Mage Hand Press

Cakewalk | Familiars

Added 2022-07-01 05:30:00 +0000 UTC

This month I've got the lion's share of the Cakewalk Familiar's chapter for you! Somehow, the familiars have grown to outsize complexity in this book of weird food races, which is A-OK, because they're extremely cool at this stage.

First, this chapter kicks off with a setting-agnostic way to flexibly upgrade your familiars with a feat and an in-depth upgrade table. It costs a feat and some gold, but it's an intricate little system that I wish I thought up in time for Valda's.

Next, the chapter gets into specific Cakewalk familiars, like the Apericot, Bananaconda, and Growlic. Each of these familiars has its own bespoke upgrade tree and evolution! (If you haven't gathered by now, we've gone full lightweight pokemon with these familiars.) Your apericot can evolve into a Mangorilla, and so on. These evolved forms are included at the end of this document, but they'll be mixed in with the monsters chapter in the final book. We have a full 9 familiars planned for the final book, with evolutions and trees and everything.

Lastly, if you know Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting, we've designed these familiars to be completely compatible with the Tamer class and the bespoke familiars from that book. Max (the book's designer) is a friend and he's provided a slew of hints on how to get the balancing just right for the integration.

I hope this update is substantial enough for now! I've been working my entire butt off on writing for this book all month, but this is the only thing that's ready to show. Subclasses rely on magic items and spells, magic items rely on the farming system, etc. I hope to have a much bigger update of this and Extinction next month!