Depends on your class but pets are summoned via spell scrolls that you buy from the vendor and you will need the regent to cast that spell, and the level. Regents can be found on npc most everywhere
Pet spells can be bought in the library of Plane of Knowledge. Not all classes can summon pets. Only those can have pets: - Magician - can also charm elemental NPCs to use them as pets - Necromancer - can also charm undead NPCs to use them as pets - Beastlord - Enchanter - can also charm NPCs to use them as pets - Shadow Knight - Shaman - Wizard - a passive non-combat pet - Druid - a low level bear at lvl 81, and also by charming animals and low level plants - Ranger - a low level bear at lvl 81 - Cleric - a hardly controllable hammer - Bard - by charming NPCs only So it is limited to casters, healers and a few hybrid classes.
There are also non-combat related "pets" called familiars that are available to all classes. Most familiars are just a cosmetic that has no affect other than something to follow you around. Many familiars are available via DB cash, there are a couple available from the Loyalty merchant, a few are available as quest rewards, and a few are available via /claim from some events, expansion purchases, or other such. You can also have "pets" in player housing as animals that can wander around your plot or inside your house or hall (or can be set to stay put). These, too, are entirely cosmetic and have no effects on your character. You can use both familiars and mounts as house item 'pets'. But, as noted above, only a few classes have pets, cast from spells, that can help them in combat. Magician, Necromancer, and Beastlord have the most capable of the pets with the pets being fully controllable. They also have "swarm pets" which are less controllable and only last a short duration. Enchanters have a cast pet that's not nearly as strong (and is often just a speed bump in some levels and non-controllable in lower levels, it only attacks if the Enchanter is attacked), but they can also charm and NPC for brief times to fight for them. (Speed bump = a weak pet that might slow down the targetted mob for a very very short time, like speed bumps slow you down in a parking lot but don't prevent you from driving on) Shadow Knights have a pet that's mostly a speed bump if it takes agro. Shaman and Druids have a pet in lower levels that's also not really much more than a speed bump if it gets agro. Druids and Rangers, sometime after level 80, can duplicate an NPC as a weak pet. Wizard's have a non-combat "flappy" pet, a small dragonette, that boosts some stats a small amount. Wizards also have a non-controllable pet for a short duration. (Attacks the target it's cast at and, if it lasts past the fight, will only attack what attacks the wizard.) Clerics have a weak pet for a short duration. I'm not sure how controllable it is since I haven't leveled a cleric high enough to get one. But.. I once knew a cleric who would use it to pull sometimes from great distances. Bard's, like enchanters, can charm for short durations. They also have swarm pets that are only semi-controllable. Other classes can sometimes have short duration pets (like swarm pets) from items. One such is the vicious rabbit from the Loyalty merchant (I forget the actual name of the item), but it is a very weak and low damage non-controllable pet. All classes can obtain a Mercenary which acts very similar to a non-controllable pet. You can set a 'stance' which will affect how it responds to you or your group being hit but you cannot otherwise direct it. Mercenaries also "level up" with experience you earn just for them. You can chose how to spend the Mercenary XP "AA" in the same way you can choose to spend your character's AA (Merc's do not have an auto-grant).
Before this thread, I had been thinking to write a blog post with a pet overview. So, I did: https://rijacki-game.blogspot.com/2023/04/everquest-novice-can-i-have-pet.html I think I got everything pet-like covered.
