Thursday, October 1, 2020

6 High Level Summoning Spells

[1] Father of Black Pool
This spell can only be cast by pouring a vial of darkest black ink into a pond, bath, or other small contained body of water. Trying to cast this spell in a river or the ocean will cause the magic to be wasted, as a large cloud of black water flows away from you. When the ink is dripped into the pool, it corrupts the water within to become foul, stagnant, pitch black water that causes sickness if you drink it and discolors clothing used to wash in it. This water can also stunt the growth of crops or plants if disposed of improperly; this is part of the cost of summoning this being. Once brought into this world; the Father remains in our realm for one day, nobody else can summon him until this time is up.

This is a powerful spirit from another realm. It is not a demon, nor is it even malignant, despite its elemental affinity with stagnant and foul water and love of secrets. The Father appears as a roughly humanoid figure with no facial features except for a set of triangular gills running up its face. These gills disconcertingly flap open and closed when the entity speaks, but it has no need to be underwater to breathe. It is native to a realm where all that exists is pitch black water. From questions asked to the Father, its realm is an infinitely deep, pitch black pool of water with boundaries made of thicker still darkness; the only things that pass through here are deceased abyssal creatures from the ocean and the souls of dishonored krakens; which shrivel up into rocks that endlessly fall deeper and are crushed harder and harder by oceanic pressure. The Father claims this realm is quite peaceful but boring, and as such it adores being summoned and speaking to mortals.

The first power of the Father is that he is an absolute master of magic pertaining to water, necromancy, decay, and darkness. It will gladly translate or transcribe any spell of this nature by using the black water of its pool as ink- sometimes when this spell is cast Mages will line up by the dozens to have their spellbooks described or annotated by the Father to help in spell research. The Father does this freely as a favor; it simply loves to share its knowledge with others. It has no interest in magic outside of this sphere and won't help in casting or learning any spells outside of his domain.

The second power of the Father is that of secrets. The Father is an old being and knows many things from when the world was still young, and it has learned many things from all of its masters over the years. It will tell you some secrets if it knows them; the location of ship wrecks for one, as well as the secrets to cure many wasting sicknesses it is also willing to trade for. This information the Father holds in much higher regard then his magical knowledge; it will only give up these secrets in exchange for an artifact it holds in equal value. All the artifacts the Father accepts in trade are taken to its magical realm and stored there eternally.

Finally; some summon the Father to combat it, as it cannot leave until its time is done. If the Father is fought, it will fight back. Treat as a 8 HD outsider with 16 AC, and powers over death, water, corruption, decay, and capable of splashing black pool deep water (treat as 1d6+1 acid) at you every round as an attack. It can cast powerful spells and will do so to defend itself, even though it cannot truly be killed as long as its realm exist. If you manage to defeat the Father, he will dissolve into the black pool and by sticking your hand inside (save or contract a wasting sickness) you can magically retrieve any artifact within the Black Pool realm. Since most of the artifacts lost within that realm are no longer known about in our dimension; the ability to claim an artifact is tied to the character's desire. If you desired a powerful weapon, then the pool would give up a powerful magic sword or trident of the deep black ocean. If you desired magic, then the pool may give up one of the Father's many magical, waterproof spellbooks written on decayed kraken skin, and so on.

[2] Je-Et
The Je-Et is a perfect commander. It is a being of the Celestial Sphere, and as all beings of that holy realm they appear as a strange angelic amalgamation of various animals, body parts, and flawless divine people. The Je-Et specifically appears as a divine man in a flowing yellow robe studded with round armor plates of holy iron woven into the fibers. The Je-Et has a three foot long neck, its neck tied with ribbons around it to give it the appearance of a battle standard at a distance, and this vantage lets it see over the heads of its allies to guide its forces on the battlefield. Instead of having normal legs, it has two long cricket legs which give it an incredibly jumping ability. It wears a heavy iron chestplate, but on the center of its back is the head of a rooster which can caw loudly to announce a charge or sound the alarm; its head is oriented backwards so it never falters in the face of the enemy.

The Je-Et were the divine commanders in the ancient days of the armies of heaven when the ultimate battle decided who would rule the Earth and Heaven. After that war was over, the Je-Et were “retired” in the realm of ultimate peace and tranquility. They have despised the Gods ever since and are constantly seeking ways to get out of that realm to see some action again.

To most, the Je-Et sounds and acts as the perfect commander for an army or warband. Instead of needing to pay them, the Je-Et pay YOU for each month of service you commission them. Every month its rooster mouth coughs up 4,000c worth of silver coins. However, the Je-Et is such a good commander that it will constantly keep its men motivated, in training, and on the march at all times. It also needs an enemy to fight. If kept defending a fortress or on guard duty too long, it will consider the work beneath it and either take the men away (who will likely be more loyal to the Je-Et then their true master) off on a campaign of its own design, or it will start to question or even imprison its master to micromanage their life and make new enemies and instigate conflicts so it constantly has something to fight and lead its army again.

The Je-Et fights as a divine being of 6 HD. It is immune to aging, disease, and level drain but can be killed by supreme martial skill above its own. It is summoned with +1 magic spear, shield, and armor made from heavenly alloys but can easily swap to new weapons if they are superior. It knows 2d6 blade arts that it can deploy with or without weapons; heavenly spear thrusts and elemental-charged attacks, and resistances to magical attacks, are just a few of its potential tricks. Finally, every Je-Et carries a pigeon made of stone, once tossed over the horizon to serve as a messenger to the Gods. Since then, the bird is lifeless after being retired and the Je-Et can instead evoke its stone companion to turn itself to stone in the middle of a battle. While the Je-Et is stone, it can see and think but cannot move until three rounds have passed. The Je-Et will use this ability opportunistically, such as to break your sword on his stone skin during the middle of your swing.

The main ability of the Je-Et is that it is an incredible commander and can size up any foe with realistic plans to defeat opponents; even those of much greater number or superior arms. The Je-Et can treat a troop of 20 men as equivalent to a detachment (usually requiring 50 men). Detachments use their own rules and can't be harmed by individual soldiers, unless special area of effect weapons or super high-level character are deployed against them. Those who train under the Je-Et for at least one week find their old injuries and inadequacies seemingly lessened under their commander, who always puts them in the position where they shine the best. Every soldier under the Je-Et no longer treats any of their negative ability score modifiers as negative for combat rolls; a crippled veteran with a -1 Strength has no penalty to attack rolls, since the Je-Et taught them how to fight using the enemies momentum, and so on. Finally, the Je-Et fixes group morale, treat soldiers under them as having a Morale of +1 or 12, whichever would be higher for the troop.

[3] Bath Woman
This spell brings forth a mystical female spirit. She appears as a golden skinned woman with a pale glow, her body made of mist underneath a transparent silk dress. She is a spirit of healing, cleansing, and of magic. The spirit will clean any being or object presented before her, and is known to be able to remove the taint of dark magic, the cursed eternally stained bloody hands of murderers, skim the foulness from artifacts touched by doom horrors from outside of time, and all other things filthy and unclean are made right again by the purifying waters that pool from her hands. Additionally, she may heal someone of one level of level drain or 2d6 points of attribute damage once per day.

The Bath Woman is not an aggressive spirit but is also known as a bringer of death. Those who are cursed with immortality and wishing for death, or those simply wanting to pass on peacefully, can find themselves set underneath the water of her bath and drowned, peacefully rocked into death by her gentle touch. For some, they believe the bath woman to be a succubus or other demon who preys on men's souls, but those who willingly die to the bath woman's touch always have their souls reach the next life as it was intended; she only helps those pass on who wish it.

Once the Bath Woman has been summoned to a spring, bath, fountain, or other place it becomes mildly holy and sacred. Demons and undead cannot bear to feel the waters here, though they are no longer considered holy water if removed from the bath. If someone was to defile the place, such as by dumping waste into the water or attacking the peaceful Bath Woman, even once, she will disappear. Otherwise this summoning is permanent.

[4] Quadallochi
The Quadallochi is a mischievous spirit of death and disorder. It can only be summoned once the magic user has constructed a totem from three skulls bound together with copper wire, which are arranged facing each other with a candle burning between them as closely together as possible. The Quadallochi can only appear within 20 ft of one of these candle totems. If the totems are destroyed or the caster moves away from one, the Quadallochi cannot appear. Once someone has summoned a Quadallochi it becomes quite difficult to get rid of, so avoiding and destroying these totems is one method to mostly avoid the spirit.

The spirit can appear in two forms. Usually it appears in a more “casual” form of twisting black smoke over its totem when speaking to its summoner. Otherwise, it may appear as a dark skinned young girl with bright red eyes, usually peaking around corners or from under furniture. This secondary form is used when others are present, with the Quadallochi whispering in the summoner's ear, as it is quite shy and doesn't like to be seen by others. This secondary form can also interact with the environment in the way a small girl could; moving light objects around a room or blowing apart circles of salt and the like. For this reason, the Quadallochi is extremely hard to contain once it is summoned; this body can build new totems or take away ritual implments when not being watched. As long as there is no totem nearby it cannot appear, but the Quadallochi has been known to build a totem in a wall or hide some of its primordial death energy in the form of purple jewels that it can hid in your boots or pocket; which give it some control over energies and matter even outside one of its totems.

The primary reason for summoning this spirit is so it can grant you its blessings. The Quadallochi has four different blessings it can give to its summoner, but it only gives these at a cost. The first blessing you take is given for the price of a small amount of necrotic energy; usually the amount you would get from a few cremating corpses in an alchemical furnace. The price increases from there; ramping up to include requiring giving the spirit hundreds of bodies worth of energy, human sacrifice, or assassinating immortal beings so the spirit may supp on their death essences. Everything consumed by this spirit cannot be risen to a state of undeath, as it has lost is undeath potential, but the soul is still intact and can be affected by resurrection magic or pass on to the afterlife.

The four blessings of the Quadallochi are as follows. It will grant them to you at any order, but most conjurers do not know all four and may simply have to ask the spirit to grant them a boon or power without specifics, and without knowing the costs first. The spirit has no problem granting these powers before you pay up, which is exactly why it hounds its summoners so much who so often try to extract the spirit's blessings without the sacrifices to keep it sated. All powers are permanent.

  • Gain the power of indestructibility to all mortal weapons, so long as you in a very dark place. The level of light must be less then that of a candle; dark umbral flames rise off your form in darkness from your indestructibility.
  • Gain the power to consume the dead flesh of mortals without thought to disease or the divine curse of ghoulism (the common punishment for those who commit cannibalism). You regain +1d4 hit points for gorging yourself on as much dead flesh from a member of your own race.. As a side effect, your tongue turns bright green.
  • Gain the power to cause wracking pain to anyone you see. This causes dark black scratches to form on their body, dealing 1d6+1 damage and dealing immense pain enough so that they must save or lose an action that round. You can perform this power even without using up your own combat action; it requires but a single moment's glance. You can use the power three times per day and Wizards can cast it additional times by expending 1st level spell slots without needing to prepare them in advance.
  • Lose both legs. You can still stand and walk upright, but your legs are naught but ghostly shadows. You can glide around as fast as you could walk or run before. You can avoid stepping on pressure plates, avoid caltrops, float over gaps, etc. However, your legs and any tight-fitting pants appear gone so you must wear long cloaks or dresses to hide your lower body, else you'll look like a floating upper body.

Once you have gained all four blessings, or if you take a blessing without paying back the spirit, it will not want to leave you. Even if it has nothing else to offer, it becomes clingly with its summoners and wants to use them gather more deathly energies for it, as its realm is already totally dead and nothing left in it can die fresh. It will continually push for more sacrifices, and promises to pay them back with future powers or by finally leaving you alone, but it never does and keeps following you until you finally die and it can drink your essence or it is banished by a powerful sage.

[5] Dwarfkiller
The Dwarfkiller is debated to be either the soul of a heroic goblinoid ancestor to all their kind, a magical spirit created by a massive communal goblin spell, or some kind of unknowable entity that perfect encapsulates the war between the goblins and the dwarves. The Dwarfkiller appears as a fidgeting green-skinned ball of enraged goblin faces, with dark blue colored spikes poking out between them. The ball essentially moves by sliding across the ground, capable of retracting its points or extending them a bit, constantly in a defensive position. These blue spikes are magically powered armor-penetrating dwarf-killing weapons, meant to penetrate the toughest plate armor. The Dwarfkiller ignores armor bonuses to AC, only evasion or advanced fighting techniques help avoid its lances.

The Dwarfkiller hates Dwarves and wants to kill them. If you summoned it as a Dwarf, then you are stupid and it attacks you. It attacks dwarves on sight. It will also attack non-dwarves if they either try to defend dwarves from it or if they strike it first. It snarls and blabbers mouthfuls of insults and cries of battle every round in goblinish, but hardly follows orders unless given to it in goblinish and the order doesn't take it more then a few seconds off course to the next dwarf to kill.

Dwarfkiller
HD- 8+8 HD,
AC- 14
Morale- N/A
Numbers- Usually One
Attacks- (+4 to hit, ignores armor) Three 1d8+1 damage blue spike attacks
Abilities- Cannot be Surrounded, Goblin Faces

As a ball of goblin faces, the Dwarfkiller cannot be flanked or snuck up on, since it sees and attacks in every direction at once. It can attack three times per round, either focusing all of its spikes in one direction to kill a dwarf, or in several to fend off attacks or kill many dwarves at once, just slower. The Dwarfkiller by default exists in our realm for only three hours once summoned, but if somehow brought here another way or through mass Dwarf sacrifice, it can be kept here longer.

The Dwarfkiller is also made up of many small goblin faces. They are the size of a normal goblin's face, and plastered together into a ball shape. If you use a war pik or tear one off with your hands, the face will be removed from the ball and it will now have a gaping hole that shows off its core. The inside of the Dwarfkiller looks like an amorphous blue mass of stone which the spikes jut out of or recede into when not in combat. Attacks against this blue mass deal double damage against the creature. Secondly, the faces pulled off can continue to speak and even bite you if you're holding on to it, but lack any intelligence of their own. They also don't say anything useful in goblinish except racial slurs and a desire for you to throw them at a dwarf so the face can nibble them to death.

Also; the blue-stone core of the Dwarfkiller is its heart and takes additional damage. If one of the pikes is taken off or a section of the core is chipped, it will remain in this realm even after the rest of the goblin orb has vanished. This stone material is very heavy and strong; and if fashioned into weapons it becomes capable of fashioning weapon tips or spear heads out of. It requires a high strength score (17 and up) to use a spear with a blue-stone head, but it ignores armor and punches right through even heavy plate armor.

[6] Bush of Ta'Ool
This spell conjures a magical bush, which grows from the ground as though a seed with a year's growth. It has hearty red-brown branches and brambles, with white and light pink leaves. It smells wonderful. It remains in a mostly dormant state where it is summoned for up to one season, after which it rapidly loses color and dies off. This bush is but one single seed or branch of “growth” from the true Tree of Ta'Ool, a magical force from another realm embodying life and energy. This spell is difficult to cast as it requires rare reagents and magical white jade to be buried in the ground as a “seed” to cast the spell at the first moments of it being finished.

This bush has two primary effects. The first is that, while within the bush, the spellcaster gains an innate sense of the natural world. Around them, the sensations of animals and the winds become one with the spellcaster, letting them lose their sense of self and become one with nature and life around them. The growth of Ta'Ool also remains in this realm for at most six hours once summoned, and as such the danger is mitigated, but for those who find a way to increase its time of summoning and get too lost in the sensation can lose their mind entirely, their body disappearing from inside the brambles and their spirit becoming one with the web of life.

While within this advanced state of awareness; the caster may hone in on anything natural and living within the general area around them; focusing in and watching things as though disembodied from a collection of sensations and energies around them. They could watch a fox hunt for a rabbit, or see a carp splashing majestically on the surface of a lake. Then they could shift their attention to the road, to see humans walking along, and zoom their mind over to a volcano, and sense its heat and how close it is to its next eruption and so on. Consider this an advanced, totally freeform but limited in range form of scrying. Additionally, while within this scrying state, the caster may embody one of the natural elements or things they can sense and see into themselves for a short time, granting advantage on a related roll. For example, they could channel the swiftness of a river to gain a bonus to escaping an enemy, or they could invoke the ferocity of the tiger they had been watching in spirit-form, thus giving them advantage on their first attack roll, and so on.

The second power of the bush is that of the living conduit. By mystical ritual applications, requiring the spell caster a bit more magical knowledge then the growth spell by itself, you can embody the spirit of the land within the bush. This magically makes the bush animate into either a humanoid golem, a long snake made of vines and leaves, or a magical white dove, the form of which is determined by the spirit of the land. This spirit represents the animate spirit of life in the area; gaining a personality based upon the land it was spammed. The dark and stormy mountain land in the deep, lifeless winter will probably be a cold and distant spirit, where as the spirit of a fertile valley in the heat of summer will probably be joyous and encouraging. Regardless of how it is created; this magic spirit is always subservient to the desires of its maker. Once the spirit is animate, the user can give it any number of commands or orders that it is required to fulfill. The spirit will then use its boundless well of life energy and the powers of nature in the land to do its best to fulfill them. These commands must include changes or magic to be woven into the natural world; such as “encroach the forest back onto the arrogant human town”, an elf would say, and the growth-spirit would try its best to do so. The spirit can interweave life in this land to attempt to fulfill its end of whatever it is asked; it can make species adopt unusual habits, such as scratching the spellcaster's name out of any open books or wanted signs they see to let them pass through unmolested. The growth spirit can make the predators in this land more tame, or make the rivers flow more predictably for the drought stricken land and so on. This spell is often cast by elves, as their Ta'Ool spirits race around their forests to make the land as sustainable and livable for their elven masters as possible.

However, it is important to know that after the spirit is let loose, it will change nature that may well have unforeseen effects. It also only lasts one season, meaning once that season is up and the spirit dies, it will no longer be able to make any changes or reverse changes that had unforeseen consequences. Lands affected by two or more conflicting spirits may well have their natural ecosystems brutally upended and chaos reigning over the people and animals of that place. Commonly, a magic user may use this spell to conjure a spirit and order it to increase their power or control over the land they live, and when that time is up the Wizard will have lost control over their own constructs made of interwoven branches or have packs of wild animals following them; attempting to serve their commands but killing the magic user's followers in mistake for intruders. It is also possible that, if the spirit is given foolish orders or is captured by evil forces, the connection to the land could be used to drain it of all life and goodness to create a barren or twisted wasteland. Once that has happened, the land can no longer grow a Growth of Ta'Ool and the spirits of this spell will no longer come here; only time can mend the wounds wrought by this magic spell.

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