Familiars

**Familiars** are mostly humans who willingly and knowingly serve specific vampires or witches.

## Characteristics

### Vampire familiars

Unlike most humans, familiars are aware of the existence of vampires and choose to act as servants for their vampire master(s), in the hope that they will eventually be turned into a vampire themselves as a reward.

Many familiars will carry out tasks that can be difficult for vampires to do, such as covering up sunlight in their homes, helping them travel to distant places by shipping them, finding other humans for vampires to eat and hiding the evidence of victims.

Due to the sociopathic nature of many vampires, it is common for familiars to be exploited, with their masters often overworking them, abandoning them, setting them dangerous tasks and/or deliberately putting off turning them into a vampire. Seeing elderly familiars who have served for years is very common. Although familiars are subservient, some vampire masters will hypnotise them occasionally to avoid conflict. Because of this cruel treatment, there was talk of unionisation among the familiars of Manhattan, who communicate with each other via newsletters. Familiars will often network in social gatherings, although many will use it as an opportunity for complaining, and “sad hook-ups”.

It is considered very bad etiquette for vampires to kill or turn the familiars of other vampires.

Some vampires may adopt animals instead and consider them familiars, such as Sam the cat.

### Witch familiars

Like vampires, witches may adopt familiars to help them in exchange for eventually becoming witches themselves, but their familiars usually take the form of animals rather than humans.

## Known familiars

* Almalta
* Benjy Everett, the former familiar of Nandor. He was abandoned in Delaware 40 years ago because he was too vocal about wanting to become a vampire, but became the first known familiar to be turned into a vampire by their own master.
* Black Peter, a goat who serves as the familiar of the Brooklyn witch coven
* Celeste, the familiar of Houston. She also pretended to be a vampire and took on multiple familiars herself.
* Colby, the familiar of Dantos the Cruel and Radinka the Brutal
* Guillermo de la Cruz, the current familiar of Nandor and at one point Celeste
* Jackie, the former familiar of Deacon. Jackie is the first known familiar to have been turned into a vampire, and even so, she was turned by Nick, rather than her former master.
* Jameson
* June, the first known former familiar of Nadja and Laszlo
* Justin, the second known former familiar of Nadja and Laszlo
* Karen, a former familiar of Celeste
* Misha
* Phillip, the former familiar of Viago
* Sam, a cat familiar who at one point served Celeste
* Terry, Jackie's husband, who became her familiar after she was turned
* Topher, former familiar of Nadja and Laszlo, now a zombie
* The unnamed familiar of Baron Afanas

## Appearances

* *What We Do in the Shadows* (film)
* *What We Do in the Shadows* (TV series)

## References

Clement, Jemaine & Waititi, Taika (writers and directors) (19 January 2014). *What We Do in the Shadows*.
Clement, Jemaine (writer) & Waititi, Taika (director) (March 27, 2019). "Pilot". *What We Do in the Shadows*. Episode 1. FX.
Clement, Jemaine (writer) & Waititi, Taika (director) (May 8, 2019). "The Trial". *What We Do in the Shadows*. Episode 7. FX.
Johnson, Sam & Marcil, Chris (writers) & Gorskaya, Yana (director) (May 27, 2020). "Collaboration". *What We Do in the Shadows*. Episode 18. FX.
Scharpling, Tom (writer) & Clement, Jemaine (director) (April 17, 2019). "Manhattan Night Club". *What We Do in the Shadows*. Episode 3. FX.
Meny, William (writer) & Newacheck, Kyle (director) (June 3, 2020). "Witches". *What We Do in the Shadows*. Episode 19. FX.
Sawyer, Marika (writer) & Newacheck, Kyle (director) (April 15, 2020). "Resurrection". *What We Do in the Shadows*. Episode 11. FX.