Consider these questions:Some casters keep a familiar, a living thing created by magic, which assists them in their duties. Unfortunately, familiars have the tendency to disappear in larger stories, and their roles as fun character features get lost along with them. This exercise will help give your familiar a little more personality.
Knowing where your familiar came from can help you craft a unique personality for it.
• Personal: A familiar may contain aspects of your personality that have been given life. Although it is technically a part of you, it does not have all your inhibitions and careful social graces. You can communicate information about aspects of your personality you normally conceal through the actions of your familiar. You can take this approach even further by interpreting your familiar as aspects of your personality you deliberately removed from yourself and fashioned into a new entity. A familiar may be a greedy coward because, as a brave wizard, you have little use for those feelings.
• Prisoner: Your familiar could be an actual person who was imprisoned in an animal shape for a slight he committed against you or someone close to you. In order to earn his freedom, he must serve you for an allotted time. This allows your familiar to be a separate entity with his own motivation. He may not even share your agenda, but he is forced to carry out your commands. He might even be a hostile force or an earnest being looking for redemption.
• Guardian: You familiar can be a benevolent entity that has an interest in your success. This might mean she is the servant of a god or a source of secret power who acts as a patron to your journey. She could be the spirit of an ancestor summoned back to the mortal plane to assist you. This allows your familiar to possess knowledge and skill you may not; this in turn can make her a valuable resource at every stage of your story. She may gently try to impose an agenda on you during your journey.
• Elevated: Some familiars are animals or objects granted intelligence and power. Their behaviors and desires could be related to what they once were. A cat might crave food and attention and be equipped to seek them out. A teapot might prefer warm environments and have distinct desires for sophisticated table manners. Note that an elevated familiar is never not what it appears to be.
A familiar should look distinct from other things of its type. It can blend in when it needs to, but it should have a suggestion of importance and mystery that betrays its true nature. This may be something obvious, such as a supernatural glow or unusual anatomy. It may be subtle, like the way it moves, or manifest in behavioral quirks. It should definitely separate the familiar from mundane creatures and objects.
Consider these questions:
Is there something special about its eyes? ______________________
Does it move in an unnatural way? ______________________
How do animals interact with it? ______________________
Are there any unusual markings on its body? ______________________
Does it bear a visual similarity to you? ______________________
Is it an unusual size? ______________________
Does it choose to decorate itself? ______________________
A quick path to developing a personality is giving a creature goals. A creature that wants something is compelled to act in order to get it.
What is always an immediate motivator for your familiar? It should be something simple like food, alcohol, wealth, or attention.
What is a dream your familiar has? It should be a little abstract or unusual. It can be tied to its base form, like a raven’s desire to possess the world’s shiniest bauble. It can also be personal and totally abstract like freedom and independence. It’s best if this is something you might want for your familiar but don’t know how to get.
What are the social preferences your familiar has? Social preferences will give your familiar a trait that enables it to interact with others, and that is key for giving it a personality. Perhaps your familiar is a creature of refined taste and prefers the company of nobility. It could be a fun-loving prankster that can’t stand stuffy company. A social preference should give a familiar an ideal operating environment, rather than emphasize how it is out of place in other environments.