Summoning

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Summoners form long-lasting bonds with a Familiar, contracting with other Spirits for protection, industry, and utility. Summoning requires expending a Minor Merit to purse.

Warning: Summoning is not available for play, and will be developed after every Spirit and Pact is finished.

Summoning

History

History

Acquisition

Becoming a Summoner requires having the symbol for Summoning painted upon the initiate, and then they are Incited. This causes their soul to contort, twisting and flexing, equated symbolically to giving birth from their soul. Should they survive, their Familiar will coalesce and greet them - or try to kill them in a newborn rage of confusion.

Archetypes

For a full rundown on Archetypes, see Spirits.

Lemures

Lemures are Spirits of inconsequence, often performing little more than small gimmicks related to their Metaphor. Some of these can harm the common man, however, and they tend to be more dangerous en masse.

Cambions

Cambions are usually man-sized soldiers. They are Playable Races with souls, and excepting the Rakshasa, they all have the Pact of their Plane. There is only one type of Cambion for each, and these are also a Playable Race.

Demiurges

Beings that change the world around them in their image.

Arche

Archaeon, Archdaemon

Playing as a Summoner

Summoners employ various planar beings as soldiers and servants for a myriad of purposes, from labor, to trades, or even war. They also possess a Familiar in service to them

Convergence

Each Summoner must perform the sacrament of Convergence to then summon spirits from a plane. This entails first finding the Arche for that Plane, and then contracting beneath them by performing a task. Ones relationship with the Arche of that Plane is therefore paramount to the success of a Summoner, as they can deny them a Summon; they tend to be ambivilant and fairly give and take, representing their Metaphor accurately. The Convergence costs 0 XP + 25 XP for each Convergence before it.

The task usually entails a lifelong commitment of some kind, whether it is to dedicate every meal to the Metaphor they represent, or to go about ones life in pursuit of a task. So long as the Summoner follows these words, their Command over spirits will hold; there are Summoners who deny the Convergence to instead focus on their Familiar, and those who gather each to serve monastic lives of ritual in understanding of Metaphor, bartering Planar diplomacy better than none other.

The Convergence is something a Spirit including a Cambion can sense. It will make the Spirits of that Plane feel a slight deference towards the mage, enough that they would not act in hostile ways towards them should their minds be primitive. Dissonance is when an Arche afflicts another with the opposite of a Convergence, fostering generalized hostility towards them.

While each Spirit is not totally loyal to the Arche of its Plane, each is at least guarded by a Formation of Cambion loyal to them, as well as 10,000 or more Convergence Rating worth of Spirits. The Arche of Lacon also sponsors the Cor'Norai and is protected by them

Convergence Rating

There is a limit to how many Spirits a Summoner may have permanently bonded to them at a time. As one nears this limit, their Aether Spell Reserve regeneration at that tier will be fractionally nullified until reversing course in excess of this number. Going over this limit is possible by expanding ones Spell Reserves, such as being initiated into additional Galdr.

Each Spirit will have its own specified Challenge Rating, which also equates to how many grams of that Planes Alkahest must be sacrificed to Contract with it, and its contributing Convergence Rating cost.

• CR1: 10 Gram
• CR2: 30 Grams
• CR3: 90 Grams
• CR4: 270 Grams
• CR5: 810 Grams
• CR6: 2,430 Grams

• Novice: 100
• Apprentice: 250
• Journeyman: 500
• Expert: 1000
• Master: 10000
• Ascendant: 100,000

Example: A CR1 Spirit would cost 10 Grams of Alkahest to Contract, leaving a Novice with 9 Convergence rating left. As Summoning can be rather expensive, unlike Nekron they will struggle to fill out their retinue without a Duty or some other way to generate Seasonal Points to buy Alkahest.

Familiary

Every Summoner births from their soul a Familiar which grows with them. including any Arcana; however, they will both share the same Spell Reserves. Every Familiar is a unique expression. At every tier of skill, the Familiar will manifest a new ability from those specified in the Familiar page. Functionally, a Familiar is a CNPC which shares the skills of the Summoner up to their tier of Summoning rather than fostering its own.

Each Familiar is as varied as the mage that spawned them, and the Spirits themselves, with the added matrix of the mages own soul. If the mage has a very fey mind, then they might be every bit as ambivalent as they are. Relationships between Summoner and Familiar are as varied as relationships between people, ranging from quarrelling lovers, unquestioning pet-master bonds, or outright subversive hostility - they tend to reflect dramaticized versions of the best and worst traits of the mage, simply due to chafing with their own identity as a lesser being to the mage that formed them.

Spells

Summon

A Summoner may summon and command Spirits at random from a Plane they have a Convergence for, or any among their Contracted. They might also Summon spirits for which they know the True Names of who are not contracted, but are 'friends' in this way.

Contract

Summoners may contract with a Summoned Spirit they possess a Convergence for by offering it Alkahest charged with their Aether as a sacrifice. Should it agree, that Spirit will become a member of their retinue and exact a Convergence Rating cost from the mage.

Communion

Spirits are autonomous beings that function in a specified way. Communion works on any Spirit without a soul, allowing the mage to converse with and direct them mentally as they wish. Those with Souls such as Cambion will merely feel a strong suggestion which might aid in fighting cohesively. Communion may be performed on any Spirit they have Summoned or Contracted with, at any distance.

Unite

Willing Spirits including ones own Familiar may be pulled into themselves by a Summoner. By Uniting with a Spirit, a Summoner will attain its abilities and properties for a time.

Banish

Summoners may banish Spirits within their line of sight with so much as a gesture, including those Contracted to other Summoners, and their Familiars.

Tiers of Mastery

Novice

Description

• Spell 1:

• Description 1
• Description 2

• Spell 2:

• Description 1
• Description 2

• Spell 3:

• Description

• Spell 4:

• Description

Apprentice

Description

• Spell:

• Description

Journeyman

Description

• Spell:

• Description

Expert

Description

• Spell:

• Description

Master

Description

• Spell:

• Description

Ascension

An Ascended Summoner is the Arche of a Plane, and also the one who governs whichever form of society their Cambion have formed. To become one, a Master Summoner must war against an existing Arche and lay them low to supercede their paramount Sovereignty over a Plane, a feat which has not been accomplished for thousands of years. For whichever Plane the Ascended becomes an Arche of, they will foster the ability to wield Aether Spell Reserves when using that Planes Arcana, and vice versa.

Arches always possess several Arcana, the Pact for their Plane, Formations, and 10,000 Convergence Rating, so this can be seen as one of the most narratively difficult Ascensions to acquire.

• Spell:

• Description

Becoming an Arche usually necessitates expending the necessary Merits for a Kingdom tier title, and another for the Ascension. Alternatively - for the cheeky writing masochists - you might become an Arche of Aether by achieving a Convergence with every other Plane as well as becoming a Paragon - this has no title, but the Rakshasa will likely yield to you some form of rulership over Bast or Arcanis should you be willing to spend the Merits. When roleplaying as an Arche, you must be willing to accept other player Summoners NPCing a Convergence with you in a minimally invasive, paraphrased manner or else in their history. Writing a protocol for how your character would handle such should be written in your Ascension Quest.

Creations

Ensorcelling

Alchemistry

“Blurb! Or a mote of history.” - The person.

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