You can gain a familiar even if not a mage...

[Treebore]

I'm interested in the product just for the ideas about various ways to use familiars and hopefully make them a bit more useful/worth having at higher levels.

I also like the idea of everyone having them because the familiar link is more in line with how I envision a Beastmaster as well as certain animal bonded characters in the Mercedes Lackey books.

So I will find use for this material.

As for the other portion of the inital question.

I would start with some classic combo's, such as a scout type character with a Falcon "familiar", or a rogue with a "monkey" familiar, plus would have to play one (Ranger or Barbarian) with a large Tiger familiar.

 

[Driddle]

That doesn't sound good at all to me. Everyone can simply buy a critter just as they buy a horse, and then train it with Handle Animal.

Now, if you want a MAGICAL critter, I don't see why you should have the right to, unless you know magic ...

In a fantasy world, minor "touches" of magic ability or other vague connections are not unreasonable.

Who are we to question the gawds?

 

[Chaldfont]

Has anyone here read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy? He writes of a world where everyone has a familiar. He throws some other interesting bits in too such as:

* Its considered unthinkable to actually touch someone else's familiar
* Your familiar very rarely talks to someone else, and only then if you are very close to that person.
* Your familiar can take the shape of any animal up until you hit puberty, then it settles on one animal shape that fits your personality.
* Your familiar can't travel very far from you. If it's forced to, its excruciating to both of you.

Read the books for more. It would make for very interesting role-playing.

 

[Driddle]

Has anyone here read Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy? He writes of a world where everyone has a familiar. He throws some other interesting bits in, too...

Cool. I'll look for that.

I happened across a book a couple of years ago, "The Animist," by Eve Forward, that I enjoyed. It wasn't a particularly sparkling book, but not bad either. Easy reading. ... A coming-of-age sort of fantasy tale involving a graduate of the animism college and his inadvertant bonding with a rat.

 

[Ghostwind]

Does anybody know how it could compare to Dweomercraft: Familiars?

I haven't had a chance to see Troll Lords' Book of Familiars yet, but based on my discussions with them, it sounds like much of the material between the two books will complement each other. I won't know for certain until I get ahold of a copy for myself, but that is what it sounds like for the time being at least.