All right, so now since I'm finished defining all of the worlds residents I'll go back to working with magic. Onto the familiar system!
So, familiars are magical creatures linked to a person through contract magic. To be exact the most powerful contract possible. The contract binds the 2 beings souls together, if one dies so will the other, and the pairs magical energy is linked. In the world not having a familiar is extremely uncommon. There are many traditions related to it in the world (I need to add traditions to the list for developing races). Such as vampires having their protege enter into giant dungeons after a certain point in their life to find a familiar. As well as most vampires having Camazotz or spirit familiars.
A person and their familiar are called a sodality. I like using uncommon worlds to describe certain things in my stories. Such as in one story I needed a name for supernatural abilities, so I called them aberrant abilities. This is common in stories, authors, instead of creating a whole new word will re purpose a word that isn't used often. I do this by taking a common word that I could use to describe what I want, then I run it through a thesaurus a couple of times.
If one will naturally live longer than the other, the others life span is increase.
example: an elemental bonds with a human.
The human would normally live to at max 120, where as an elemental could live to 1000 years (note to self: go through the live span of mythical creatures). The soul bond would combine their life span into one unified timeline, lengthening both creatures life spans.
Magic is fueled by life energy in the soul. This energy is used with a catalyst to influence the world and or it's rules. So when a familiar contract is formed and the two souls are linked the sodality gains access to each others magic energy. This also boosts the magic capacity of both parties. This does not allow them to use each other's specialty. Though it does increase the pairs proficiency in those types of magic.
Being linked allows telepathic communication. The distance this can be achieved at depends on the sodalities relationship. If the pair doesn't get along the distance will be short, the opposite being true as well. No matter the distance the pair will always be able to tell each others location. I chose to do this because animals wouldn't be able to speak with humans. They would need a way to communicate. I also didn't think it would make sense if a sodality was separated for them not to be able to tell where the other is. Stronger pairs would also be able to link their senses, this would only be possible with a extremely good relationship.
The relationship between pairs is extremely important. If it is strained the pair will weaken. Their emotions influence each other greatly, and if one is hurt the other will feel pain as well.
That's all I have for familiars, I took a lot of inspiration from witches familiars. I added my own twists to them though.
Next post I'll go over life spans.
