Familiar Focus

A Familiar Focus, is a sorcerer who’s split their soul and bound it to a beast. This offers several benefits for the caster, and possibly the beast. The beast itself gains some arcane abilities, and as long as the caster lives, they are effectively immortal. Those who have ascended high into their training may even create a sort of invisible phylactery that binds the souls so close that to effectively kill the caster, opponents must kill both the beast and the caster. If one escapes, the caster can eventually come back.

Expanded Spells

At the following levels, the following spells are added to your spell list,

1. Animal Friendship, Beast Bond
2. Animal Messenger, Enlarge/Reduce
3. Water Breathing, Water Walk
4. Dominate Beast, Charm Monster
5. Greater Restoration, Reincarnate

Greater Familiar

You find yourself drawn to a beast. Maybe it's alive, or long dead, it matters little to you as long as there is material enough for the ritual. Using either a living beast, or the corpse of a dead beast, (Must be mostly intact, at the very least, it must retain the areas that contain the heart and brain.) you mark out a magical circle with the beast inside. Over the course of an hour, you shed blood, creating energy and contacting the soul of the beast. You might have to fight the beast for dominance in a battle of will, but once you have succeeded, at the end of the ritual the bond is created.

The bond is woven so intrinsically that the beast is effectively under your complete control. Though it may come to resent it, you hold the reigns for its body and mind. It's original form is always remembered, and it reverts back to it at will or when it is brought back from death. Ever bound, the beast may only truly expire when you do. When the creature dies, it only leaves a corpse if it's death is it's first. Otherwise, the form evaporates into smoke over a short period of time. 

The familiar can be brought back through a ritual that requires 4 hours of concentration, Diamond Dust worth at least 100gp, and a corpse of a creature that is equal to or higher than the CR of the original form. However by performing this ritual and sacrificing a 3rd level spellslot, you can cut the time and cost by half, without requiring a corpse. By sacrificing a 6th level spell slot, you can return your greater familiar to physical form as an action with no material component.

You may telepathically communicate with the greater familiar as long as both of you remain on the same plane. You may use an action to enter the beasts mind, experiencing it's own perspective as if it were your own, but while doing so, you lose your own senses. Additionally, you always know where your greater familiar is as long as it's within the same plane as you, and is not in an antimagic zone. The greater familiar cannot be dismissed, but if you choose, you can magically compact it's form into that of a small dense egg weighing 5 pounds. The egg has an AC of 10, and has 5 Hit points plus 1 for each level of sorcerer you have, this is subtracted from the creatures base hitpoints. If the amount of hitpoints would bring this creature below 0, it instead leaves it at 1 upon emerging from the egg. Doing this costs an entire turn in combat, or can be freely done outside of combat. While in egg form, the creature loses any conditions it has until it is reformed or is destroyed. If the egg is destroyed, the greater familiar reappears in the nearest open space. 

The Greater Familiar may act independently, if it is granted the ability to by you. The Greater Familiar always obeys your commands, and in combat it's initiative is always after you. It has a full turn, and is effectively treated as a second character.  If it's hitpoints are reduced to zero, it makes death saves same as you. If the Greater Familiar is the target of a spell or attack that targets it's Wisdom, Intelligence, or Charisma, it targets you instead, but you gain advantage on the save.

You can only have one greater familiar at a time, attempting the ritual a second time while still being bound instantly fails and you are stricken with weakness, giving you 1 level of exhaustion.

Your Greater Familiars Hp is determined by it's base form + 5 hit points for each level of sorcerer you have and it's normal Con bonus. (Example, a dire wolf has an average 37 hit points and a Con bonus of +2. If you're a 10th level sorcerer it gains 50 hit points from  your levels and an additional 20 from it's Con score for a total of 107 hit points!)

Sculpt Familiar

Beginning at 6th level you may change your familiars form. By using an action and sacrificing a spell slot equal to the CR of the chosen form, you cause your familiars form to change, as if polymorphed into a new form. You may instead choose a specific trait from the chosen form and add it to your familiars form for the duration of an hour.

The chosen form is limited to beasts. The beasts form must be familiar to you, whether through background, or intense study. You can expand your list of forms by studying the corpse of a dead beast for at least 1 hour per CR. Additionally, you can use key features (A rhino's horn, an elephants tusk, or the pelt of a lion, etc) and study them to gain a similar effect. But without a full body, it requires twice the amount of time. The new form has it's own pool of HP, and it reverts back to it's natural form when that pool is depleted. It takes any damage that isn't absorbed by the new form and an additional 5 points per level of CR the previous form was. (Example, if it was transformed into Dire wolf and had only 5 hit points left, it takes 10 damage, 5 of that damage is absorbed by the forms remaining hitpoints, carrying over 5 damage that wasn't absorbed, and an additional 5 damage from it's CR1 Dire wolf form.)

Familiar Magic

Beginning at 14th level the Greater Familiar gains a pool of spells it can cast. It can cast one spell from each level of spells you can, but it is restricted to spells that use Verbal or Somatic components and don't require concentration. While the beast may be unable to speak common, it must be able to speak to cast a spell with a verbal component.

The Greater Familiar also has access to your sorcery points and any metamagic options you know.

Additionally, while the Greater Familiar cannot cast a concentration spell, you can transfer a concentration spell to the familiar for it to safeguard. While it's concentrating on a spell, it is subject to concentration checks. When given control of a concentration spell, you are free to cast another concentration spell. You may end either as a free action. Naturally, you cannot concentrate on two spells at once, so if you and your familiar are both concentrating on a spell you cannot transfer concentration. 

Familiar Phylactery

Beginning at 18th level, you can distinguish little between yourself and your greater familiar. Your senses have combined, your minds are interwoven, and time and space mean little as far as you and your familiar are concerned. You gain the ability to switch places with your familiar as an action as long as you remain on the same plane. 

Additionally, you and your Greater Familiars body are one in the same, even separated. If you are killed, your soul is returned to your familiars body and you gain control of it's form. If you manage to survive or escape in your familiars body, you can return to your original form over the course of a long rest. Returning to your original form destroys your familiars body.