I.e ones who's master died and never got resurrected. Do they just gradually turn into normal animals again?
Witch's familiars become normal animals, because the witch's rules say they do. Otherwise, its up to the GM. Honestly it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of Pathfinder.
The witch rules merely say that the familiar loses its spells after 24 hours. It's still up to interpretation if the familiar otherwise continues to be a familiar or not.
I believe JJ once confirmed that after an unspecified period of time, animal companions and familiars whose master's has died go back to being a normal creature of its type.
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For dead, dead, the surviving animal familiars or animal companions revert, I believe, but for masters taken out by reversible methods like flesh to stone or temporal stasis, the familiars and companions should just be stuck waiting around, and that could be a plot point. (Whether or not extra-planar critters like fiendish/celestial animals, small elementals, mephits, quasits, imps, etc. go home or not is also up for grabs. Korvosa appears to be infested with imps who outlived their masters and never went home...)
1 - Party gets sucked into a mirror of life trapping. Next session, the witches familiar, druid's tiger and some other allies / NPCs plan the daring rescue!
2 - A secret cabal of 'refugee familiars' led by a talking crow with a ring of invisibility on it's leg and a few wands strapped to it's side attempt to recruit your familiar to join them. They have a captive cockatrice they use to 'liberate' their recruits by petrifying their cruel masters...
What happens to critters whose master died and came back as a vampire or ghoul or lich or even ghost is also unclear. I could see plot potential in instant death, instant transformation to undeath, or instant breaking of the bond and necessity of recruiting a more undead-friendly option being required, or the, perhaps increasingly miserable animal, trapped in a relationship with the undead monster that has replaced you, as a more horror-y option. (Perhaps one of those situations similar to plot point 2, where the familiar actively wants it's master gone and to join the 'liberated' Ex-familiars gang...)
This isn't addressed in the rules anywhere, but yes, you should be able to dismiss a familiar if you want to select a new one. However, you must still wait 1 week and pay 200 gp for the 8-hour ritual. Dismissing a familiar is ending a link between your soul and it, so it should probably take about an hour.
The exception to the above is if you take the Improved Familiar feat, which allows you to immediately replace your familiar with the new familiar, at no cost or time required (it is assumed this occurs during whatever preparations you make while leveling up).
Once dismissed, an animal familiar is just a normal animal of its type (a special familiar from the Improved Familiar feat reverts to a normal creature of its type). Whether or not it wants to remain with you is up to your GM and probably based on how you treated the creature while it was your familiar.
posted July 2011
I would posit that you dying would break the link between your Soul and it, falling into the dismissal rules, (yet taking 24 hours instead of the deliberate act taking 1 hour). Raise Animal Companion works on Familiars because only the "master" has the ability to dismiss their Familiar, (not the other way around). If you concur with this then you might want to apply the same to Animal Companions as they too can be dismissed:
If you lose or dismiss your animal companion, you can spend 1 day performing a ceremony to gain a new one. This ceremony requires 24 uninterrupted hours of prayer in the environment where the new companion typically lives (at the GM’s discretion, traveling might add to the downtime requirement if there’s no suitable environment near the settlement).Replace Your Familiar
The Core Rulebook allows you to replace a familiar if at least 1 week has passed since it was dismissed or lost. Doing so requires you to spend 1 day performing a specialized ritual to summon a new familiar. The ritual costs 200 gp × your wizard or witch level. You can spend Goods or Magic toward the ritual cost.
It all comes down to individual interpretation I am afraid.
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By RAW I don't know. Others have put it up there so I suppose that's what happens.
However, in my Mummy's Mask game, I had a snake just as a random enemy. It was hiding under a table outside an estate the team was exploring. The team..., not only left it alone but also gave it some food.
There was a weapon in the building that was going to be VERY useful to killing about half the enemies there so I ruled that the former owner of the weapon was a Ranger/Hunter of some kind and his animal companion was the snake. Smart enough to do a 'snapping' trick to make a sound and smart enough to lead the group to the weapon(Which has a snake decal on it).
The party took the helpful snake with them and actually became the Cleric's familiar
I think they take the souls of their dead 'masters' to the Old Ones where they will be consumed.
I put it on the internet so it must be true...
I think they take the souls of their dead 'masters' to the Old Ones where they will be consumed.
I put it on the internet so it must be true...
Quasit and cacodaemon familiars do exactly that, except they take the souls of their masters to the Abyss or Abaddon.
I helped create a backstory for one of my players where he was wandering in the desert, close to death, and performed the ritual to call an animal companion he had been taught as a child (turning him from an NPC class to a PC class). As he meditated, another ranger, trekking through the desert, succumbed to poison and died. His tiger heard the telepathic call of the PC and went to him. She led him back to the body of her old companion, so the PC was able to take all his stuff and find his way to the nearest town. A rather fortunate coincidence for my player!
Spirit Oni, Imps, Ioun Wyrds, and Quasits all have entries that state them doing stuff after the master dies.
/cevah
PETA finds them and makes a sad twitter post about them before their inevitable euthanization.
People for the Eating of Tasty Animals? Why would they write sad posts about them?
... oh wait. You mean the other PETA.
/cevah
I believe JJ once confirmed that after an unspecified period of time, animal companions and familiars whose master's has died go back to being a normal creature of its type.
There's something really depressing and unsettling for me about imagining some familiar going all flowers for algernon after their master dies.
I believe the tradition is a funereal barbecue.
My wizard's greensting scorpion in Kingmaker was named Nizidramanii'yt. I called him Izzy. That arachnid was my wizard's best friend.
I like to imagine familiars retaining their intelligence and getting a few class levels... maybe following in their master's footsteps.