Unless there is something obscure in a book I am not familiar with, a magus can only have a single Familiar at a time, correct?
Just wondering if there is a way for magus to have several animal servants, with something like Familiar bonds, so that the magus knows if the animal servant is alive, and there is communication between mage and each animal servant?
Perhaps something like a subpar Familiar Bond, with only a single cord?
Yep.
That shouldn't need any kind of Familiar Bond at all.
The maga
(1) gathers ACs to her - better somewhat intelligent - animal servants,
(2) creates enchanted devices incorporating these ACs,
(3) InAn effects in these devices monitoring the servants,
(4) and CrAn, perhaps ReAn and further InAn effects in the devices to communicate with the servants.
If most of the communication does not need to bridge large distances, (4) can be much simplified, leading perhaps to something like Covenants p.118 Greater Horde or Lesser Horde.
Anyway, these animal servants will get warped over time.
It was an idea I had for a breakthrough a character of mine was trying to achieve. Unfortunately, it never got anywhere.
The obscure thing not mentioned is a ritual spell to make a creature your familiar temporarily. the spell uses the Until duration but otherwise seems possible by magi from houses other than Merinita. See Temporary Familiar inset on p90 of HoH:MC.
The ability to have multiple familiars at once was the “one cool thing” of the Beastmasters of Hibernia, a hedge magic tradition I wrote up in Sub Rosa after extensive play testing in my home campaign. You might find it interesting!
My reading of the effect is that it doesn't let you have multiple familiar, however. The way I'm reading it, it's mostly a tool to get arround the restriction of the faerie familiar bond which auto-dissolves after a period of time, by enabling the magi to set a condition for release from the bond which is either coerced or agreed to in advance, instead of letting the bond erode when the cords hit 0. It's also a way to bind a familiar without spending a lab season to improve the cords - which makes sense if you plan to have a dozen familiar over your lifetime by keeping them for a set period of time. I see nowhere that it is stated it lets you have multiple familiars at the same time - and I don't believe that to be the intent of the ritual.
Original research can let you do a ton of things.