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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6497044" data-attributes="member: 4937">I believe is it left up to the DM.   I can only tell you 'what I do'.In my game, all familiars are spirits that have temporarily assumed animal form.  These spirits do so in order to gain power and knowledge by associating with powerful spell-casters.   The growth in power they experience over the course of the relationship is permanent, and allows them to transition to more powerful forms in the spirit world or wherever else they come from.  In some cases they also have an interest in influencing the spell-caster as well, and are serving as an intermediary for higher powers of some sort.  (This is particularly likely to be the case with lawful familiars.)  If the master dies before they are dismissed, most familiars choose to discorporate and return to their home.  This happens involuntarily on a failed saving throw (they suffer much the same fate as a master whose familiar dies, which in my game is a sanity check), but generally happens even if they don't suffer great distress.  With the relationship no longer existing, they gain no more power from it and their body becomes subject to the natural laws of its form.  However, some choose to hang around in their body for a while, at least until it starts to age and become unpleasant.   This is most likely among actual animal spirits who are used to living as an animal, dying, and being reincarnated anew.   So the world is certainly not full of familiar summoned by long dead mages, but it would be far from impossible to encounter the familiar of a recently dead mage.  In 5e, the familiar is so weak that I suggest it's probably just best to have them disappear never to return if the master dies, as encountering one would never be interesting.</blockquote>

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