Forget the New Subclasses, D&D’s Real Arcana Unleashed Highlight Is All About Familiars

August 26, 2026, 9:00am

With the latest Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks, players and DMs alike will be treated to a myriad of new options for 5.5e. This includes several new and revised subclasses, new magical items, and a brand-new full-length adventure campaign in Deadfall. As always, there’s plenty of new content to sift through. For many of us, the new subclasses are a highlight of any official source material. And the new options, especially the two brand-new subclass additions, are great. However, something else caught my attention from this latest addition to the D&D 5.5e lineup.

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I’m on record as wishing for a true Witch class in D&D, similar to what we have in Pathfinder. Alas, that still hasn’t happened, not even in the Season of Magic. However, you can take a Familiar as a caster. And to my delight, Familiars have quite a few new tricks coming in Unleashed Arcana. Along with a brand-new, Familiar-focused background option, several spells and magical items will let players beef up their Familiars in new ways. That will make them more useful for casters, but also for the rest of the party, giving players a new slew of reasons to add Find Familiar to their D&D arsenal.

The Familiar Trainer Background Lets You Work Your Animal Companion into Your Character’s History

DnD Running from Owlbear w Familiar — Courtesy of Wizards of the Coast

If you want to ensure your character’s background includes their Familiar right from the start, there’s now a background for that. The Familiar Trainer background gives your character the Familiar Friend feat as an origin feat. This means your character can summon a magical animal ally, regardless of your chosen class. Not too shabby for those of us trying to live our witchy lives with a magical raven by our sides. This Feat alone is pretty standard, allowing you to summon a slightly fortified Familiar to the battlefield. It also grants you a bonus to proficiency checks while your Familiar is nearby. Not too bad for a start.

This Feat, along with much of the flavor text for the magical worlds outlined in Arcana Unleashed, makes Familiars a more natural part of the fabric of D&D. Even those who aren’t necessarily casters who typically have Find Familiar at their disposal can forge bonds with magical animal allies. Arcana Unleashed even includes guidance for how society might respond to the presence of your Familiar, depending on whether magic is or is not a daily part of life. This, along with the new spells and feats, makes it far easier to wave a Familiar into your campaign. And I, for one, am pretty excited about that fact.

New Feats, Spells, and Items Expand Your Familiar Options

Familiar Fight DnD Unleashed Arcana — Courtesy of Wizards of the Coast

As you might expect in a magic-focused book, Unleashed Arcana offers quite a few new magical feats and spells to explore. And for those who love a good animal companion, I come bearing excellent news. Many of those feats and spells are centered on making Familiars more useful in and out of combat. Given that some of the new and revised subclasses include Familiars in their very DNA, including the Vestige Patron Warlock and Necromancer Wizard, that makes a lot of sense. But even if you aren’t playing a full caster and want to beef up an animal companion to fight by your side, the new text has plenty to offer.

Several Feats help your character gain access to Find Familiar, the default D&D spell for summoning a magical animal companion. With Soothing Familiar, your animal ally gains the ability to help heal the party. Meanwhile, Otherworldly Familiar allows your animal companion to resist various types of energy, while also phasing right through creatures and obstacles on the battlefield. You can also imbue your Familiar with elemental forces using the Elemental Familiar feat. If you prefer spells to feats, you can take the Battle Familiar spell, which lets you summon an animal companion suited to melee combat.

Arcana Unleashed releases on September 15th, alongside the campaign book Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall. These new Familiar options, along with plenty of other new content, are included in the sourcebook.