fake familiar

[Animal]

as per topic's title i need ideas for a fake wizard's familiar.
the details: i'm gonna trade my wizard's familiar for UA variant feature. but i want to have some kind of a pet for flavour purposes. obtain familiar feat and other ways to get a real familiar won't do, cuz i actually want it to be a fake. this wizard is gonna be a tad crazy and jealous of other wizards who have familiars. so he'll adopt some kind of a creature and treat it as a familiar in every way. are there any options except taking some ranks in handle animal and buying a badger or somesuch?

 

[Trouvere]

A Wild Cohort?

 

[frankthedm]

cross class a little handle animal skill.

 

[freefall]

1 Buy a dead parrot.
2 Sparingly quote from Monty Python

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Bee colony

Secure a queen bee.

Revel in NPC spellcasters' reactions when they see you covered in honeybees.

Maybe craft an extradimensional beehive in your bag or belt for them to store their honey in.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Or

Buy a horse and name it "Nicol."

or "Senator."

 

[Voadam]

No need to spend skill points on handle animal.

My wizard is currently adventuring with a druid who often takes the shape of a raven or cat and pretends to be my familiar so it appears I am alone but he is in fact along as backup muscle in case things go wrong.

Get a pet rock/ioun stone and pretend you are psion wizard.

Get a trained guard dog whose job is to protect you. Have someone else train him to obey you.

Carry your pet owl or raven around in a bird cage, and never let him out.

Your a mage not a beast trainer, use charm monster if you are high enough level and get whatever you want.

 

[Animal]

dead parrot might be ok. if it wasn't... well, dead. :$

and horse thing sounds like fun. but horses are not familiar-type animals, are they?

Voadam, nice tips too.

 

[Storme]

Animate Dead on a dead cat or something. It would slowly rot if you don't have Disguise Undead spell, so you will want to periodlically make a new one.

Make an Effigy cat, bird, etc. An Effigy is a cheap (really cheap) construct. If you make one with, say 1 HD, it will cost about 1000 to 2000g (I dont' remember the pricing). Effigies are in Compete Arcane.

Handle Animal skill. Who says you have to do this magically. Train or buy a trained pet. My dog could pass as a familiar or companion animal without the magical benefits. She's a good dog and she can pretty much follow about half a dozen commands I've taught her. Rules for taming and training an animal are in core rules.


Storme

 

[Slaved]

Get a set of perfectly crafted objects that look like the animal you want. Get them animated with Animate Objects, you can even use permanency to make the effect last longer!

Put them in a Bag of Holding or Portable Hole when you do not want them around.

Presto! Nearly indestructable pets as long as you choose something like Adamantine as a base component for them.

And what is better than a crazy guy with fake pets who he truely thinks are real? Feeding them could be a trademark in and of itself!!