Shadow Summoning - Summoning Entry Spooktober 2023

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"They...Those things came from the darkness we...we couldn't see them they j-just attacked! No warning, no signs, nothing, just suddenly one fell then another...and another...and oh god it was...terrifying...!"

— Unnamed shadowmancer, last survivor of a ritual

Shadow Summonings are dangerous, sinister rituals seeking to awaken various Shadow Creatures. These rituals often involve mass sacrifice and generally have very few surviving sacrificees and summoners.

Mishaps and Methods

Spellcasters and Experts

Despite the primitive methods employed by most cultists and ritual spellcasters, Shadow Summonings are surprisingly complicated, difficult affairs to succesfully pull off. You not only need to have the prescence of multiple elite spellcasters of various Channels of Magic but a highly trained Shadowmancer who has become accustomed to the beings that are being summoned.
If, however, the ritual is performed by amateurs or people without the necessary prior knowledge, the ritual is incredibly prone to either anomalies or highly dangerous mishaps that could be harmless enough to just cause a failure of the ritual or dangerous enough to awaken a horrible monstrosity that will kill everyone present before going on a rampage.

Technique

The ritual first relies upon the environment's conditions to be controlled, a central light source established in an almost pitch black environment, an anchor point to help restrict potential hazards. Some summonings, however, have forgone even this small light source in favour of summoning even more powerful beings. Those foolish enough to do so have all been consumed by the darkness they awake with the ritual.
When the light source has been established and the necessary participants and sacrifices have been brought into it, the Shadowmancer leading the ritual begins. As to how exactly they do this varies from person to person, in one of the more fluid aspects of magic, and often determines the type and strength of the shadow creatures summoned.
By the end of it, however, the Shadowmancer if succesful will summon one or more shadow beings of various power who will either crowd around the light source peering in or cower within it, depending on where they are summoned to. This can, however, lead to extremely rare cases where a shadow being is large enough to entirely fill the area it is summoned into, and destroys not only the people and the light within the room or area but the structure surrounding it. Generally, however, the Shadowmancer is capable of keeping the situation under control.

Common Ritual Types

Shadows of the Past

These types of shadows draw upon the shadows of a specific location, attempting to summon shadow beings related to the current place, such as awakening an Echo of someone who died in a location or of someone who was present to gleam information, even if it isn't as accurate. Another type of being that could be summoned is a Looper that clings in a cycle to the area.

Shadows of the Gods

One of the hardest and most dangerous types of the ritual, summonings the Shadows of the Gods involves awakening shadows left behind by the activities of certain gods, awakening old traces of them or unleashing a dangerous well of magic that can easily get out of control.

Ritual Information

Time
6-8 hours
Participants
5-20
Magic Type
Shadowmancy
Hazard Level
Extreme, Localised
Sacrifices
2-50, sentient or animal
Sanity / Lifeforce Drain
Moderate, Sanity