Fat Familiars: A Satirical Essay (essay)
Title: Fat Familiars: A Satirical Essay
Author: Lord Silvean Rashere
An Urgent Warning for Wizards
I write to you with grave tidings; there is an epidemic sweeping the land. Just last week, while passing through the town square of Wehnimer’s Landing, I chanced upon a tabby cat three times larger than it should have been. At first I thought that I had spied some puma or lynx dragged in from the wilds by a woodsman sort but I have never observed a puma to be wider than it is long. No indeed, this cat was a wizard’s familiar! I tracked it for a short while to see if I could chide its owner but I was unsuccessful. Mind you, the tracking was easy enough since the cat lumbered with a slow, bow-legged gait but its progress became arrested within the undersized cat door of the Raging Thrak Inn. The front half of the tabby made it through the door easily enough but its back half remained on the other side. Fortunately, from the creature’s point of view, it was able to bury its face into a food bowl without fully entering the inn. Its chewing was only slowed by the back and forth swinging of the door caused by passing patrons.
Lest you fall into my initial error and think that this was a unique case, read on as I describe the obese mouse that I saw at Hearthstone last night. I swear by every black void that this mouse had the shape of a rounded pyramid. A cat, even one as vast as previously described, would only hope to eat this mouse if it could unhinge its jaw like a snake. The wizard owner seemed angry at the way I gawked at his pet, but what else was I to do? This mouse oozed across the Hearthstone porch like a jelly. There was nowhere to look that was not yet or soon to be filled by mouse. I addressed the man curtly, “Your mouse has moved on from cheese to cheesecake,” and he responded with a laugh. A laugh! It is possible that the wizard is supplying the mouse with the very cheesecake that has become its undoing.
I urge you to turn your attention to this problem! These tubby tabbies, munching mice, and flabby familiars have become an epidemic. I wonder at the cost of this for your profession. Does it require more time and mana to summon these rotund familiars? How fat must a mouse become before you end up destroying your nervous system drawing it forth? How often must you redesign your mystic portals to ensure that you can fit these animals through? I have a thousand questions and my curiosity is getting the best of me. If sorcery had not focused my attention at a young age, I would be the one sitting about in workshops tinkering with armor and weapons. What a silly sight that would be!
Wizards, I have faith in you. I know that the best minds of your guild are perfectly suited to solving this problem of the fat familiars. Perhaps two casts of haste three times a day may take some weight off of a heavyset mouse? You wizards are well known for your practical magic. End this epidemic.
I remain your ever-faithful friend and sorcerous colleague,
Silvean Rashere