Familiars

Spiritual beings that are summoned by mages. These beings can only exist in the physical world as long as the mage that summoned them is in close proximity. If the mage dies, the familiars disappear with them. Familiars can include creatures and spirits of the deceased. Most familiars are summoned because they allow the magus to tap into abilities that are beyond their own magic.
While summoned, familiars act like any other physical being. They can be killed if they take enough damage, but normally it takes killing their host mage in order to get them to disappear completely.