Summons and Summoning

Summons and their summoning as systems are altered from vanilla Third Edition sources in The Domains of Dread. Any spell or spell-like ability tagged or described as a summon are subject to the following, however companions which are granted to some class archetypes such as Artificer homunculi and golems or Hunter/Druid’s animal companions are not governed by the provided rules, existing outside of any summons a character might also have.

Summoning

At no time does a character ever summon a creature originating from another plane into the Realms of Terror from automatic mechanics such as those from conjuration spells, spell-like abilities or similar features. It may be assumed that these creatures are being taken from somewhere within the inhabited domain’s ecology or across the demiplane without interfacing with anywhere beyond the Dread Material. As such true Outsiders may be summoned only through events chaperoned by the Game Masters in response to prolonged and costly rituals, assuming those characters’ calls are answered at all let alone to their benefit.

Conjurations are always considered summons, as well as acts of necromancy which coalesce spontaneous unlife. All entities summoned in The Domains of Dread persist until dismissed or destroyed. They are flavored to the inhabited domain where feasible, possibly altering what is summoned depending on whether the caster is located in Barovia, Borca or Cordova.

Summoning Points

How many summons a character can maintain at any one time depends on their current spellcasting ability, taking from the highest spell circle unlocked at a 1:1 ratio before any other modifiers—for example, a Wizard who has 3rd Circle spellcasting unlocked has 3 summoning points or SP available to work with when using summoning spells. A summon takes a number of SP equal to the associated spell circle cast, so this hypothetical Wizard would empty their SP to 0 from casting summon monster III, or summon monster I 3 times. SP is restored with other class archetype features after successfully resting. Resting dismisses any active summons.

SP is depleted when summoning from a spell slot, as a ritual, spell-like ability or a scroll. Class archetypes which may be able to access scrolls without associated spellcasting levels using Handle Magical Device as some Rogue archetypes will not be able to summon using those scrolls unless they have the SP required to complete the summon.