(Or scaled, warty, etc.)

Our next installment of show-and-tell...

So many of us have animal companions, familiars, or a pet of some sort. (Sometimes several.) Is there a special beastie in your character's life? Why, and what is its significance? Does it have a name? Some involved backstory? Any tales of hilarious hijinx or high adventure where your animal played an important role?

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One of my characters, who may or may not have escaped from an Imperial insane asylum, has in his possession a small toad. It has no name, it's merely 'the toad', as though everyone knows precisely what toad that is. It's a very sedate creature, unflappable even. He swears up and down the toad eats nightmares and leaves behind gems in their stead. He rarely lets it outs of his possession; the only time recently was a reluctant loan to his foster sister for a few days when she was having a particularly bad time of something she refused to share.

He also has a habit of feeding alley cats. Sometimes they follow him home, at which point he'll present them to his housemate for a name. So far, two have names, Willamina (a disheveled charcoal cat) and Scruff (a shabby tabby cat). A few others have demonstrated a specific personality but haven't managed to acquire names yet. I'm sure it's just a matter of time. I occasionally refer to these as his alley cat army.

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Cendadric says, "Hmm, a most impressive weapon of note. I'll give you 110 silver coins for it."

I have often joked that my primary character is that barn owl. He certainly has more friends than my actual character, anyway.

Raelee would say that her familiar, a pale-faced coppery barn owl, does not have a name. She's never given him one and certainly doesn't refer to him by one. Most call him Owly, though. He's been given a few other names over the years: Stu, Strygor and Tsagi are some that I remember.

Owly is a funny thing, really. If you were to ask me how or why it started, I could really only shrug. Years and years ago, I think it started from just goofing off with a familiar and it snowballed. It definitely was not planned. Improv is probably the root of most of his quirks. He used to be parked in North Market most of the time, given that muffins were the most convenient food there... his great love for pastry and carbs was born. He does definitely serve as a bit of a foil to Raelee's stone cold seriousness. I'm definitely not as serious of a person as my character, thus it's nice to have an outlet to be a little goofy. (And when I had the opportunity to write custom ambient messaging for him, I tried to make it a blend of 'Raelee is watching' and his usual adorable self.)

Raelee, of course, would say that the reason she tolerates all of this is...
1) Barn owls do have some of the best ears in the animal kingdom and their flight is silent, even by owl standards. That bird is still her ears and eyes afterall. (Of course, I picked a barn owl over other owl varieties because I think they're super pretty and matched her color scheme well...)
2) When people like your familiar as much as people seem to like Owly... you'd be amazed at what people are willing to tell him.

Now here's the real truth about what makes Owly awesome:

It's the people who interact and play with him. I have 5 or 6 verbs at my disposal and that's it. I've got the easy half of the equation. It's the rest of you who give that meaning and breathe life into it.

Signed,
Raelee and her Strings

>Speaking to Zyllah, Alyias says, "See? Raelee knows all."

Pup is friends with a forest wolf named Aatu. You almost never see them apart unless the wolf is running a message or tracking someone for Pup. Not nearly to owlie extreme but the wolf gets more attention then Pup does. Also rp with, pup has made friends with the local birds and squirrels whom he feeds too keep that friendship. These animals have over time deliever written messages for Pup and has been his eyes and ears as needed. I do thank Kenstrom for playing along on this rp from time to time.

>He does definitely serve as a bit of a foil to Raelee's stone cold seriousness

That has always been my exact interpretation of owly. In fact I think Maylan may have a stronger affinity to owly than she does to Raelee.

And now my turn. You either love him or hate him - the infamous Chubchilla, the obese drunken chinchilla. Chubbs is very much an extension of the ridiculousness and baffoonery of Maylan. She found him one day eating scraps out of a trash bin, and he was already quite large for a rodent by this time. She offered him a drink and they've been best buds ever since.

Never has an "item" given me so much joy in-game. I'd strip away all of my gear before parting with Chubbs. I love seeing everyone's reaction to him - whether you are amused, horrified, or otherwise. It's also funny to note that the original Chubchilla is long dead. The version you see in-game is Chubchilla 3.0. The first one was lost because I didn't realize that there was a bug that would cause the janitor to occasionally eat them if you log out while they are on the ground (the janitor has a voracious appetite, after all). The second Chubchilla was lost in a game crash and quickly restored.

Cheers to Chubchilla, the best drinking buddy there ever was! http://imgur.com/a/07uYa

~Land Pirate Maylan~

Radeek has as his companion a black-tipped twilight grey wolf, Eclipse. Her description is as follows:

Lustrous, twilight grey fur tipped with midnight black covers a black-tipped twilight grey wolf's muscular frame, deepening the shade of grey in her mane and down the front of her chest. The dark of her muzzle is interrupted by a small, pale, sunburst-shaped mark above her right nostril. The most striking feature of the wolf is her ever-vigilant golden eyes that give hint to her cunning nature.

Radeek and Eclipse are absolutely inseparable; where you see one, the other is always close by. I won't go into detail about how Radeek and Eclipse became as they are; suffice it to say that Eclipse came to Radeek during a very dark time in his life, and he believes she is a gift from his deity. The story is on Radeeks blog anyway, as are a number of the stories of his life as a Tehir.


General Radeek Andoran
Drakes Vanguard
Defender of Wehnimer's Landing
Black Raider of the Mir'Sheq

Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato

http://radeekandoran.blogspot.ca/

http://thetehirchronicles.blogspot.ca/

This is how I imagine Bekke and Raelee's familiars when they are both busy with official Hall of Mages business: http://i.imgur.com/7ye1VSQ.gifv

~Land Pirate Maylan~

My favorite part of playing with the owl (in character and out) is knowing that, somewhere, Raelee is seeing it all and being mildly annoyed by it.

I've already posted about Ysharra's raven, Munin, so my pardons if some of this is repeating myself:

Ysharra was originally an NPC I played in someone's tabletop game, an escaped slave who recruited some adventurers to take back home with her and burn it all down. And she had a raven with her who helped her scout ahead, sort of a calling card- follow me to reward and ruin, to feast and flames and so on. So needless to say when they released ACs, I was thrilled to see that ravens were an available option.

By then Ysharra's visual and background themes of life in the polar regions were pretty well-defined, and the only ravens about were on Teras, so I was glad to win a spot with the first groomer that came along and have him transform her from a jet black raven into a snow white raven. Munin's name, as I mentioned, comes from Norse mythology, the two ravens who sat on Odin the Allfather's shoulders, Hugin and Munin, Thought and Memory.

Ysharra's Norse-inspired connections are pretty well anchored by the mythology of ravens in those tales, Valkyries, for example, the warrior maidens who would choose heroes to be slain in battle and taken to Valhalla to fight in Ragnarok, were sometimes depicted as ravens. Ysharra follows V'tull, and Odin, when he would ride out with the valkyries, he would become Ygg, the bloodthirsty god of war.

The ravens also signified sacrifice, as Odin gave up his eye for a draught of the Well of Wisdom, and they roosted with him when he hung himself on Yggdrasil for nine days and nine nights. This to me correlates with Ysharra's bond with her Mularosian friends and their expressions of faith and love.

Last but not least, ravens also represented Odin's clever, trickster nature, of using his wit and gift of gab to win even more power and recognition for himself. Ysharra's signature personality trait is curiosity, which again is commonly associated with corvids, along with a fairly keen perception.

With some exceptions, Ysharra uses Munin's treatment from other people as a hint of whether or not they're worth her time. What's more, Ysharra has become fairly dependent on Munin as company, as they both lived alone at the top of the world for many years. Nowadays Ysharra gets uncomfortable if she's away from Munin for too long, and often won't attend events or meetings where her bird isn't allowed.

Ysharra also has this:

You remove a dwarf octopus from in your goldfish bowl.
<look octopus
Its skin glistening, the octopus appears to be quite small, no bigger than a halfling's fist. Tiny beady black eyes are slightly upraised from the rest of its bulbous, round head, and a tangle of tentacles branches off in eight directions from its main body. Spirals of deep green ring the creature's sucker-lined arms, imparting a slight alternation from the mostly dark brown hue of the creature's skin.

Long ago, an awful woman by the name of Granny Plonk came to Icemule with buckets of sea creatures that you paid to fling at targets. Ysharra found the sport somewhat disgusting, but her friend wanted to try her luck. As often happens around Juspera, things got weird. By the end of our turn, we'd figured out that the projectiles could instead be dropped and drug out of the game tent. We paid admission over and over and wound up with a cloakful of various fish. Some of them I still have in a locker somewhere, and some I gave to other people. I kept two octopi, and happened to have one on Ysharra at that year's Ebon Gate. We encountered Sluurm...or Sluurrm? Schlurmm?...anyway, a zombie shaman who offered to work on ritual or unusual items, make them "ssshtinky ssschweetss!" I handed him the octopus, and he gave him his lovely description, and also made him into a head-worn item so he- now named "Stretch" can ride around on Ysharra's helm when the fishbowl gets a bit old. I had another octopus that I gave to Sluurm, who was promptly named "Goo."

The octopus has had an interesting, long life- it's been in that fishbowl for fifteen years now. Ysharra keeps it because she loves it, and because it makes Alisaire scowl so prettily. Also, I keep it because I adored the fellow who ran that zombie shaman, and I think of him every time I yank out that cephalopod.

-GK

>>One of the more amusing for me is a particular lilac-pointed kitten named "Brat" that my character thinks might fit quite well into Goblyn's pie!

Fun fact, you can make any kitten fit into pie(s)!

Wyrom says, "Ordim is the reason savants won't be coded as well."

I had the pleasure of recently meeting "Brat" at Sylvanfair's Pet Pageant and I can confirm that she truly does live up to her name!

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>>You slay me woman! ~ Wyrom

https://gswiki.play.net/Rohese_Bayvel-Timsh'l