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Path: utzoo!watmath!jagardner
From: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: Familiars in FRP
Message-ID: <14863@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Jun-85 11:48:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.14863
Posted: Wed Jun  5 11:48:49 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Jun-85 00:25:49 EDT
References: <5284@ucla-cs.ARPA> <1000@cs.reading.UUCP> <5181@ukc.UUCP> <5773@ucla-cs.ARPA> <1740@aecom.UUCP>
Reply-To: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 29

[...]

In a Champions campaign here in Waterloo, I play an Imp named Grimoire
who is actually a familiar.  Odd circumstances, of course: Grimoire was
summoned as the familiar for a baby who the parents hope will turn out
to be a great sorceror.  The parents are very minor class sorcerors
themselves, which is how they managed to summon a crummy familiar like
Grimoire.  The parents are of Good alignment (if you want to think of
things that way -- in our campaign, we say they are followers of the White
Hand) but the plane they contacted for the familiar was Evil.  Due to
the Laws of some covenant or other, the devils of that plane were honour-bound
to come up with a familiar whose disposition matched the disposition of the
summoners, so they had to send someone who wasn't grossly Evil.  They
chose Grimoire who was too incompetent to be methodically evil.

Grimoire is a lovely lazy character, hopelessly addicted to eating
tobacco.  It gives him the same sort of buzz that catnip gives cats.
It's fun to watch him try to be heroic -- by the laws of being a familiar,
he has to follow the wishes of the White Hand even when he'd rather go
annoy squirrels or make drunks think they have the DTs.  It is also nice
to have him put up with the irrational wishes of his infant master -- our
GM is a sadist who continually comes up with new ways to offend Grimoire's
dignity.  All in all, a delightful character (and three cheers for the
Champions system that lets me play an imp this way instead of forcing
me into the conventional D&D interpretation).

				Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo