Summoning

The World is full of invisible entities that can be brought forth through the proper incantations and entreaties. The Summoning Working governs all forms of such magic, whether that means calling up storms, consulting ancestors for knowledge, or commanding household spirits to act as personal servants.

Inherent Technique: Familiar Spirit

Skill Roll: No
Cost: None
Duration: Scene
Subject: Self

Whether by binding a minor spirit to his service or projecting his own will in semi-material form, the Sorcerer can use this Technique to act on The World at a distance. He creates a 1-dot Follower of the Heavy, Entourage, or Consultant type with no Follower tags for the duration. He can choose a different type every time he casts this spell.

Familiars of the Heavy type can perform basic manual labor or engage in close combat. Those of the Entourage type can deliver messages or act as seductive distractions. Consultant familiars gather information and perform research on the summoner’s behalf. They use the Sorcerer’s Leadership + his highest Power attribute as their dice pool, and act as Followers in all other ways. If a familiar spirit is Taken Out, the Sorcerer cannot summon another for the duration of the scene.

Summoning Techniques

Embody

Skill Roll: No
Cost: 1 Legend
Subject: One character
Range: Close

The Sorcerer turns a harmful, non-Injury Condition affecting herself or another person into a physical entity with the goal of subduing it. The difficulty to cast the spell is for the Storyguide to determine, using the guidelines described above under curses. Persistent Conditions that are part of a character’s natural being, such as those of many Denizens, cannot be embodied.

Treat the embodied Condition as a hostile Antagonist of the same tier as the person it was drawn from, and an archetype commensurate with its severity: a mild flu drawn from a mortal has the Mook archetype, while the lethal poison running through the veins of a Hero is probably a Nemesis or Titanspawn. It has the Incorporeality Quality (to anyone but the Sorcerer, Origin, p. 148), and only one Flair: Plague Touch (Hero, p. 290) that transmits the Condition that it embodies. The Storyguide can spend from the Tension pool to improve its abilities as normal.

If the embodiment Takes Out another person, it immediately enters that person’s body and must be summoned again to confront it. If it is Taken Out itself, the Condition is resolved.

Evocation

Skill Roll: Yes
Cost: Imbue 1 Legend
Duration: Indefinite
Subject: One creature
Range: Close

The Sorcerer calls forth a temporary creature of his choosing to serve him for as long as he keeps a point of Legend imbued in the spell. The creature’s base attributes are as follows:

Primary Pool: Successes x3
Secondary Pool: Primary Pool -2
Desperation Pool: Primary Pool -4 (minimum 1)
Health: Successes x1
Defense: 1 + half the Sorcerer’s Legend
Initiative: Primary Pool -2

The number of successes that a Sorcerer can roll is capped 5x her tier, including Enhancements. The Sorcerer can add Qualities or Flairs at a cost of one success each, choosing from the Antagonist lists appropriate to her tier. (Any ability that would normally have a cost in Tension instead requires the player to spend a point of Momentum to use.) Otherwise, summoned creatures follow the general rules for the Creature Birthright.

Forces of Nature

Skill Roll: Yes
Cost: 1 Legend
Duration: Scene or special

By commanding minor spirits of nature, the Sorcerer can alter either the weather or the landscape around herself. She can either add up to a 3 Complication to the Field she occupies by calling up hostile weather conditions or reduce Complications in the Field caused by similar phenomena.

Alternately, this Technique can be used to bless or blight plants in the same way as the Favor of Nature Boon. This use of the Technique requires no skill roll and lasts for a number of years equal to the Sorcerer’s Legend x10.

Resurrection

Skill Roll: Yes
Cost: 1 Legend
Duration: Scene
Subject: One corpse
Range: Close

The Sorcerer uses a minor spirit to restore a corpse to a semblance of life. If the corpse is larger than a human, add twice its size Scale to the difficulty of casting the spell. The animated body has the same non-supernatural physical characteristics that it did while alive, but it takes all actions with a +2 difficulty penalty and only possesses the barest spark of intelligence that it uses to obey the Sorcerer’s commands. If the Necromantic Consultation Technique (see above) is used on a corpse animated in this way, Resurrection can be used to restore the original personality and mental faculties to the corpse for the duration.

Servitors

Skill Roll: No
Cost: 1 Legend
Duration: Milestone
Range: Close

The Sorcerer assigns a small host of invisible spirits to carry out a time-consuming activity in his place. The spirits can be used for construction, research, crafting, or general physical labor, but in any case will work long enough to complete one Milestone in a complex action while their summoner is freed to do other things. Using Servitors still requires the Sorcerer to have access to raw materials if required, but reduces the time needed to perform the task by half. If any skill rolls are necessary, they use the higher of the Sorcerer’s own relevant skill or his Sorcery skill to determine the outcome.

Spirit Teacher

Skill Roll: No
Cost: 1 Legend
Duration: Scene
Subject: One spirit
Range: Close

The Sorcerer spends 1 Legend to call up a spirit that acts as a temporary Guide for the duration of the scene. The player should first give the Spirit Teacher and name and a short description of its area of expertise (use the guidelines for Legendary Titles to choose one: a keyword related to a role and a descriptor of how that keyword can be applied). The Sorcerer gains the following advantages, all of which must relate to the spirit’s description:

• Invoke the Spirit Teacher once as a Path for access to information, contacts, or locations
• Gain a +1 Enhancement on two appropriate skills or a +2 Enhancement on one skill
• Invoke a Twist of Fate once.

Gift Horse

Skill Roll: No
Cost: None (1 Legend)
Subject: One summoned Creature or Follower

When you use the Summoning working to summon a Creature or Follower, you may gift command of it to someone else present in the scene instead of you. It obeys them, not you, and belongs to them for the duration. It cannot harm you directly, and any time it is used to indirectly hinder you, you gain 1 Momentum. If you spend 1 Legend while the summoned being is present, you may give it a single command that it cannot disobey in letter or spirit, even if doing so would harm the master you bound it to.

Single-Minded

Skill Roll: No
Cost: None
Subject: One summoned Creature or Follower

When you use the Summoning working to summon a Creature or Follower, you may choose to give up control of it. If you do, you may give the entity only a single command, no more than a simple sentence, when it is first summoned, and it will then pursue the letter of that command to the best of its ability and gains Enhancement 2 to all rolls to do so. In the case of a Follower, it acts independently of you and gains its own position on the Initiative track. It will not listen to you further unless it feels like it and may do anything it pleases, so long as it continues to pursue the letter of the command given to it for the duration. If it completes the order entirely, it is free to do what it likes for the rest of the duration.

Charms: Summoning charms can be used to negotiate with or threaten spirits, adding 1 Enhancement to rolls to exert influence on them.