It's been a thunder spell from the druid both times.
I gave her owl stats but flavored her as a very small dragon who has a fondness for polyhedral gems. Yep, she's a dice dragon.
I guess that makes my familiar my self-insert character.
Well the mechanical inscentive is the time and money it takes to revive them. It’s pretty negligible eventually, but it’s a pretty big deal at low levels.