Familiar Magic

Familiar magic is the art of using familiars, minor created bound to an object or the mage's soul, and let them fight for you. The strength of a Familiar mage depends on his or her willpower, since they have to be able to remain in control over their familiar. A master in the art of Familiar magic would be able to control and summon large, powerful creatures or an army of smaller weaker creatures.

Origin
The origin, surprisingly, lays with an old cat woman. She lived somewhere around the end of the second era and begin of the third era. Living all alone in the woods, she had only her cats to keep her company. She was looking for a way to safe her cats as they died far before her. With this, she discovered an empty plane that later was deemed the Familiar Realm.

She managed to create gates to this realm using objects. Some may think that these animals are trapped within the objects, but the opposite is true as it is but a mere door.

The villagers of a nearby village got word of this and deemed her a witch, killing her at night. Her home left alone for years till a traveler happens to walk past it and went inside, seeing the house filled with well living cats. To his curiosity the traveler tried to figure out how as the place looks to have been abandoned for years. With the knowledge the old woman wrote down about the Familiar Realm the traveler took this to a school of magic to have it researched, and, several years later the art of Familiar Magic was discovered.

Philosophy
The Philosphy of Familiar magic is that every creature has a secret power, one that can be discovered and unlocked when traveling to the Familiar Realm.

Next to this, another idea in Familiar Magic is that an animal can be a man's best friend. You bond with it, bond the familiar to yourself.

With those two ideas combined, a Familiar mage is able to summon Familiars that will aid them in battle and life.

Learning the art of Familiar magic
To start leaning the arts of Familiar magic, the mage would have to obtain the cards made for this. Currently, it is very common to use these magic cards to summon familiars, but it is possible to use other objects for this, though extremely rare.

After obtaining these cards the mage would have to learn the ways of it. How it is used in binding a familiar to you and allowing it into the familiar realm. With this comes the understanding of verbal spells. In order to open a gate to the familiar realm, thus summoning a familiar needs a specific series of words, or else it won't work. This means the mage would have to study the right works.

Then, after the mage has learned how to bind a familiar to himself and summon them, he will have to learn to control them. This requires most of the training over time since familiars, after all, are wild animals that will retaliate when not under control anymore.

Abilities
The abilities of a Familiar mage are rather simple.

- Summoning Familiars by opening a familiar's personal gate.

- Creating Familiars by sending them to the Familiar Realm with a personal gate.

- Controlling Familiars.