Tumor Familiar Question


Rules Questions

Silver Crusade

Alright, so one of my players is thinking about playing an alchemist and is very fond of the Tumor familiar discovery (P 17 Ultimate Magic). And is now looking into Improved familiar (P 127 Core). He's decided that he wants the Cythnigot Qlippoth (P 221 Bestiary 2) as his new familiar.

My first question is does this work without messing with the rules. Because the tumor he creates resembles that of an animal that is tiny or diminutive in size. So assuming that it qualifies as a animal of those size categories or an animal at all. The Cythnigot should be able to take the tumor over and become the new familiar.

Which brings me to the second question. If he reattaches the tumor to him which is now the host of the Cythnigot. Well it affect him in any way like the creature description says it would to the animal?

The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Yeah... lots of weird questions with tumor familiar. I would suggest you just treat it as a normal familiar. The 'master' would only get infected if the familiar actually bit him.

Dark Archive

Well remember when you take improved familiar it REPLACES your existing familiar. The old familiar goes away and the new one takes it's place.

In this case I'd say the tumor would vanish and a Cythnigot would appear. You'd lose all the powers of the Tumor familiar and would only have the powers the new familiar provides.

The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Curiously the text in the cythnigot bestiary entry suggests that it would actually infect your current familiar as it's way of joining you :D

So if you had a toad familiar you would summon the cythnigot and it would would bite your toad, killing it and taking control of it's corpse.

How exactly that would interact with a familiar that is actually a part of the alchemist is a little weird. You could just treat the cythnigot wording as flavor text, but what's the fun in that?

Dark Archive

Dennis Baker wrote:

Curiously the text in the cythnigot bestiary entry suggests that it would actually infect your current familiar as it's way of joining you :D

So if you had a toad familiar you would summon the cythnigot and it would would bite your toad, killing it and taking control of it's corpse.

How exactly that would interact with a familiar that is actually a part of the alchemist is a little weird. You could just treat the cythnigot wording as flavor text, but what's the fun in that?

all very true but the description also says it kills the original familiar and infects the corpse, along with some flavor text about reshaping the body.

A dead familiar would lose all it's existing abilities to be replaced by the cythnigot's powers instead.
It's a lot of flavor but there is (and shouldn't be) anything about this familiar choice that lets it keep the existing powers of the old familiar.


That certainly gives new meaning to the phrase "malignant tumor".

Silver Crusade

Thanks for the help guys, It was really useful.

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