Summoning Questions About nameless idiom

[eruditus]

I am trying to discern the intent of summoning the nameless pirits of nature.

Specifically I see that earth's examples do not jive. What would an earth spirit accomplish for you? It specifically says that "rocks do not roll." Movement comes in the form of natural landslides. yet in another example on page 15 it mentions the spirit "fills in gaps and repairs breaches done to the structure [a castle wall]." How would a earth spirit do this? It can't naturally grow or move. I definately see advantages, especially in information - weaknesses in a defense, finding ore and gemstones, etc. But it is unclear how earth can be useful otherwise.

Suggestions? Clarifications?

[Fifth]

I guess it depends on the area that an earth spirit is called from - if you summon the spirit from a sword's blade, maybe it could make small changes like sharpening, inscriptions on the blade, small shape changes.

How about getting past a prison gate by asking the spirit which inhabits the metal to weaken the hinges or the lock?

You could use the earth spirit during combat to trap your opponents in suddenly unstable ground, or rust an enemies weapons and armor.

I think the "rocks do not roll" example would apply if you summoned the spirit of one rock, detached from an entire wall.

[luke]

I think Fifth is in the right vein.

I actually had to clarify this question with a phone call last night. What it comes down to is that it was just a bad example. Rocks on flat ground will not suddenly roll in a direction because a summoner tells them to--it's just not in his idiom. Whereas a boulder balanced on a hillside very well may roll. When? When the summoner tells him to!

The idea behind nameless spirits is that they exist in another time and place from us, thus different rules apply to them. When we see these strange effects, like tripping over a rock that certainly was not there a moment before, we are seeing the minutest evidence of their touching our world.

In the instant of the "rock that wasn't there a moment ago", I see that as a perfectly legitimate use of an Earth/Road/Path spirit. Nothing moved. The rock did not leap. It is perfectly within the idiom of rocks to be underfoot and trip people. Thus, it happens. No questions, no evidence, no explanation.

[eruditus]

i suppose it depends on the world. The higher the magical feel of your world i suppose the more dramatic the idiom and thus, the more dramatic the actions.

In a very realitic world I suppose that rocks don't move at all. As the paradigm loosens then rocks budge and harden and in high fantasy paradigms shape themselves and fly about.

Hmmmm, which would be an interesting concept... moving your world, as a summoner and sorcerer, to shift the magic level. :) I have always wanted players to attempt this in a game. Many players just figure, if its not in the rules I can't try it. Those who do not think that way think that it would otherwise be an easy matter to alter things in such a way - no epic vision :)

in George RR Martin's series (Song of Ice & Fire) the face of magic changes dramatically over time as magic comes back into the world slowly with the birth of new dragons - an event people have no real knowledge of but has far reaching consequences - alchemist fire works better and the magics of the gods begin to take a more significant effect.

Very cool.

[The Majestic Leper]

When I read the Abjuration rules, a question came to mind: when a spirit is summoned, is it trapped in the object that it is? or is it a formless entity that is limited only by it's domain? This comes into play if I were to see what kind of spirits are around and I end up calling say, a spirit of an ancient anvil close at hand. Will this spirit be able to do all the things any other earth spirit could do? fill in gaps in walls, coax a rock over an edge? or is it only what it alone could acomplish, such as tip over on my toe, or aid in the creation of a powerful weapon?
it seems like this may vary on how fantastic th GM wants to make summoning. any thoughts?

[Thor]

I just finished a session in which I used Nameless Summoning for the first time, and it was incredibly powerful.

To set the scene:

Our game is set in a city called Corso (similar to Renaissance Venice) that is run by five extremely powerful merchant families. The families are run by Dons, and each has one Wizard that sits in a council. My character was the former apprentice of the wizard (Ottavio) from my character's major rival family. After making a play for the hand of Ottavio's daughter, my character was driven out of the city.

Now it's eight years later, and my character has returned with one goal in mind: to humiliate his former master (and secondarily, to help guide his house back to prominence in the city).

Not too long after returning to the city (having spent 8 years in a foreign empire learning the forbidden arts of summoning nameless air spirits), my character learned that the wizard's council was convening in an attempt to have me tossed out. Seems they were charging me with dereliction of duty. I concocted a plan.

I went out into the wilderness and summoned the most powerful air spirit I could (Power 6). The actual summoning and binding were easy (I worked patiently and carefully). The tax was much nastier, I lost about half my Forte, but I stayed concious. I demanded a service. Then I waited.

Finally, the council was convened. Kublai decided to run it as a Duel of Wits, with my character against the head of the council (a wizard from a house strongly allied with my rival). We scripted for a few volleys, and I did fairly well. At the perfect moment, I scripted a feint against the leader's rebuttal. I accused Ottavio of breaking his covenant with apprentices (he had plucked out my character's eye after a lab accident years ago).

Ottavio was infuriated by my accusation and rose to speak. As soon as he opened his mouth I whispered, "Ottavio," the signal that we had agreed upon when I bound the spirit. So it went forth and performed the service I had demanded of it.

It stole Ottavio's voice.

We rolled for the duration of the service. Six years. So now my rival has been robbed of his voice -- a requirement for spell casting -- for six years.

None of the council members were able to spot the Spirit doing it's thing (thank god. That was the most dangerous part of my plan). So I proceeded to claim it was a miracle, that Ottavio had worked against me at every turn, and now God had struck him down before he could work more evil against me.

Spirits, even Nameless spirits, can accomplish some incredibly nasty things. You just have to be creative when thinking about its idiom.

[eruditus]

None of the council members were able to spot the Spirit doing it's thing (thank god. That was the most dangerous part of my plan). So I proceeded to claim it was a miracle, that Ottavio had worked against me at every turn, and now God had struck him down before he could work more evil against me.



Fucking brilliant! :D That's great stuff. The cool thing was you ddin't send the spirit into his home to suffocate him while he sleeps or guide a crossbow bolt. So often players are out to kill-kill-kill and ruin opportunities for dramatic tension.

Kudos to all of you!

[Thor]

Fucking brilliant! :D That's great stuff. The cool thing was you ddin't send the spirit into his home to suffocate him while he sleeps or guide a crossbow bolt. So often players are out to kill-kill-kill and ruin opportunities for dramatic tension.

Kudos to all of you!

Thanks! That was a nerve-racking moment, let me tell you. But it felt SOOO good. The plan started coming together in the last couple of sessions, but the general direction has been aiming toward this for the whole game.

When creating the character, I took the Belief: "My master must acknowledge my mastery." Which meant, of course, that simply killing him was out of the question. I also decided to take Summoning as a forbidden art that none of the other wizards had access to.

Honestly, when I first started working on the plan, I intended to have the spirit "Steal his Breath." However, that would have meant killing him without humiliating him, and it would have meant a versus test between the spirit's Power and Ottavio's Forte. It would have taken a mondo-powerful spirit to do that with a good chance of success (And surviving the Tax on a Power 6 spirit was tough already).

Finally, don't forget the Spirit Retribution aspect. I thought it would be safer to use the Spirit to incapacitate him rather than kill him, in case I run into it again someday. Which brings me to my final point: Never summon a spirit where you eat! Make sure to go far away from places you normally go in order to summon spirits, otherwise you'll be shaking hands with it real soon. :twisted: