Editing Familiar (section)

== Social Role ==
Many Practitioner families will carefully choose and negotiate with familiars for their children.<ref name=":2">“There’s a ritual that you can enact, that ties you to an Other.  It will give you some talents or skills, and in exchange, you give it a taste of mortality.  As Alpeana alludes, it can be a break from their standard responsibilities or the demands they have for certain foods.  A vampire, for example, would not need to drink blood. [...] The Seal of Solomon was far harsher to them than it was to most.  Practitioners who want to extend their power and raise their status will often pick a Familiar.  Some families will have their children take a familiar early, to establish a firm bond with one kind of Other.  The Familiar grants power, awareness, and some extra innate ability, depending on what it is.  Powerful or insidious familiars may overwhelm you through that connection that is formed, so be wary.  Know your strength.”<br><br>“And in exchange, they become mortal?  They don’t have to eat?” Lucy asked.<br><br>“Alpeana would not need to work.  An Other in the process of falling apart, such as the Girl by Candlelight, who became the Edith you now know, might be shored up.  An option they could not take, because the Doom Matthew now houses would have destroyed them both.  Faerie might seek it out to enrich their understanding of human experience.  A goblin would be free to be active for more than a few hours at a stretch, when they normally sleep for twenty or so hours every day, and they would have easy passage over places with power and running water.”<br><br>“Sounds great,” Avery said.  “Aside from the risk of getting too big a familiar, why wouldn’t we do this?  Why wait?”<br><br>“Because it is a lifelong commitment.  The Other would be with you until you died.  You would want to be sure he or she was committed to the responsibility, that he or she was compatible with you.  Families that choose familiars for their children will pick suitable and safe ones, negotiating well in advance, if they don’t simply expect their child to adapt.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/06/27 Excerpt] from [[Stolen Away 2.6]]</ref>