D&D 5E Warlock: Great Old One Patron Familiar

[ColinChapman]

One of the small things that irks me in 5e is the cop-out suggestion that a warlock of a Great Old One can take any of the suggested critters as a familiar because GOOs are inscrutable. It's one of the few things that really had me shaking my head.

I mean, they could've created a miniature shoggoth, or a freakish bat-winged squid-thing, even an Eyeball beholderkin would've worked.

Of course, the most appropriate GOO familiar would have been a human-faced rat-thing ala Brown Jenkins in HPL's Dreams in the Witch House, a freakish, tittering, vile thing capable of speaking and understanding any language. It'd also tie in nicely with Fritz Leiber's Slivikin, the rat-thing familiar of Hristimolo (possibly with the ability to communicate with/summon/control a swarm of rats). Such an obvious familiar to have offered.

So, what are folks using as familiars for any GOO chain pact warlocks?

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I'm not playing a GOO Warlock but I like where you're coming from.

PS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0Ju0W9UEiM

 

[practicalm]

So do something different by working with your DM. As long as the critter is balanced with the rest of the choices. Use the imp stats and call it and describe it as something else. Or add something about making it hideous and frightening.

 

[Boarstorm]

I say scale down a gibbering mouther.

 

[rjfTrebor]

i'd make it a psionic crow.

 

[Piratecat]

We're making the familiar in my game a creature consisting of sentient rumors, secrets, gossip and starlight. Sure, it may look like a bird, but it remembers what it hears and can parrot it back on command.

 

[dd.stevenson]

For my mock-up warlock, I went with a psuedodragon with an eruption of tentacles for its head.

 

[ColinChapman]

So do something different by working with your DM. As long as the critter is balanced with the rest of the choices. Use the imp stats and call it and describe it as something else. Or add something about making it hideous and frightening.

I am the DM, and I will be doing something different (namely creating said rat-thing familiar, most likely). I was just curious what other folks had already done.

 

[ColinChapman]

Lots of good ideas here, folks.

 

[BigVanVader]

I personally love the idea of a mini-Cthuhlu familiar. Make him as cute as he is horribly repulsive and madness-inducing. It reminds me of the little familiars you'd get in Symphony of the Night.

I would totally make a Warlock if I could get a Minithuhlu, and that's speaking as a guy who doesn't like magic classes that much.