My cat, Ferland, fades away into nothingness, and when I need him again, I blow magic smoke from my mouth and it forms my cat familiar. This is how my wizard, Vlendis the Blue, first created Ferland--he was playing around with his pipe and blowing smoke rings when he had the idea to make a familiar out of smoke! How do you describe your familiar in passive mode?
I totally want your avatar! Is that a statue?
Anyway, our current wiz has no familiar (setting up an Ancient Egypt theme, hasn't started yet). Our last one, however, had a skunk named Chanel. Chanel spent her downtime sleeping in the rogue's backpack.
Did I mention he's deathly afraid of skunks?
Well if my Gnoll bard starts using a warforge plating familiar, it is always active.
Basically, it provides a targeting system and the red glow you see in the terminator movies. His favorite line will be "ITS OVER NINE THOUSAND!"
Passively though, if i ever do make it passive, It will be some sort of jewelery or such allowing him to go through a transformation sequence before attatching to his face.
Our next campaign is still a while off, but I've already put together the wizard I'm going to be playing, Emily van Draxene. Her familiar is a book imp, but I'm adopting the theory (because I'm one of the DMs for the campaign world and I can do it, nyeh) that the physical appearance of the familiar is independent of its abilities. That is to say, statistically it's a book imp, what it actually looks like is a doll in the form of a silver-haired half-elven maid with glasses (actually the heriditary maid of the van Draxene family, "trapped" in the form of a doll by her former master centuries ago before being given to Emily's ancestors). Most of the time the doll, Penelope, floats near Emily's shoulder (or rides on it, either sitting or hanging off it). When it comes time to use the passive ability to speak Supernal, Penelope can be seen whispering into her ear, translating for her and telling her what she needs to say. I've also declared that all of Emily's cantrips originate from Penelope: Penelope glows for light, manipulates the objects for mage hand, is inevitably the origin square for ghost sound, and is the one performing the minor tasks in prestidigitation (i.e., when Emily uses prestidigitation to season food, Penelope produces a salt shaker from under her apron and sprinkles it).
Don't book imps let you speak infernal, not supernal?
To first poster: You shall not have my avatar. It must be my unique secret. WAHAHAHAHA!!!
I make a popping noise. "My Familiar, *pop*, who has of course been here the whole time..."
Yes, I stole it from OOTS.
Lol OOTS=awesome
P.S. Ooops, looks like I called my cat "Ferland" in the first posts. Should be "Fernand". To lazy to edit.
My gnome illusionist/shadow adept/shadowcraft mage's(3.5) tiny viper stays inside his belt pouch.
Oh...so original >.>
Never said it was. 
One of my players (a human sorcerer) has a cat familiar which becomes a tattoo of a line of stars running up his arm. -Especially creative of him since Sorcerers are outlaws in our campaign!
I have a female wizard who, in a bout of fanservice, keeps her serpent familiar in Victoria's Secret Compartment. :P
Don't book imps let you speak infernal, not supernal?
To first poster: You shall not have my avatar. It must be my unique secret. WAHAHAHAHA!!!
Begins wringing hands evilly "I must have that avatar! I SHALL have that avatar!!!"
Don't book imps let you speak infernal, not supernal?
There is no Infernal in 4th Edition. Wizards remembered this fact and errata'd it to be Supernal.
My Gnome Swordmage has a spider familiar; when it's in passive mode it becomes a random web pattern covering his skin, and switching to active the web unravels into the spider. I plan on picking up the shielding familar feat, so it works well with that... and one of the players in my group is scared of spiders, so it's fun to describe.
My friend is playing a Sorc in my campaign who has a sugar glider familiar (we used the bat template) named Posket who, when in passive mode, lives his massive dreadlocks, braiding in bits of pretty cloth he's collected from various scouting missions. He sometimes peeks out, and the Sorcerer can often be seen slipping bits of food into his hair and cooing.
If I ever get the chance to play a spellcaster in 4th I'm going to play a female, just so I could do the familiar like the character Azkedelia from the SyFy channel's "Tin Man", with the flying monkeys coming out of the tattoos on her chest.
Every evil sorceress needs cleavage-monkies... 
The Book Imp popped back to Hell for a bit. She'll be back.
Really useful way to dispense information to the party if necessary, and since Hell can certainly have different factions that don't share information (the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing), it doesn't interfere with any missions against the minions of Hell (because the Book Imp always works for the "Other Faction").
In an Eberron Campaign I'm in, my dwarven artificer built a small dragon-like construct to be his constant companion. The little guy mainly rides on his shoulder, taking flight only to unleash a tiny breath weapon that the artificer made for him (Thunderwave from the Arcane Initiate feat).
I suddenly started wanting to play an illusionist whose familiar is actually an illusion.
One of my characters is a Bard and his familiar is a "Happy Bucket" ;). It uses the Toad's stats.
When in it's passive mode (attached to my belt), it randomly starts singing or telling stupid @ss jokes at the WORST moments =D.
It's not an actual familiar (although he is the avatar of Ceiling Cat apparently), but Warren the Warforged Warden's cat Chairman Meow either rides on the gnome wizard's shoulders (who in turn is riding on my shoulders) or in a compartment in my chest.
My Dragonborn Warlord's familiar (yes, I said Warlord, not Warlock) is either going to crawl from his flesh in a ring of smoldering embers or else be breathed into existence with the character's dragon breath (and likewise be blown out like a candle). I haven't decided yet. I don't know if I'm going to go full MC with the character, but I've taken Arcane Prodigy (MC Sorcerer), and want to use the familiar as a manefestation of his innate Arcane ability.
As a side note, for some reason everytime I've noticed this thread over the last couple of days, the idea of a butt-monkey familiar has popped into my... er... head.
As a side note, for some reason everytime I've noticed this thread over the last couple of days, the idea of a butt-monkey familiar has popped into my... er... head.
Well, I suppose it's better than what you'd need to do to summon your dire crotch-cricket familiar, lol.
As a side note, for some reason everytime I've noticed this thread over the last couple of days, the idea of a butt-monkey familiar has popped into my... er... head.
My friend has something like this. Once again not an actual familiar, but an immortal goblin named Squig that he keeps skewered on his armor.
Perhaps not the most origional idea ever, but my Deva Wizard's Book Imp, reflavored to be a little spirit of some kind, lives inside his spellbook. When he summons it, the symbols on the front peal off and form the familiar.
Come to think of it, I haven't summoned that poor critter for a while now...
I think this just about sums up how most people implement their familiars: www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0003.html
I think this just about sums up how most people implement their familiars: www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0003.html
Embarrassingly, this was the fate of one of the character's COHORTS in our last session.
"What do you mean? She's been right here the entire time... um... hiding in my shadow."
(I've since retconned her into being an Assassin, so she actually has the powers that allow her to do that.)
My Assault Swordmage has just gotten his Falcon Familiar Avray, when its in passive mode its can be seen flying around inside a spherical moonstone on the pommel of his longsword.
My party doesn't want to ask why the gibbering thing that the sorcerer claims as his familiar has a tendancy to dissapear, for fear it might answer.
In my other game my chaos shard can't materialize unless one of the spare personalities in it takes it for a spin. How it appears depends on which of my personalities is summoning it.
My Sorcerer (Storm Magic) will be getting the Arcane Familiar feat at level 10, picking Lightning Lizard, right before Paragon tier. For his paragon path, he'll be taking Elemental Tempest. For his dual manifestations, he will always have Stormsoul plus another one depending on things going on. 
When in passive mode, he'll have little motes of lightning floating randomly around him, absorbing lightning damage as needed. Of course, anyone getting close enough to examine those motes of lightning closely will see that they each resemble a tiny lightning lizard.
When he puts the familiar in Active mode, all of those motes of lightning will merge together and leap away from my character, appearing in full form.
I have to wait to do it at level 10 since I am getting Extra Manifestation II and III for Stormsoul and Earthsoul.
Don't book imps let you speak infernal, not supernal?
To first poster: You shall not have my avatar. It must be my unique secret. WAHAHAHAHA!!!
Begins wringing hands evilly "I must have that avatar! I SHALL have that avatar!!!"
TTHBT!!