The Find Familiar Spell simply says you “gain service of a familiar, a spirit that takes an animal form you choose. The familiar has the Statistics of the chosen form, though it is a Celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice) instead of a beast.”
So if I choose a fey-spirit Pseudodragon, what exactly does that mean? What kind of fey spirit? Was it ever really a Pseudodragon? Is it just a sprite with identity issues? How about a Fiend spirit? Did I just suck the dark soul out of some poor imp in the nine hells?
What do you want your familiar to be? That’s the beauty of it, we can add any flavor that we want as long as we follow the mechanical rules in the rule books.
Technically I would venture to say that a Familiar is a like a hologram projected from the plane it emanates from (the Feywild for a fey spirit, the Nine Hells for an imp), but that is able to touch, sense and interact with things/creatures of the plane that the caster is on. According to the rules, you can unsummon and re-summon the Familiar in another location or taking another shape, so it's not really the physical essence of the creature itself that becomes your servant/pet/spy. If something were to kill it, no body is left behind. It just disappears because (as is implied but not explicitly stated in the spell Find Familiar) the creature was never really on the plane that you are on in the first place - usually the Prime Material Plane.
However, Tim is correct in that you could probably flavor the familiar differently if you really wanted to, as long as it doesn't cause any headaches for your DM.
Interesting. I’ve never really nailed down who or what my familiar is or was. Other than an ancient spirit from the Feywild that once served the powerful Malagard, the Hag Countess.
The Find Familiar Spell simply says you “gain service of a familiar, a spirit that takes an animal form you choose. The familiar has the Statistics of the chosen form, though it is a Celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice) instead of a beast.”
So if I choose a fey-spirit Pseudodragon, what exactly does that mean? What kind of fey spirit? Was it ever really a Pseudodragon? Is it just a sprite with identity issues? How about a Fiend spirit? Did I just suck the dark soul out of some poor imp in the nine hells?
What do you want your familiar to be? That’s the beauty of it, we can add any flavor that we want as long as we follow the mechanical rules in the rule books.
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Technically I would venture to say that a Familiar is a like a hologram projected from the plane it emanates from (the Feywild for a fey spirit, the Nine Hells for an imp), but that is able to touch, sense and interact with things/creatures of the plane that the caster is on. According to the rules, you can unsummon and re-summon the Familiar in another location or taking another shape, so it's not really the physical essence of the creature itself that becomes your servant/pet/spy. If something were to kill it, no body is left behind. It just disappears because (as is implied but not explicitly stated in the spell Find Familiar) the creature was never really on the plane that you are on in the first place - usually the Prime Material Plane.
However, Tim is correct in that you could probably flavor the familiar differently if you really wanted to, as long as it doesn't cause any headaches for your DM.
Interesting. I’ve never really nailed down who or what my familiar is or was. Other than an ancient spirit from the Feywild that once served the powerful Malagard, the Hag Countess.
So theoretically your familiar could either be a throw away spirit in animal form or a spirit that you have a bond with?
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