As people may know from other polls I've brought up in the past, I plan on writing a Ranma/D&D fanfiction in the future. With the release of the Arcane Power sourcebook, the prospect of Familiars has arisen... and as the only prerequisite is an Arcane class, that means all three of the Neremites are eligible (Ranma: Swordmage, Ukyo: Wizard, Shampoo: Sorcerer). I wasn't sure which character(s) would work best with one, so that's part of the reason why I'm here.
The second reason is simple; there's a fairly large number of Familiars, and I'm not certain which ones would best "mesh" with any given member of the trio. If you cast a vote, or even if you don't, would you mind leaving a post with your nominations for which Familiar you think would work best with which character? For the curious, Heroic Tier Familiars can be taken pretty much straight away, Paragon Tier Familiars won't show up until "Book 2" (we've functionally divided the story into three "books", each of which covers a different time in their "campaign"), and Epic Tier Familiars are only availible in "Book 3".
Additionally, or alternatively, I could use advice on making whatever Familiars show up in the story unique. There are four areas for this; Appearance, Personality Quirks, Passive Mode, and Passive/Active Transition. That is, what they look like, any personality quirks, what they look like in Passive format (I'll explain that in a second), and what happens when they transition from one mode to another.
You see, Familiars are magical spirits called into being by and bound to service of an arcanist, so they have two "modes". In active mode, they materialise in the corporeal world and can act independently of the arcanist- in this state, though, they are vulnerable (though destroying them merely banishes them for a time). In passive mode, they mostly phase out of existence, so they cannot be attacked in this state, but they grant only a lesser boon and must always remain close to the wizard- this usuall results in them transforming some way. Appearance, in both forms, can be quite spectacular; these are beings of pure magic, so something like a bat made of living metal or a skull carved from a solid piece of quartz is quite viable. As is a bound demon that normally exists as a tattoo on its master's chest, or a spider that transforms from a palm-sized jet bead.
For an example, here is Geryon, a Book Imp. It looks like a multitude of writing-covered pages wrapped and twisted together to form a (mummy-like) diabolic humanoid form. It has the quirk of being deeply afraid of fire, even though it's not inherently flammable. In passive mode, it looks like a book. When activated, the book shudders and shakes before springing open as a storm of pages fly from it and wrap together into Geryon. When returned to passive mode, it comes apart and flies back into the bindings.
I welcome any and all posts to this topic: I want to hear from you, so please respond? And here is the complete list of availible Familiars. Oh, and if you want an explanation on what a given type of Familiar is (like the [Colour]Spawns, for example), then just post your query here and I'll answer the minute I see it.
Heroic Tier
Arcane Eye
Badger
Bat
Book Imp
Bound Demon
Canine Construct
Cat
Crafter Homunculus
Disembodied Hand
Dragonling
Falcon
Fire Lizard
Ooze
Owl
Lightning Lizard
Parrot
Rat
Raven
Rootling
Scout Homunculous
Serpent
Skull
Spider
Toad
Weasel
Paragon Tier
Air Mephit
Arcane Wisp
Beholderkin
Blackspawn Darkling
Bluespawn Nimblespark
Earth Mephit
Fire Mephit
Greyspawn Shortfang
Greenspawn Banespike
Ice Mephit
Rakshasa Claw
Redspawn Spitfire
Stone Fowl
Whitespawn Snowstepper
Epic Tier
Blazing Skull
Chaos Shard
Gibbering Pet
Shadow Incarnate