Maximus Decimus Merkittius
My Order of the Tome Cavalier calls his horse "Familiar".
His whole shtick is that his father wanted him to be a sorcerer, but he didn't have the gift.
Tough break. Some of us are just not simply born with magical blood :(
Tough break. Some of us are just not simply born with magical blood :(
Yeah. I feel bad for you guys.
A mule named "old Number 7"....how many of us are old enough to remember that one?
my Wow Hunter pet Wolf ..."Nutbiter"
Was the character's name Mad Jack?
I play a blade bound Magus in a friend's campaign who has a really large rooster as his familiar named Mykamorqoq. Of course, no one actually calls him a rooster, but refers to him by a synonym which would probably not be allowed past the auto-censors on the forums. But hilarity always ensues whenever I, or anyone else, says anything using that word. He also has a burro named Donkey Hotey.
My 2E Bard kept a mule named Dear Lord. We figured him for dead many times, but he just kept showing back up in strange places. My DM just liked the name and kept using him as a plot device/deus ex machina.
I had a WoW BElf Hunter named Docdolitle who's black lion (I got him when he was a rare elite...) was named Mistofoles.
I really like Bacon for boars and pigs, but Pancetta, Prosciutto, or Serrano would work just as well.
I've never been a big fan of animal companions, familiars, special mounts, or cohorts because the paperwork to keep track of them gets daunting, and they tend to slow down combat. Consequently, I only recall three PCs I've played in all my decades of gaming that had animal companions...
My 3.0 eldritch knight Fenwick Firebrand had an owl familiar named Harriet.
I had an AD&D 2nd Ed. ranger named John Hawkwood (named for the historical figure) with a wolf animal companion named Lightning. (Acquired through the animal friendship spell.)
I played a D&D 3.5 paladin that was inspired by characters from Westerns (particularly The Man With No Name and the Lone Ranger). His name was Duke, and he rode a horse named Silver.
My fighter Baron Drax von Stryker wasn't much of a horseman, but he did ride a horse for transportation. And sometimes, he had to fight from horseback. Unfortunately, his horse got killed out from under him a bunch of times. He started to name all of his horses "Steed" rather than get too attached to them.
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The worst familiar name I ever encountered was probably about 20 years ago. In the AD&D 1st ed game I was running, we had a half-elf magic-user/thief named Quistar that had a rat familiar. Wanting to name the rat something that alliterated with the PC's name, the player chose the very ironic name "Quisling."
I asked him, "Are you really sure you want to name him 'Quisling?'". He assured me that he did-- and I took that to mean that he was deliberately choosing an ironic name for a familiar. Turns out, he had no idea that "quisling" means "traitor," and he re-named that rat in a hurry a few weeks later when he found out!
There's only one good name for a Raven. Quoth.
Diane named hers Poe.
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I have two though neither are particularly good names but the story that goes with them makes me think of those names affectionately. Strangely enough both were horses.
The first was in college we had a character in the group who had leadership and the result was 4 low level followers that we tended to refer too as the Puds. As in pud #1, pud #2 etc...
Well around mid levels for various reasons we had lost horses more than a few times....everybody but that one character. His horse had survived floods, dragon attacks, quicksand you name it. It got to the point where the guy was sleeping in the stables because this horse was clearly a good luck charm...after that we hung a sign on the paddock while he was eating at the inn, dubbing the horse pud #5.
The other was back in high school a friend had an old broken down fighter patterned after an old west gun slinger. He named his horse sh** head and proceeded to call it all sorts of names, roleplayed that it never did what he asked, it was the bane of his existence as they fought, argued, and squabled their way through 10 levels of adventuring. It ate his food and belched, it stole pies from window sills ....you name it.
Well one day around tenth level the party is chased by a huge beast of some sort acrossed a dusty plane...and then suddenly they are barreling headlong towards a cliff...everyone breaks for cover...but Sh**head refuses to obey commands and at the last moment the fighter must jump off as the horse careens over the ledge thelma and louise style. The beast follows it over the edge and goes crashing to the bottom as well....
The fighter gets up, dusts himself off...walks to the edge, looking over and says " Dayum...loved that horse"
I had a Cormyan Battle Priest who named his horses Trigger and Silver. The Gnome rogue had riding dogs named Balto and Cujo.
I really enjoy naming my animal companions/familiars after famous authors.
My favorite to date was a rhino (ranger's companion) I named "Chaucer".
Runners up were a little pig familiar named "Dickens" and an owl familiar named "Huxley". (side note: I had a really hard time naming an owl anything other than Archimedes =P )
I can't believe I forgot this. I had a 1/2 elf thief/wizard way back in 1e; he had a whole pirate theme going on. I rolled brilliantly for dex and int but his str was an 8. Anyway, his name was Armand of the Red Cape and he had a very superman-esque voice for some reason. His parrot was Henri (ahn-ree) and it was decidedly french...and it argued with him ALL the time.
It called him names like weakling and stringarms; it berated him when his spells didn't affect their targets, and basically it annoyed all the other players at the table. I sent it to drop a coconut on a goblin's head once - he hit, did max damage and killed the thing. The party never heard the end of it...
I played a Devil Binder with imp familiar named Chauntzaggaroth. Although I usually called him Chauncy.
My Cleric of Talos on a NWN server I played frequently summoned a Nabassu she called that same exact name. Became a LOT more fun when the 1.68 patch allowed the /speaksum command to make your summoned critter talk, so Chauncey could actually be RPed.
Fun thread! My half-elven bard / monk gestalt has a pet Fennec fox she's named Princess Jasmine, and a Capuchin monkey familiar she named King Tut.
The amusing thing is that NPC is herself a princess and she'll refer to the monkey as 'His Majesty'. She playfully tells Tut that he's in charge when her retainers take him with them on jaunts into the city. Also amusing is the fact that the monkey is smarter than one of the player's cohorts (Sasha Nevah from Serpent's Skull). XD
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In GURPS, our pack mule was always named Spam.
In Vampire, my Nosferatu's (ghouled) three-legged stray mutt (utterly useless in combat, just for RP value) was named Sparky, after our real mutt (who had four legs, but was also useless, for pretty much anything). I'm pretty sure that my watching Farscape at the time led to that choice of name, just as our pet guinea pig is named Squonky because we watched too much Winnie the Pooh...
There was an attitudinous pseudo-dragon named Siobhannon, who insisted on being treated like a *real* dragon.
And the Lamashtu-worshipping gnoll druid named his badger 'Little Mother,' because she was a small furry reflection of the demonic rage of the Mother of Monsters.
My current druid doesn't name his companions, because he thinks it's insulting to anthropomorphize them in that manner and treat them like pets. He's odd like that. :)
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Hmm. Well, the horses named so creatively Horse II, II, IV etc. aren't familiars...
Let's see. There was Mr. Bitey, the Witch's cat in our Kingmaker campaign.
And Fluffy the dinosaur, a druid's companion animal.
And Lord Floppington. That was an aquatic something-or-other that tended to materialize for the bard/druid on dry land...
I played a weasel companion named by his master Vizel.
In our current party we have wizardess who named her rat Szmerek [shmerekh ](literally "little murmur/whisper").
Please list name and what it was. My alltime favorite was my cute little Winterwolf named FlufferSnaps
Shoogy-Doo when my 8 year old son played a pet shuggoth of a necromancer run by an adult member. He played the role complete with the funny Scooby-Doo-esque voice.
In service,
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My Arcane trickster has a monkey familiar. The first was Jack. The second was Jack II. The third was Jack III. And so on. They wear little red vests with their number marked clearly on the front so the AT can keep track of which one he's on. He's a tailor so he makes the vests. He also makes them in advance. So if Jack II get's uppity he pulls out and straightens the vest with at III on it in front of Jack II. Presently Jack II is also a chain smoker. It seems to calm his nerves. ;-)
In a brief attempt at Skull & Shackles my roommate had a bard w/ a Parrot familiar because he went Sea Singer. His name was "Mr. Beaksworth." Because he could speak, after we got multiple ships he keep proclaiming himself "Capt. Beaksworth" because the bard who was originally Captain was now "Admiral." If you did not call him this....he would correct you....LOL
Not exactly a familiar, but the magus in my group has a mule that seems extremely apt to survive the most dangerous enemies, even more than some PCs (last time it was a hanging tree, IIRC). Smart mule indeed, we named it Francis (although it doesn't speak... yet).
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I'm proud of Appleslayer, Zae's trusty riding dog. He named himself by his great deeds.
Otherwise, I usually go for the cute names for the vicious things, and the vicious names for the cute things. Fluffy is my fallback -- in MMOs I name all my pets Fluffy (including ravagers, spiders, rock elementals, etc) so that my characters never call one by the wrong name in battle.
I'm also partial to Peaches, Nibbler, and the ever-classic Bitey.
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Phideaux.
Dammit.
"Dammit - get over here!"
"Dammit - cut that out!"
"Dammit, didn't I tell you to...!"
Was in a campaign were one of the players was a dwarf who's mount was a boar named bacon. Bacon replaced his original boar mount named ham sandwich who was killed by a giant.