how do I get a familiar other than marketplace?

how do I get a familiar other than marketplace or proving grounds?

They can come from the chests for Kunark Ascending missions and Public Quests as well, and come in a "Familiar Cage" that is fully tradeable until it is unpacked.

~Mum

Yeah, got one from a PQ yesterday. It does not lower chances of other rewards, but comes as a rare addition to whatever you'd normally win.

If I spoke to the people in the crusader cave near the reforging and mending, is there something else I have to do to get these crates to show up?

Do the missions, pray for a drop ... it isn't overly common.

Make sufficient sacrifices to the gods of RNG

I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss a quest to get it started. I wasn't able to play yesterday and won't be able to do much other than raid tonight, so I'm going to be behind in these side things until the weekend. So are they just part of the game now, or do you have to actually start a quest?

You don't need to do any quests to have a chance at them, no.

yep! 536DBC and it yours!

I got one from the Obulus Frontier PQ.

There is also a quest from an NPC near the Battlegrounds/Proving Grounds zone-in that will reward a familiar. The Proving Grounds are a bit buggy right now, but it's possible to still get the reward.

Funny thing is I got a drop in Unrest the other day while farming it with my alt. So far that alt is the only one with one,

What do familiars give you to make them desirable?

Potency, AGI/INT/STR/WIS buffs, crit bonus overcap, and some have procs as well. If you go into your Character sheet, there should be a tab for "Familiars", you can hover over each one to see what they offer.

I've received one while questing in Withering Lands (a grasshopper looking thing) and another on an alt in Darklight Woods (a drake) so they are definitely available outside of KA

...and be sure to loot the corpses of the mob. The familiars I've looted have been on the body, not in a treasure box. I've been scouring around looking for more - found some in ToT/ Zou-Leidas - the leafhoppers will drop a familiar. Granted, they're not the fabled / etc ones, but hey - a free stat boost is always welcome in my book!

Ok, and they are most easily obtained via the Marketplace, or do people just suck at finding them so far? Are the ones from the Marketplace better than your average monster drop?

Sorry, trying to determine the exact level of P2W here, if any.

darklight wood vampires drops one.

The only difference I've seen so far is that Marketplace familiars sell for status, while "in the wild" ones sell for gold (not sure if it's an intentional thing or a bug). I've seen people get drops that have the same stats as purchased ones, which is a good sign.

(T Familiars tab in the Character sheet separates the Familiars into four different levels; each level has the same base bonuses within it, and the top two levels (orange and purple outline in my UI) have different procs on different pets. Hopefully someone who has gotten those higher level ones can tell us if they were "natural" drops or marketplace (I'm really hoping they are all available in-game somehow).)

Really?