Combining the M-U/Thief, or Tragic Magic and Thief Grief
On his twelfth birthday, a fledgling magician is given his familiar: A canine of his choice. This is a happy occasion in the difficult life of the young mage, who is up to his nose in studies and must deal with the eccentricities of his magician master.
The apprentice keeps this dog until he is to become a journeyman. Man and beast should be inseparable, as it is tradition for the apprentice to spend days at a time isolated in the Library of Conundrius with the dog as his only companion.
He must wash, feed and care for the dog without any income to speak of. The aspiring magician is expected to resort to stealing and, if he is caught, the usual punishment of amputating the thief’s dominant hand is called off in favour of lashings approximately commensurate to the gold value of the stolen items.
The young man and his dog are sent out into the world as part of his education in the Magician's guild and expected to return when they have learned all they can for the moment, to partake in the Ascension Ceremony.
On the day of his Ascension Ceremony to journeyman magician the would-be magician is given a particularly difficult task as part of a magic ritual to check for advanced magic aptitude: The boy must cut open the belly his beloved pet and retrieve from within its viscera the dog's liver. If he is indeed magically inclined, and has truly loved his charge, the young man's image is reflected in the shape of the liver and he must now devour every piece of the organic effigy.
It is said that if the man truly loved his dog in kind, his liver will take on the image of his pet. A Magician's spells can be learned by consuming his liver.
An Apprentice Magician has a dog.
An Apprentice has access to thief skills as well as magic user spells according to the abilities of both classes as per his level.
A magician is an Apprentice until level 3, at which point progression should stop until he returns with his dog to the city where he was taught.
If his dog should die before the ritual is performed, the magician becomes a thief and cannot learn any more spells.
The magician may choose to forgo his ceremony and switch to the thief class as well as keep his dog.
A magician may choose to complete the ceremony, with a 5% chance of failure. Upon a successful ritual, the magician cannot develop his thief skills further and becomes a Journeyman magician.
Failed magicians and those which choose to become thieves retain their spells but cannot learn more as well as the ability to read scrolls. As a thief continues to level, so does his dog at a third of its master's pace.
The dog begins at 1HD.