Summoning

Summoning is an interesting magic, in that unlike elemental magics, everyone can do it, and unlike necromancy or clerical magic, it's very different with every element. There is an important distinction in summoning, that we shall get out of the way initially, there is inside summoning, and outside summoning. Inside summoning revolves around summoning beings from inside Fou Lu, and Outside summoning revolves on summoning things from the elemental realms outside of Fou Lu, hence the names. While elemental magics revolve specifically around the elementus of the soul, and Necromancy around the core, summoning works with both, predominantly the core, but enhanced and focused through the elementus.

Inside Summoning

Inside summoning is a very common practice amongst druids, forest hermits, and folks such as this. Inside summoning is calling something on Fou Lu, to come to you. What you choose is entirely up to you. Some people summon birds and chipmunks when they sing, others summon wolves and scorpions. What is summoned depends on what a person's mind wants. If a person is confident on what it is they desire to summon, then things work much faster. If, however, a person is conflicted, confused, or outright new to summoning, then it will take much longer to do, and the results will often be more carnal in nature. An angry person may summon a feral, frothing wolf, or instead some horrendous monster accidentally placed on the world by the gods in earlier days.

What happens with inside summoning is the core of the summoner's soul seeks out and finds the soul of that which they desire to summon, the two cores, for lack of a better word, discuss this, and what is wanted to be summoned either comes or doesn't. Things such as worms have very little against arriving to the call of a summon, and even supposedly intelligent forest animals tend to show up, unless they are protecting young. The more powerful and practiced a summoner is, the more it can gather. Some have summoned whales, and giant squids, and it is assumed that a powerful enough summoner may very well convince an actual dragon or god to aid them. However, summoning is a means to getting something there, controlling it requires a bit more charisma. Summons will rarely attack those who summoned them, unless they were planning on it initially, and if they decide not to participate, which a summoned dragon, for instance, would, than they often just return to where they came from.

Inside summoning also only works at the speed that which is summoned can move. If you summon a person in Sha-Liden, and you are in New Siber, it'll be a long time before that person gets to you. Regardless of whether you're strong enough to summon them.

Strength of inside summoning revolves around two things in addition to outright skill. That is distance, and element. Distance makes sense on its own. Element, however, revolves simply on the conflicting elements of the summons. All creatures of Fou Lu have elementus, whether or not they cast magic. A fire elemental summoning a fire elemental has far better odds than a water elemental in that same situation. No fire elemental, for instance, would ever be able to summon an Air dragon, no matter how good they got. It is with this in mind, that most summoners who specialize on inside summoning stay on their homelands.

Inside Summoners can target anything to summon, from toads, to people, to gods. Whether they will arrive is up to strength against will, but theoretically anything could be summoned eventually.

Outside Summoning

For more instant gratification comes the realm of Outside Summoning. A literal land of monsters, pixies, and dragons. The most similar thing to compare to an outside summoner is an illusionist, in that what they summon is not really there. That demon isn't a demon, and that dragon isn't a dragon. It is a molding of pure elemental energy from the elemental plane of the summoner.

To specify, an outside summoner connects their core, not with the core of another being, but with the universe as a whole. They send their soul on a wild chase through the worlds of the dead and unreal until they spiritually arrive at their own elemental plane. The elemental planes are where, eventually, people go when they die. Fire elementals go to the Infinite Desert, Psychics to the Realm of Dreams, et cetera. All of these places are identical in the fact that they are filled to literally overflowing levels with pure elemental energy. The summoner then, speaking through their elementus, not their core as in inside summoning, summons energy to follow their own astral soul back to Fou Lu. When the energy arrives back the summoner essentially instructs it into a form. Be that form a wolf, or a toad, or a pixie, or some asymmetrical monstrosity is entirely up to the summoner. And it is in this form that the outside summon will assist the summoner.

An outside summon maintains it's shape for only so long as the summoner may maintain it. Elemental energy is not meant to be so strongly focused on a realm such as Fou Lu, and is rather constantly attempting to separate and spread throughout the world. To eventually return to its realm by filling the world with its essence, and then having those things die to cart the elemental energy back to the realm they derive from.

Outside summon's shapes can be anything and everything, but they seem to thrive in a form that best suits their element. A water summon formed into a large swordfish that freezes that it touches is not difficult to create. A fire-breathing hydra from the Infinite Desert is fine. An indestructible stone monster from the Kingdom of Clouds, however, often fails miserably, and cannot do a lick of Earth magic, or Air magic. With this in mind, most summoners tend to play to the strengths of their element, and eventually gain favorite forms in their minds for their summons to take shape as.

This type of summoning doesn't take nearly as long to do as one would think, the path through the universe to your elemental plane becomes a walk to the corner store after enough practice, and gathering elemental energy isn't so difficult, so long as you don't attempt to "grab" more than you're able to "carry", for lack of better words. The real difficulty is putting that energy together. And for a moment, raw energy sits in Fou Lu swirling and flying around at random as the summoners mind harshly pushes it into a physical form.

However that still takes at least five minutes, upwards of 20, depends how long they've been summoning and how large the thing is that they are summoning, obviously a dragon requires much more elemental energy than a pixie. And it is for this reason summoners frequently travel with the company of more hasty wanderers.

Outside summoning, while definitely difficult, isn't particularly dangerous or exhausting. What Outside Summoning requires most of all is a strong attention to detail, summoning something without internal organs is fine, but summoning it without all four legs, or summoning it as so heavy that it couldn't stand upright even if it had 100 legs, is just something not worth standing for.

It is with that in mind that we bring up the topic of Familiarity. Both types of summoners like to keep an air of familiarity about what they summon, for completely different reasons. An outside summoner, first, wants to be able to imagine some sort of monster that is efficient, deadly, and easy to maintain. The more they are used to the composition of the summon, the easier it is to maintain, and if they summoned a creation that did marginally well for what they wanted, they will likely work with that same shape.

Inside Summoners keep an aura of Familiarity, because those that helped them once will likely do so again. It is frequent, insanely so, for inside summoners to have many dangerous pets, from wolves, to falcons flying overhead, often naming them, and sometimes thinking they can talk to them, whether or not they really can.

*Note: The time restraints on summoning rituals are not absolute. Reckless summoners may attempt to do them more quickly, but the quicker you try to amass the necessary energy the more chance the energies will run rampant and rip the summoner's physical being to shreds. Keep that in mind.