Familiars

Wild wisps drifting over a ley line at night

What it is

Wisps are small creatures of light that drift along ley lines at night. Tame one and it becomes your familiar: it floats at your shoulder, speeds up your mana and casts a small spell to help you.

Wisps come in eight elements. There are no Time or Blood wisps.

Wisp	Food	Its little spell
Fire	Blaze Powder	Throws an ember bolt at what you’re fighting and sets it alight
Frost	Snowball	Chills what you’re fighting: a little damage and Slowness II
Storm	Glowstone Dust	Zaps what you’re fighting
Wind	Feather	Jump Boost in a fight, and catches you when you fall
Earth	Clay Ball	Resistance while you’re under attack
Life	Glow Berries	Heals you when you’re hurt
Void	Ender Pearl	Pulls loose drops and experience to you
Arcane	Amethyst Shard	Makes nearby monsters glow, so you can see them through walls

How to get it

Finding wisps

Wild wisps are rare and only appear near players in the Overworld, and only when mob spawning is on.

• On ley lines at night, 16 to 40 blocks from you. Look along the violet ribbons of a ley line after sunset.
• Near an awake Wellstone, day or night, 6 to 16 blocks from you.
• The world tries about every ten seconds, with at most three wild wisps within 64 blocks of you.
• A wild wisp fades after five minutes at most, sooner once day comes.
• Its element is random.

Wild wisps keep about six blocks away. Sneak and they let you within two and a half blocks. Nothing can hurt a wisp.

Taming

Wild wisps up close. Sneak and they’ll let you near.

A wisp answers only to its own element. Make three offerings to it, each within a minute of the last. An offering is either:

• a spell of its element that hits it (any effect of that element counts), or
• its food: right-click it while holding the food.

On the third offering it bonds with you and comes out at your shoulder.

• One spell counts once. Offerings less than half a second apart are ignored.
• The wrong element scares it. Another element’s magic or food makes it forget everything. Start over.
• One tamer at a time. If someone else makes an offering, it starts over with them.
• Food is never wasted on an offering that doesn’t count.
• Twelve at most. With 12 familiars already, a wild wisp won’t accept anything from you.

Your first familiar earns the Kindred feat. A familiar of all eight elements earns Menagerie.

How to use it

A Fire Wisp at its owner’s shoulder

• It floats behind your right shoulder with a nameplate such as Alex’s Fire Wisp.
• If it falls more than 14 blocks behind, or gets stuck for three seconds, it teleports to you.
• It follows you between dimensions, comes back after you die, and returns to its lantern when you log off.
• It can’t be hurt, projectiles pass through it, and it never breaks blocks.
• It only harms what you’re fighting. It never hurts another player unless you two are allowed to fight (PvP on, or a duel). See friendly fire.
• It only helps while it’s within 24 blocks of you.

Levels

Your familiar gains experience when you, your spells or your pets kill a monster while it’s out and within 24 blocks: 1 per monster, 20 per boss. Only the familiar that’s out gains experience.

Level	Experience	Spell every	Spell strength	Extra mana regeneration (with a Cord)
1	0	12 seconds	×1	+10%
2	40	10 seconds	×1.3	+15%
3 (top)	150	8 seconds	×1.6	+20%

It only casts when there’s a reason to. What you’re fighting means whatever you hit, or hit you, in the last five seconds, or else the nearest monster within 12 blocks that’s hunting you. It must be within 16 blocks of the familiar and in sight.

Familiar	When	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3
Fire	You’re fighting	3 damage, on fire 2 s	3.9 damage	4.8 damage
Frost	You’re fighting	1.5 damage, Slowness II 4 s	1.95 damage, 5.2 s	2.4 damage, 6.4 s
Storm	You’re fighting	4 damage	5.2 damage	6.4 damage
Life	You’re missing at least 1 heart	Heals 3	Heals 3.9	Heals 4.8
Wind	You’re fighting	Jump Boost I 8 s, Slow Falling 3 s	10.4 s, 3.9 s	Jump Boost II 12.8 s, 4.8 s
Earth	A creature hit you in the last 5 s	Resistance I 4 s	5.2 s	6.4 s
Arcane	Monsters nearby aren’t glowing	Monsters within 16 blocks glow 6 s	20 blocks, 7.8 s	24 blocks, 9.6 s
Void	Always	Pulls drops within 7 blocks	9 blocks	11 blocks

Two familiars also watch over you all the time:

• Wind gives you Slow Falling for 3 seconds once you’ve fallen more than 4 blocks.
• Void pulls loose items and experience to you. It skips items a player dropped and anything within 8 blocks of another player.

Want a scout, guardian or gardener instead? See Familiar jobs.

Commands

Do this	Result
Sneak and use your familiar	It stays put. Do it again and it follows.
Tell it to stay within 12 blocks of an awake Wellstone	It waits at the Wellstone and stops being your active familiar, so you can call another.
Sneak and use a familiar waiting at a Wellstone	Collect it. Your active familiar goes back to the lantern.
Use a name tag on it	Names it (up to 32 characters). Only you can name it.

A familiar told to stay still helps while you’re within 24 blocks. One waiting at a Wellstone stays even while you’re offline, but doesn’t help until you collect it.

The Wisp Lantern

The Wisp Lantern calls out and puts away your familiars. Craft it from a lantern, two glass panes and two amethyst shards.

Do this	Result
Use with a familiar out	Sends it into the lantern
Use with none out	Calls out the last one you had out
Sneak and use	Calls out the next familiar in your list

Its tooltip lists every familiar you keep, with name, element, level, experience and where it is. Your familiars belong to you, not the lantern: any Wisp Lantern works, and losing one loses nothing.

Tips and counterplay

• Limits: 12 familiars in total, one out at a time, top level 3.
• Wild wisps only appear in the Overworld, but your familiar goes anywhere with you.
• Bosses that give 20 experience: the Ender Dragon, Wither, Warden, Elder Guardian, the Archivist, dungeon bosses (Cinder Warden, Root Guardian, Star-Eater, Storm Conductor, Tide Scribe), the Buried Keeper and Sword Masters.