SSE Mage Familiar: Voiced Support Companion

[Corbaine]

Since I summoned my first Pseudo Dragon in Baldur's Gate, I've been looking for familiars in any game with magic.

 

I'd go so far as to say the mage experience isn't complete without one.

 

With all the incredible voiced companions available here on Nexus, I was wondering if someone would consider doing a voiced familiar mod? Not a combat follower though - just a small human-like otherworldly companion that keeps you company with a master-servant dynamic in parallel with an irreplaceable friendship and companionship approach. If the familiar had abilities, it might be something like a detect item buff and healing / remove disease / remove poison out of combat.

 

Being otherworldly, the familiar could provide insight you'd never be able to achieve yourself as a first time player, such as whispering in your ear about how Sam Guevenne has a powerful Daedric aura, and that some companions have been touched by Hircine, etc. The familiar could also comment (gossip) on some of your companions, lead you to your quest marker like clairvoyance and look for small items it can bring to you. Perhaps also some more humorous and casual interaction like feeding the familiar snacks and getting it drunk by letting it sample mead, or finding out its on a slight high because it messed with your alchemy ingredients. A sort of uncontrollable autonomy that makes it really feel alive.

 

The familiar should exist outside of combat and be completely ignored by hostiles, but is free to offer helpful comments about your condition such as "Master! You are gravely wounded! Heal yourself!" or "Master, You've been poisoned! Quickly, drink an antidote while I poke them in the eye!", and if possible highlight enemy weaknesses, such as "Trolls! They are weak against fire, Master. Use fire magic or weapons against them." I'm not sure what is or isn't possible, so I'll defer to the modding community on that.

 

In terms of appearance, one could take an NPC and set its scale to 0.1 (or whatever is adequate), give it assets from an animated wing mod, a glowing effect, and set it to fly around as if it was swimming in the air / using the tcl command. I hope that makes sense...

 

If time, labor and costs were irrelevant, I would propose having a male and female version for players to choose from. I take it that would be no small feat though...

 

As far as a quest goes (I'm just thumb-sucking something as I sit here, so don't expect too much), you could maybe find the familiar hiding in the robes of the dead mage in the Helgen dungeon where the Imperial torturer is stashing his loot (or something on the corpse that directs you to this very special and unique familiar), or perhaps as a side effect of absorbing your first dragon soul.

 

From the beginning, the familiar is obsessed with staying close to you, and as your relationship advances you realize that it is scared of something. And eventually its fears realize as the entity it is terrified of catches up with you and this very powerful entity forcefully takes the familiar back from you. You would be powerless to stop it from happening. It should be emotionally wrenching with terrified screeches and crying, and the certain knowledge that a terrible fate now awaits the kind, playful and helpful creature you've been building a relationship with over many hours / days of gameplay. Due to the deep supportive nature of the role the familiar plays, you will quickly feel the gaping hole it's absence leaves in your Skyrim gameplay experience. You then set off to research the identity of the entity that took your familiar from you and to then find a way to kill it with the help of a new NPC or perhaps the guy who fixes your vampirism problem.

 

Upon securing the means to kill the entity, you get a desperate vision from your tortured familiar telling you where it is and begging you to save it.

 

You discover that your mysterious enemy is something very dangerous from the realms of Oblivion and that it created the familiar as the catalyst in a ritual to steal power from the Ideal Masters, by sacrificing the familiar's soul as a feign offering to open a one-way gate to them through its body from which it can infinitely draw power. (I'm a casual~ish TES player, so please correct where necessary as required by the world's lore). You track down the ritual site, use whatever to, say, pull the powerful entity into the material plane, forcing its incomprehensible essence into something like the Gravelords from Mihail's mods. This initiates a hectic fight against an otherworldly force that is more powerful than you. Even with the limitations and weaknesses this plane of existence imposes on it, your familiar still needs to shout out instructions on how to kill it, such as activating certain barriers and spells in different places in the boss-fight room, requiring you to run around, think on your feet and act quickly. The boss should do serious damage that ignores your armor, but the debuffs you inflict on it should also be so OP that a skilled player can both win this fight at any level, or lose it at any level.

 

To heighten the suspense of the fight, you should be competing with a timer which, when depleted, will result in the permanent death of your familiar. If you win, you can either complete the ritual and sacrifice your familiar yourself to become permanently more powerful, or you can save your adorable companion who will now have additional and more powerful abilities because it no longer needs to suppress its magic to stay hidden. It will also be eternally grateful for your kindness and its old dialogue replaced with new lines that reflects this immeasurable debt of gratitude it feels towards you.

 

I know - culture shock to Skyrim.

 

So that's my idea. I hope this strikes a note with the right people, even if only to motivate someone to create their own variation of this. We could all benefit from such a deep and meaningful companion that isn't tied to romance, combat and all the other frustrating elements of Skyrim that drives one to keep looking for something more.

 

Of course, the familiar isn't by any means limited to mages. All play styles will benefit from it. The term is simply used to communicate the concept as best I can.

 

Cheers