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Pomkeki

Edit: Forget it
How are familiars created, do they have families? What's it like for them growing up?
That depends on your tastes really. It could be that familiars exist before being called upon and live just like other spirits until they are called in which case they may have families. You can also go with the idea that they don't exist until they are conjured up. If you are going with the later, then perhaps a sacrifice of some sort from the caster is required, like perhaps a blood offering. You could also going with human/animal sacrifice, but I just prefer the blood offering since it's more personal and the sacrifice comes from the warlock themselves.

If a familiar is formed from emotions, then I would imagine that they would strongly embody the emotions that made them which would also likely influence how they handle being created fully grown. Like one made mostly from anger might be angry at the whole situation for example.

As for growing up, I imagine that it would depend largely on what form the familiar takes. For example most reptiles are independent from birth so I would think that growing up wouldn't be a big deal to them. Comparatively a mammalian or avian familiar might be more dependent on their summoner, at least at first.

I plan on there be many different kinds of spirits--not just familiars--so what makes some spirits familiars and others not?
Well the answer to this one is largely dependent of the answer you choose for the previous question. Obviously if they didn't exist before being conjured, you can simply said that they were created for the express purpose of being a familiar.

Now if they existed before being summoned, then that will depend on several more factors. If you decide that familiars have families, then you could say it's a hereditary trait. If not, then perhaps not all spirits posses the traits required to be familiars. If they have the requisite trait, then they could be potentially called to become a familiar, if they don't, then they will never become one. What those traits would be is entirely up to you.

Besides personality compatibility, what are some signs that would show whether or not a relationship between a familiar and their witch/warlock is working?
The amount of loyalty/control that the warlock has over their familiar. If the relationship isn't working then I imagine that the familiar wouldn't be very inclined to help their summoner would you? Perhaps the items that symbolize the familiar would show wear and tear as well.

What are some necessary rituals or items that symbolize the relationships?
Well whatever it is, it should be something that is unique for each familiar and an appropriate symbol for that familiar. For example if the familiar is a wolf, you wouldn't have a tattoo of a cat symbolizing that familiar. After all each familiar is unique so I feel t you shouldn't choose one single ritual or item. That being said I would think that the rituals/items for cat like familiars would be similar, but not identical.


Does this help?
Pomkeki Topic Starter

Edit: Forget it
If this helps at all, I think that something that springs forth into existence would inherently be more sure-footed (so to speak) than a mortal creature. Like, it could basically circumvent the whole growing-up process. That's not to say they couldn't harbor a sort of childlike curiosity or naivety about human culture, but to me anything to do with spirits or energy seems like it would have some inborn understandings of the way the world works, so they would probably mature faster. It's also possible that some would perceive themselves as being "higher life forms" than humans and perhaps go renegade?

I can sit down and try to help with your other questions more thoroughly later, but I smell food burning in the kitchen rn so I better run, hah.
Pomkeki Topic Starter

Edit: Forget it
Pomkeki wrote:
A lot of things are personified or thought to have some kind of soul, so who's the say there isn't an energy that channels thoughts, memories, and emotions from all of these non-living things. They're jumbled together at random so they rarely make any sense, but on the rare occasion that they do make sense, they can become concentrated and evolve until bam you have a spirit.
Indeed! If you wanted to do more research on the topic to gather ideas, the specific belief that all things are inhabited by souls (or kami) is called animism. It's also very prevalent in First Nations and Aboriginal groups.

Pomkeki wrote:
Their memories are all memories accumulated from what created them, perhaps they're a guardian spirit that watches over a forest. Their memories would be of forest fires or the different people and creatures that passed through. They might be able to recall a time when another spirit was guarding the forest and that particular spirit became corrupt, vengeful, and blood thirsty... Things like that.
That sounds very cool. It would make the writing process easier and more fun, I would think, since spirits would thus automatically have a personality and motivations for their behavior. It would also give the human characters the ability to resolve the problem, because there would be a discernible reason for the spirit's actions that they could uncover with a bit of digging.

This is kind of evoking Ao no Exorcist vibes, if you've seen that show.

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