Binding a Ghost as a Familiar

Hi everyone, I am currently creating a new character who is heavily into Mentem, and I thought that the ideal familiar for him might be a ghost. After all the ghost of a person has Might, Intelligence and a personality.

I'm not sure if he can do a normal binding, or if he would have to research a breakthrough. Does anyone have any comments?

Leon.

By the rules as written, you need the virtue Spirit Familiar which, despite being a trivial extension of Hermetic Theory and arguably doable anyway to bind a spirit. Said virtue also makes all the chords far, far more powerful. And is a mystery virtue.

Frankly, just do it. It doesn't imbalance anything and gives you a fun familiar with a past to hang stories off.

Hmm the rules in the core book appear to require that the familiar be an animal.

There are existing rules for ghostly familars though (Spirit Familiar, TMRE pg 66). According the rules for that virtue, the main obstacles to a binding a spirit using Merinita's method are the lack of a size rating, and the lack of a body (for binding the bronze cord).

That said, I'd consider allowing a player to bind a ghost as a familiar provided I was involved in designing the ghost.

I wouldn't completely disallow a spirit/ghost familiar either, even though the core rules for familiars only mention the binding of animals.

Without complete recall of the Spirit Familiar mystery, it's hard to say how to balance it.

But I'd certainly allow it, if the stats for the ghost were right, and certain other details were agreed upon. Concerning the size, I'd perhaps rule than a human ghost has his human size still. Granted he's incorporal, but you gotta do something! And, since the ghost in incorporal, I'd completely disallow Bronze Cord. In my sagas, and my personal opinion, Bronze Cord is the most important one. So ruling this out, I hope the mystery as such and the ghost familiar compensates for this lack, by adding some new, fancy options.

Thanks for the quick replies, I'll dig out my copy of TMRE. I must have missed that bit when I was devouring it for things to learn....