Day 10 of Toontober 2 is Familiar!

Familiars are magical creatures that are bonded to wizards and other magical practitioners as assistants and messengers. One particular creature that has been enjoying a dramatic uptick in popularity for this role since the end of the Great War is the lulu, a small, cat-like animal with a compact, spherical body. Lulus make for ideal familiars due to their intelligence, affectionate nature, the ease with which they can be cared for, and their inherent magical properties, chief among which is a minor ability to shapeshift. This ability in particular is not only practical (They can alter themselves into useful tools for example), but allows them to be 'customized', by training them to retain a particular shape, though many prefer their lulu's default appearance. Indeed, this is making them popular not only as familiars, but as pets for more mundane owners.

Unlike more traditional familiars, lulus are clearly artificial in their origin. Their highly magical and cooperative nature, coupled with their strange reproductive method (new lulus are born when an existing one literally coughs up a small litter of kits, which can happen spontaneously and at inopportune moments), and propensity to adopt some unique accessory of their own accord (Collars are most common, particularly ones with bells on them, though ribbons and jewelry have also been observed) has lead scholars to believe that they are the result of some ancient wizard's experiments with the transmutation of living organisms, probably as some kind of advanced homunculus.

Despite their ongoing popularity, rumors persist of lulus that are not only mischievous but malicious, actively going out of their way to torment their owners in small but persistent ways (knocking over glassware, clawing books, etc). Some even go so far as to claim they've heard lulus sarcastically mocking them behind their backs, despite the fact that there have been no recorded instances of lulus possessing the power of speech (not without direct modification by their magical owners, anyway). It is speculated that these rumors are at least partially fueled by the results of recent alchemical analysis that suggest they are related in some way to demons, which would make them a class of imp.