While this article is written with Hardcore players in mind, much, if not all, of it is also applicable to Softcore ascenders.
Beneficial familiars that increase stat gains, item drops, and give MP for combat skills and castable buffs. They are mostly previous Mr. Store familiars, but all expensive, and all the best at what they do.
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| Familiar Name
| Familiar Type
| Familiar Description
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| Baby Sandworm
| Stat-Gain & Special
| Increases stat gains like a sombrero with a chance of dropping bottles of agua de vida, which allow adventuring in ancestral memories and give 5-10 adventures. One of the best sources of adventures for Oxycore, and increases the utility of the Llama Lama.
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Crimbo
P. R. E. S. S. I. E.
| Stat-Gain & Multi-Use
| Increases stats like a volleyball and can switch to the sombrero stat-gaining formula with its equipment. Variously attacks, delevels enemies, restores MP, prevents opponents from attacking, and occasionally gives buffs. One of the two strongest familiars in the game for powerlevelling (because of versatility in formula plus the free MP)
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| Dandy Lion
| Item Drop, Restoration, & Attack
| Increases item drop rate like a Baby Gravy Fairy and restores HP and MP like a Ghuol Whelp. Equipping any type of whip will make it attack like a Sabre-Toothed Lime as well.
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| Frumious Bandersnatch
| Focused stat-gain & Multi-Use
| Increases stats like a volleyball, but with familiar equipment these stat gains are focused on a chosen stat. Enhances most class skills with additional effects. Allows a limited number of free runaways with Ode to Booze active. One of the two strongest familiars in the game for powerlevelling provided you're willing to arena to get the equipment.
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| Gluttonous Green Ghost
| Stat-Gain, Restore, & Attack
| Increases stats like a volleyball, and can restore MP like a starfish when given food. Moderately better than a volleyball, especially for characters who have food to spare. Attacks when overfed.
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| Green Pixie
| Item Drop, Attack, & Special
| Functions as a Baby Gravy Fairy with an additional chance of dropping tiny bottles of absinthe, which allow adventuring in the Worm Wood. The Worm Wood contains a number of beneficial effects and items, the most notable being the not-a-pipe. The pixie also does physical attacks.
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| He-Boulder
| Meat Drop & Restore
| Increases meat drops as a Leprechaun and restores HP/MP as a Ghuol Whelp. Has an ability that can, among other things, trigger a 100% drop of all non-conditional drops.
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| Jumpsuited Hound Dog
| Item Drop & Combat frequency
| Untradeable. Increases item drops like a fairy 125% of its weight. Increases the frequency of combat encounters by floor(weight/6) to a maximum of +5%.
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| Llama Lama
| Stat-Gain, Delevel & Special
| Acts as a half-weight volleyball, delevels enemies by spitting on them and drops up to 5 gongs per day that let you go on spiritual journeys. Journeys allow for additional stat-gain, numerous beneficial effects, temporary combat skills and/or spleen items, including the glimmering roc feather. Comparable in role to the Green Pixie.
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| Pygmy Bugbear Shaman
| Stat-Gain & Item Drop
| Increases stat gain like a volleyball and item drop rate like a Baby Gravy Fairy at the cost of half its level in MP per combat adventure, rounded down. This familiar is expensive to maintain, but there are several times when it's the best option available.
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| Slimeling
| Item Drop & Restore
| Acts like a fairy, and can restore MP like a starfish when given equipment. If equipment is made from meat stacks, it will drop slime stacks. It uses a modified version of the Pickpocket mechanic, giving it a chance to steal one piece of equipment per combat.
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| Spirit Hobo
| Stat-Gain & Restore
| Increases stats like a volleyball, and can restore MP like a starfish when given booze. Moderately better than a volleyball, especially for characters who have Cocktailcrafting skill or are Teetotalers or Oxygenarians, and are thus more likely to have booze to spare.
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| Sugar Fruit Fairy
| Item Drop & Stat-Gain
| Acts as a fairy, increases stats as a volleyball at the cost of MP. If not enough MP is available the additional stats accumulate in sugar plums for later use. Also occasionally drops other handy sugary sweets.
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| Cheshire Bat
| Stat-Gain & Meat Drop
| Increases the Meat opponents drop in combat like a Leprechaun as well as increasing your stat gains like a volleyball. A very popular Hardcore familiar.
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| Cymbal-Playing Monkey
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| Hunchbacked Minion
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| Nervous Tick
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| Uniclops
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| Chauvinist Pig
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| Attention-Deficit Demon
| Item & Meat Drop
| Increases item drop rate like a Baby Gravy Fairy and Meat drops like a Leprechaun. One of the best fairy-type familiars.
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| Casagnova Gnome
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| Coffee Pixie
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| Jitterbug
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| Psychedelic Bear
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| Dancing Frog
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Weaker or simpler versions of tier 1 familiars.
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| Ancient Yuletide Troll
| Stat-Gain, Restore, & Buff
| Increases stat gains like a volleyball, and recovers HP and MP at a rate which is a little less than 40% as efficient as a Ghuol Whelp. Also drops disintegrating sheet music, which can give an assortment of beneficial status effects (chosen at random) or be sold for small amounts of Meat.
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| Astral Badger
| Attack & Special
| Attacks like a Mechamech, but its real utility lies in the astral mushrooms it produces. The monsters in the Great Trip are as powerful as Alphabet Giants, and therefore give stats accordingly. This is great at low levels, where the only other good stats come from Menagerie 3. In addition, Violet Fog produces -- for free -- the very useful munchies pill and homeopathic healing powder.
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| Disembodied Hand
| Attack/equipment slot
| Wields any one-handed weapon you give it, attacks every turn with it. This ignores any stat requirement to equip, and gives you the bonuses of the weapon. This is a very powerful attack familiar that's also useful to give you any bonuses you would like on a one-handed weapon. Its utility depends a lot on what items you have to give it - with a lead-in that provides a brimstone bludgeon, it's fantastically powerful. Most of the time it's pretty useful.
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| Inflatable Dodecapede
| Attack
| Good combat familiar that does more damage the less weight it has. Very, very useful for the Naughty Sorceress battle, and potentially useful for other boss battles.
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| Mad Hatrack
| Multi-Use
| Multi-purpose familiar whose function depends on the hat placed on it. Duplicates a lot of other familiars, usually at lower weights/efficiencies than the real familiar. Highly versatile for people who don't mind spending a lot of time looking at the table of effects for things appropriate for their current situation - used properly, people don't need to level any other familiars.
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| Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot
| Attack & Multi-Use
| HP/MP restoration to rival any familiar, good deleveling and stopping of attacks, good attacking ability, and also provides an easy source of Meat no matter what the base Meat drop of the enemy is.
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| Penguin Goodfella
| Stat-Gain, Monster Debuff, & Attack
| Increases stat gain like a volleyball and weakens enemies like a Barrrnacle; also drops Goodfella contracts, which can be used in combat to deal a significant amount of damage (based on the Goodfella's weight).
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| Squamous Gibberer
| Multi-Use
| Acts as a Ghuol and a Potato in combat. Like the Wild Hare, it gives extra adventures at rollover.
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| Wild Hare
| Multi-Use
| Randomly acts like a Leprechaun, Baby Gravy Fairy, Ghuol Whelp, Blood-Faced Volleyball after a fight; prevents being beaten-up; and gives a predictable number of extra adventures at rollover.
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| Wizard Action Figure
| Stat-Gain, Item Drop, Attack, Restore, Monster Debuff
| Acts as a 1/3-strength (2/3 with equipment) Volleyball and Baby Gravy Fairy, attacks and delevels, and restores HP. Because of the strength penalty and the familiar equipment breaking regularly, you are likely better off using a pure volley or pure fairy in whatever the situation dictates.
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These familiars do more than their basic counterparts.
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| Baby Yeti
| Attack & Restore
| Attacks and restores MP like a Starfish.
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| Cotton Candy Carnie
| Monster Interrupt & Restore
| Blocks like a Levitating Potato, restores like a Ghuol Whelp, and drops up to ten cotton candy healing items per day.
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| Cuddlefish
| Monster Interrupt & Restore
| Blocks like a Levitating Potato, restores like a Ghuol Whelp, both at 75% efficiency on land. Strictly inferior to a Cotton Candy Carnie in a Hardcore run (more useful in aftercore).
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| Crimbo Elf
| Item Drop & Attack
| Increases drops like a Baby Gravy Fairy and attacks opponent.
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| Emo Squid
| Monster Debuff & Interrupt
| Slows and trips enemies; good for keeping enemies at bay, and very useful on the Naughty Sorceress.
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| Feather Boa Constrictor
| Multi-Use
| Fights, steals Meat like a Cocoabo, and entangles like a potato.
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| Jill-O-Lantern
| Stat-Gain & Attack
| Increases stat gains like a volleyball and attacks in combat. Since both effects are constantly active, the Jill-O-Lantern is one of the best choices for an ascension familiar.
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| Hand Turkey
| Meat Drop & Attack
| Attacks enemies and increases Meat drops like a Leprechaun.
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| Personal Raincloud
| Multi-Use
| Multi-purpose familiar, but very random; attacks, restores HP or MP, lowers enemy stats. After battle, it can give bonuses to any single substat (Mus, Mys, Mox), heal HP, or heal MP.
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| Sweet Nutcracker
| Attack & Buff
| Attacks like a Ghost Pickle and sometimes gives substantial buffs.
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| Temporal Riftlet
| Monster Debuff
| Reduces monster like a barrrnacle/potato, sometimes gives adventures. Useful when backfarming for Tower items, when stats gains are less useful.
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The basic familiars that more popular familiars are based on and the standards they're judged by. By which they're judged.
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| Blood-Faced Volleyball
| Stat-Gain
| Increases stat gains (square root of weight). One of the best choices for a Hardcore ascension if volley hybrids are unavailable.
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| Grinning Turtle
| Stat-Gain
| Acts as a volley ball, allows high-level Turtle Taming.
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| Baby Gravy Fairy
| Item Drop
| Increases drops (see familiar page for formula); good if no combination familiar is available.
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| Sleazy Gravy Fairy
| Item Drop & Attack
| Increases drops like a Baby Gravy Fairy and attacks opponent. Extremely easy to obtain its +5 weight equipment.
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| Syncopated Turtle
| Item Drop
| Acts as a Baby Gravy Fairy, allows high-level Turtle Taming.
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| Star Starfish
| Restore & Attack
| Attacks and restores MP. Good if you have the capability of sitting in combat without getting hit, allowing your MP to build up.
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| Midget Clownfish
| Restore & Attack
| Acts as a Sleaze starfish above water.
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| Rock Lobster
| Restore & Attack
| Acts as a Hot starfish above water and occasionally drops floaty sand.
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Mostly basic familiars, but still have their uses if there are no alternatives.
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| Barrrnacle
| Monster Debuff
| Slows enemies down.
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| Clockwork Grapefruit
| Attack
| Good combat familiar.
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| Cocoabo
| Multi-Use
| Multi-purpose familiar, but very random; restores HP or MP, attacks, steals Meat, delevels enemies.
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| Comma Chameleon
| Multi-Use
| Turns into other familiars by eating their equipment. This familiar obtains random familiar equipment at the arena, allowing you to get access to familiars you don't own, but as it takes 2 turns and is random it's of limited use in Hardcore.
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| Doppelshifter
| Multi-use
| Changes to a random familiar with every fight.
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| Evil Teddy Bear
| Attack & Damage Absorption
| Absorbs damage and deals damage to enemies, but loses experience in the process.
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| Flaming Gravy Fairy
| Item Drop & Attack
| Increases drops like a Baby Gravy Fairy and attacks opponent. Difficult to get its familiar equipment.
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| Frozen Gravy Fairy
| Item Drop & Attack
| Increases drops like a Baby Gravy Fairy and attacks opponent. Difficult to get its familiar equipment.
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| Ghost Pickle on a Stick
| Attack & Monster Debuff
| Great combat familiar that both attacks and uses caustic pickle juice to weaken enemies. One of the greatest attack familiars, if not the best. The need to level up the familiar and the lack of stat/item gains makes it impractical to use this familiar for too much of a hardcore run. It can be very helpful for boss monsters if you can buff its weight without adventuring.
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| Ghuol Whelp
| Restore
| Restores HP and MP at the end of combat.
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| Grue
| Attack
| Attacks enemies dealing Spooky damage, but not always dependable. Powerful if able to attack.
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| Hanukkimbo Dreidl
| Multi-Use
| Multi-purpose familiar, but very random (attacks, restore MP, stops monster attack, steals Meat).
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| Hobo Monkey
| Meat Drop
| Increases Meat drops as well as stealing Meat occasionally
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| Hovering Sombrero
| Stat-Gain
| Increases stat gains at a rate that rises with the level of a monster. Does not outperform Volleyball until the Beanstalk. A better familiar for Normal ascensions. Useful to pull out when fighting Tower Monsters, however.
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| Howling Balloon Monkey
| Restore & Attack
| Attacks enemies and restores MP, but inferior to the Starfish.
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| Killer Bee
| Stat-Gain & Attack
| Attacks and increases substats at end of turn at the cost of HP.
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| Leprechaun
| Meat Drop
| Increases Meat drops, but is generally not useful in Hardcore.
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| Levitating Potato
| Monster Interrupt
| Causes opponents to miss on a fairly regular basis.
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| MagiMechTech MicroMechaMech
| Attack
| Good combat familiar (better with targeting chip).
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| Misshapen Animal Skeleton
| Attack & Monster Debuff
| Improved version of the Ghost Pickle on a Stick, it does a substantial amount of damage (some of which is Spooky Damage), and can delevel opponents as well.
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| Mosquito
| Attack & Restore
| Attacks enemies and heals HP when it attacks.
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| Origami Towel Crane
| Monster Debuff
| Reduces monster like a barrrnacle/potato. Absorbs damage at the expense of experience similar to a Teddy Bear.
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| Ragamuffin Imp
| Attack
| Attack familiar that does Hot Damage.
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| RoboGoose
| Monster Debuff, Attack & Restore
| Attacks and delevels enemies, with a chance of healing. Sometimes attacks the player.
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| Spooky Gravy Fairy
| Item Drop & Attack
| Increases drops like a Baby Gravy Fairy and attacks opponent. Difficult to get its familiar equipment.
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| Stinky Gravy Fairy
| Item Drop & Attack
| Increases drops like a Baby Gravy Fairy and attacks opponent. Difficult to get its familiar equipment.
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| Teddy Bear
| Damage absorption
| Absorbs damage, but loses experience in the process.
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| Teddy Borg
| Damage absorption
| Absorbs damage, but loses experience in the process.
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| Whirling Maple Leaf
| Restore & Attack
| Good combat familiar, restores MP at the end of combat.
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Mediocre familars that are outclassed by most familars.
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| Angry Goat
| Attack
| Basic combat familiar with bonus Stench Damage.
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| Exotic Parrot
| Resistance
| Its resistance bonus is very small and there are plentiful sources of Elemental Resistance throughout a run.
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| Fuzzy Dice
| Attack
| Random effects, generally unreliable.
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| Imitation Crab
| Attack
| Basic combat familiar that is stronger underwater.
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| Magic Dragonfish
| Buff
| Boosts spell damage by a % modifier.
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| Ninja Snowflake
| Attack
| Basic combat familiar (does Cold Damage).
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| Pair of Ragged Claws
| Attack
| Basic combat familiar, with a chance to delevel your opponent.
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| Snowy Owl
| Attack
| Basic combat familiar.
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| Spooky Pirate Skeleton
| Attack
| Basic combat familiar, with a chance to delevel your opponent.
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| Sabre-Toothed Lime
| Attack
| Basic combat familiar.
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| Wereturtle
| Attack
| Basic combat familiar, provides Spooky Damage damage.
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| Wind-up Chattering Teeth
| Attack
| Basic combat familiar, acts like a lime.
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Familiars that are useless or hindering in a Hardcore run.
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| Bulky Buddy Box
| Nothing
| Doesn't do anything.
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| El Vibrato Megadrone
| Varies on punchcard
| Does nothing until you can obtain El Vibrato punchcards, which requires a substantial turn investment.
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| Pet Rock
| Nothing
| Doesn't do anything.
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| Purse Rat
| Monster Buff
| Buffs Monster Level by roughly half of its weight. However a volleyball will provide the beat the bonus stat gains up to 64 pounds, so don't bother. It has some minor use to speeding up the Mysterious Island Arena subquest, but the amount is negligible.
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| Reassembled Blackbird
| Nothing
| Does nothing, if for some reason you decide to keep it.
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| Stab Bat
| Attack
| Basic combat familiar, but with the chance to attack you.
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| Scary Death Orb
| Attack
| Functionally identical to the Stab Bat, but with the "bonus" of doing Spooky Damage.
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| Toothsome Rock
| Nothing
| Does about as much as its toothless brother -- which is, of course, nothing.
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Familiars that have the specific purpose of hindering you.
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| Black Cat
| Handicap
| Does all manner of bad things to its user, ranging from removing buffs to automatically destroying dropped items. Can, when used for a 100% run, permanently unlock Bad Moon.
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| O.A.F.
| Handicap
| Does all manner of bad things to its user, ranging from removing buffs to automatically autoselling dropped items.
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