 2 entity.

A note on spending Essence to boost stats – not reflected in the text is the nuance of how these powers work.  On its turn a spirit can spend a number of essence to increase its Attributes for a Scene.  These boosts are on a 1 for 1 ratio and any Attribute bonus cannot exceed Rank + 2.  Only one stat can be boosted in a turn and the boosting must occur on the spirit’s turn.

The main types of known Familiars are:

*all can be embodied or ephemeral, some Familiars can materialize permanently.

• Supernal Companion from a Supernal Realm (Summoners): Requirement: Ruling Arcanum 3
• Infernal Familiars from Abbadon (Inferno) including Animals or Imps: Requirement: UnknownGhost
• Familiars from the Twilight or the Underworld (MtA 2.0 Corebook): Requirement: Death 4
• Geotic Familiars from Astral Planes (MtA 2.0 Corebook): Requirement: Mind 4
• Shadow Spirits from the Shadow (Covered in MtA 2.0 Corebook): Requirement: Spirit 4
• Abyssal Familiars (ST approval): Requirement: Unknown

Prerequisites for Familiar Binding Ritual (with no Arcana used): Occult OO

While advanced Arcana are the most obvious way to forge the bond of the Familiar, there are other ways.  A Pact (source material dependent upon the entity) can be used or other hedge magics.  Take the following system from Hunter: The Vigil “Witchfinders” page 183-185:

A mage must possess 2 dots of Occult and research a Familiar binding spell, this can be done without the applicable Arcana. They also need to research the entity itself.  The ritual involves gathering items with sympathy between and representative of both the mage and the designed familiar.  For Ghosts this is usually their anchor and the Mage’s body is offered as the replacement anchor.  Without Death magic at least one anchor must be ritually burned in the case of a Ghost familiar.  While the sacraments & correspondences burn the mage chants the True name (or at least one Sympathetic Name) of the entity it wishes to bind. The mage then rolls Resolve + Occult as an extended action (each roll is 5 minutes) while the entity (if unwilling the binding always fails) Withstands with their Resistance.  To seal the bond the mage dedicates a permanent willpower dot or buys the appropriate Familiar Merit with experience points.  This process does not help the master attract or summon the familiar, just solidify the bound after negotiation is complete.

Familiar Inherent Traits

In addition to the Familiar creations rules in the sourcebooks, the following traits for familiars are also used:

• Smpathetic Connection - A mage always has a Connected sympathetic connection to her Familiar, and if another mage created the Familiar bond, the Familiar has a strong connection to that mage as well.
• Shared Senses – The Master and Familiar may use one another’s senses with a reflexive action (casting magic through a Familiar requires a Reach for remote viewing, but does not require the Sympathetic Range Attainment).  This does not extend to emotions.  One can “ping” the other and feel it when their other is using their senses.
• Manifestation Engine (Ephemeral Only) – the Familiar can use any of their Manifestations freely and do not suffer Essence Bleed over any distance. No roll is required for these Manifestations.
• Source Transfer – The Master and Familiar can transfer energy between them.  Mana given to the Familiar converts into Essence, and Essence given to the mage converts into Mana, but one point of the transferred resource is lost with the exchange.  This is a reflexive action but they only can tap as much as the mage’s usable mana per turn and this limit applies to the Familiar and the Essence as well.
• Fettered/Anchored - Incorporeal entities have at least one Anchor or Fetter, their Master, but have no limit on how far away they can travel from the mage.  They can use Influences and Numina on the Master as easy as they can use their powers upon themselves over any distance.  Embodied Familairs are sealed Fettered or Anchored to their host bodies.
• Twilight Slumber - If an entity under the effects of Familiar is discorporated, it will reform in a location bearing the mage’s Signature Nimbus once it has the Corpus to do so.  Familiars are not banished back to their home realm when they discorporate. Embodied Familiars die as normal and have to be re-summoned and bonded into the body of a new host.  They still suffer from the Amputation effect.
• Innocuous – The familiar gains Innocuous as a free Numen. Anyone but its bonded mage suffers a –2 penalty on perception rolls.
• Amputation - If the corporeal familiar is killed or the incorporeal familiar completely destroyed (no corpus, no essence/mana, and the mage didn’t transfer any mana/essence over in time.  The mage loses a Permanent willpower dot to represent the loss of part of the self and that strong spiritual connection.  While the mage does not have to re-buy the familiar merits (Sanctity or Merits or sold back for full xp) the mage will have to perform a new ritual of binding and get a new familiar.
• Master’s Protection - A familiar gains half the Mage’s Gnosis rounded up as an armor trait to protect it from harm at all times.  If it’s Rank higher it can use that instead at full rating.   Class of Wills and Withstands can use either Rank or Gnosis, whatever is higher.
• Magical Synergy - Master and familiar are a team, anytime the master is ritually casting a spell and can physically touch or interact with the familiar confers a +2 Yantra bonus to the casting. 

References:

1.       Chronicles of Darkness Corebook “Ephemeral Beings”

2.       Mage: The Awakening 2.0 Corebook

3.       Summers “Ghost Familiar Merit” pg 39 (We allow up to 5 dots, not limited by 3 dot)

4.       Grimoire or Grimoires “Goetic Familiar Merit” pg 96

5.       Tome of the Watchtowers “Additional Familiars” pg 154

6.       Magical Traditions “Temp Familiars Lu Merit” pg 54

7.       Free Council “Manifestation Machine  Merit” pg 131

8.       Summoners “Supernal Companion Merit” pg 186

9.       Witches’ Familiars - Hunter: The Vigil “Witchfinders” page 183-185 (utilized above only)

10.     Inferno “Animal Familiar Merit” pg 125 (Can adapt this to a Spirit in an animal version)

11.     Inferno “Infernal Demon Imp Familiar Merit” pg 125 (ST approval)

12.     Inferno “Twilight Infernal Demon Imp Familiar Merit” pg 126