Pirate Familiars

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Illustration by Typer Walpole

Avast there, ye scurvy swabs! This week sees the release of Pathfinder Adventure Path #55: The Wormwood Mutiny, which includes, among other things, four new familiars for you swashbuckling spellcasters out there. But pirates stole into our computers during the dead of night and made off with some valuable loot—the bonuses these familiars grant their masters! Fortunately, we tracked down the villainous knaves on the open seas and recovered our lost cargo—and took a few extra bits o’ plunder for ourselves.

So without further ado, here’s the rules for the pirate familiars presented in The Wormwood Mutiny, with a few other pirate familiars thrown in for good measure!

Other Piratical Familiars

Trained animals are extremely popular among pirates, serving as pets, ships’ mascots, and company on lengthy voyages. Pirate spellcasters prove no different than their shipmates in their interest in pets, and find having exotic familiars wins them bragging rights and a degree of status. Creatures like blue-ringed octopuses, goats, hawks, rats, lizards, king crabs, monkeys, rats, scarlet spiders, snapping turtles, vipers, and weasels all serve as existing examples of potential pirate familiars that appear in either the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary or Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Magic. Additionally, the statistics for many existent familiars might be used to represent more exotic, piratical familiars. The following table presents a variety of such exotic familiars, statistics that can be used to represent them, and the benefits of having them as familiars (which, in some cases, vary from the familiar creatures whose statistics they share).

Familiar	Statistics	Special Ability
Dodo	Dodo	Master gains a +4 bonus on initiative checks
Dwarf caiman	Dwarf caiman	Master gains a +3 bonus on Stealth checks
Giant isopod	Giant isopod	Master gains a +1 natural armor bonus to AC
Marine iguana	Dwarf caiman	Master gains a +3 bonus on Swim checks
Mongoose	Weasel	Master gains a +2 bonus on Fortitude saves
Osprey	Hawk	Master gains a +3 bonus on Survival checks
Parrot	Raven	Master gains a +3 bonus on Linguistics checks
Toucan	Raven (cannot speak)	Master gains a +3 bonus on Diplomacy checks
Sea krait	Viper	Master gains a +2 bonus on Fortitude saves
Seal	Seal	Master gains a +3 bonus on Swim checks
Snail kite	Hawk	Master gains a +3 bonus on Fly checks

Rob McCreary
Developer