This could give the wizard an imp, pseudodragon, brownie, or quasit (basically the modern list for warlocks in 5E, if you substitute the sprite for the brownie). One interesting detail of this version was the small chance that the wizard could get a special familiar on a 5% chance (a roll of exactly 15 on the die). That version’s find familiar spell could only be cast once per year and had about a 25% chance of producing nothing at all! The wizard had no control over what they received if they did get a familiar, though the options were similar to part of the list of familiars in 5E: cat, crow, hawk, owl, toad, or weasel. Find Familiar Spell Earlier Editionsįind Familiar has evolved a good bit from 1 st Edition D&D. In a few cases, familiars might be inherited from a relative or acquaintance. Usually, they were encountered seemingly at random, though in some cases the familiar simply appeared and introduced itself at the person’s time of need. In some cases, they could take on not only a human appearance, but come with a name and a unique identity as well (e.g., “Tom Reid from Scotland”).įamiliars in these stories were rarely summoned. Typical animal forms included the cat, the hare, and the dog, but animal forms from a butterfly to a tiny (apparently cat-sized) horse also appear in the accounts. They also, of course, could be used as spies or sentries. These forms were also rarely fixed, allowing the familiar to change frequently.Ĭommonly assumed to be either demons (in the case of witches) or fairies (in the case of more benign practitioners), familiars were often credited with teaching their masters magic or other secrets or detecting and diagnosing medical problems. In these early depictions, familiars were spirits that were sometimes in the form of an animal, though in a number of cases they might look like tiny humans or stranger, arcane creatures. And an 11 th Century Arabic text translated into Latin makes explicit mention of someone having a familiar. Romans had similar beings in their households (the word “familiar”, in fact, likely comes from the Latin famulus, or “servant”). The basic notion of familiars extends back into the ancient era – Greeks spoke of daimons, or personal spirits that aided them.

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