Spellcasters typically bribe the nature or elemental spirits in the area to do their bidding. They offer them small amounts of life energy in the form of round disks, typically called cookies. These cookies are made of the life energy of the spellcaster, who can materialize them out of the thin air.
Elementalists and wizards typically either force or ask local spirits to help them perform a spell. They do this in the form of an incantation that contains the specific information about the spell they are attempting, such as the focus, locus and strength of the spell. If, for example, a wizard wanted to make a ball of light that had a diameter of five inches appear over his hand, he would hold up one hand and ask/force a spirit to form a ball of 12.7 centimeters of 30 Watts, with his hand as the locus and the area 17.78 centimeters above as the focus. However, since the mage is speaking to a spirit in its language, the spell is not clearly understood by non-mages.
Some wizards and all warlocks and witches have what are called familiars, or familiar spirits. This means that, whenever they do magic, they speak to a specific spirit. This spirit typically can be found nearby the mage, in the form of an animal.
Familiars can be the souls of mages who have chosen to remain in the physical plane and help another mage or they can be natural spirits that were never truly �alive� before the moment they chose to be a familiar. In rare instances, they may be creatures such as sprites or �faeries� (for example: brownies, kitsune or warlock cats).
Pockets, Hollis� familiar, is just such a creature. Although he typically uses the form of a small ginger cat, he is a warlock cat and, as such, has the ability to take two other forms. One is a large cat with big teeth and the other is an anthropomorphic cat standing about 3 feet tall. When he takes his anthro-form, he uses the name Regin (pronounced like region).
Warlock cats are peaceful and gentle creatures that would rather not hurt anyone. They are nearly immortal and can only be killed by magical means, but are impervious to many spells. Because of their gentle nature, they were pushed out of the spirit plane and now reside in remote, isolated regions of Cygma. Very rarely, a warlock cat will choose to leave its home and be the familiar to a young mage, always a warlock or witch. To that mage, they will be a faithful and true companion and a loyal ally.
The choice to become a familiar to a warlock or witch is not an easy one. Being bound to a mage is the only thing that will enable a warlock cat to have mortality. Once the bond is made, they become vulnerable to injuries caused by mundane means. The other effect of the bond is to make the spirit become tied to its mage. If someone kills the mage, the spirit also dies, and vice versa. This means that when Hollis dies, even if it�s from old age, Regin will also die.
Interestingly, this is not true of the familiar spirits of wizards. When a spirit becomes the familiar to a wizard, the tie is not as strong. They don't feel the pain of their mage, nor does the mage feel their pain. However, if the familiar dies, the wizard's magic dies with it. Unless another spirit becomes their familiar they are no longer capable of performing magic.
