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Summon Magic is basically the ability to call on a magical, often mythological entity without the hassle of actually having it follow you around.
In most Eastern Role Playing Games, one of the most powerful means of blowing the crap out of your enemies, aside from a Limit Break, is to call some powerful mythological beast to lay the holy (or unholy) smackdown for you. A powerful spell that, for all intents and purposes, works just like any other attack spell, only with lots of (often superfluous) eye candy thrown in. Typically, one or more powerful creatures will make a flashy entrance, perform an attack (causing as much destruction as possible), and then leave. The summon may be a Limit Break or have some other restriction in order to compensate for its power.
Summons will occasionally require you to defeat them before you can use their power. In franchises, especially non-linear ones, the summoned creatures will usually remain the same across all installments, such as in the Final Fantasy and Tales Series.
These have a very high propability of being called "Shôkanjû" ("Summoned Beasts") in Japan; in translations released for the west, more individual names (Espers, Bestia) may be substituted
Note that in most Western Role Playing Games, summon spells are of the "instant ally" variety, as in the Tabletop RPGs they're modeled after: Beings summoned are much weaker than those in Eastern RPGs, but stay in the battle as fully commandable NPCs (at least for a few minutes) instead of delivering a one-shot proxy attack and vanishing. Warlocks, who summon demons, and Necromancers, who either raise zombies or call in spirits of the dead as aids, both who usually use a form of Hermetic Magic, fit this subset of the trope. The Japanese form of such spirits are shikigami.
"Killing" a Summon may result in its actual dying, both it and the summoner dying or just being sent back to its home until the Summoner can summon it again.
Examples
Anime
- Summoning jutsus on Naruto require the user to make a pact with the creatures he summons, and are actually explained as a type of teleportation jutsu. They never address the issue of where they are when they are before they're summoned. One particularly inventive ninja created a technique to "summon" himself to another place (special seal which he put on kunai to be specific) as a way of traveling quickly.
- In chapter 409, Naruto gets "reverse-summoned" (which itself sees some more use later on) to Myobokuzan by one of his own summons, who is lounging there with other frog summons. It seems as though they hang out in very remote places that may or may not be in the same reality, much like the faerie realms in many novels.
- Referred to as 'Stellar Spirits in Fairy Tail, and Stellar Spirit mages are summon them with 'Keys'. Also summons can change appearance depending on the owner (e.g Virgo and even Loki) but always have the same personality. A few don't distinguish friend from foe, or do so in a perverted fashion... So far Lucy is the only one of note, minus one other who plays into Loki's backstory.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, introduced Summon Magic on its third season along with two summoners: Caro, who can summon dragons, and Lutecia, who can summon insect-like creatures.
- The CHILDs in Mai-HiME are of the Western school of summoning. Once they're summoned, they stay on the battlefield until they are destroyed or their summoner willfully dematerializes them. Some can even be given vocal commands (Natsuki does this frequently when readying her ultimate attacks).
- Persona -trinity soul-, to no one's great surprise - considering that it is set in the same Verse as Persona 3, mentioned below. The personas seem to be of a more permanent nature here, even surrounding their owner like a translucent suit of armour and enabling flight, and the evokers have been removed.
- All demons in Mahou Sensei Negima seem to require a summoning to be anywhere. They stay around till their task is complete, to which they then leave in a poof of smoke. Demon slayers are required to end their summoning by defeating them before they can complete their task (usually killing). Most higher level demons don't bother for pride's sake, but demons do act on free will to meddle in human affairs, which appears to be the only time slayers and exorcists will outright kill them. However, they only ever organize when utilized by humans. Is per Rule Magic, the amount and quality of demons summoned is directly linked to a summoner's skill or raw power.
- Ga-Rei has, well, Ga-Rei.
- Magic Knight Rayearth's Ascot, who thinks of his summoned beasts as his only friends —mostly because everyone else ran in fright of him when he summoned something— but doesn't hesitate to sic them on his enemies, at which point they tend to get killed. Clef can also summon great beasts, although he uses them more as vehicles than enforcers.
- Guru Guru magic in Mahoujin Guru Guru summons monsters through magic circles. Properly performed Guru Guru spells summon anything from blasts of fire to lightning throwing demons to bad luck fairies to houses. Improperly performed Guru Guru magics summon something utterly random.
- Final Fantasy Unlimited , an anime loosely based on the Final Fantasy series, has a character who uses a magic gun to summon monsters.
- Just about all "furniture" (Think where summons and servants collide) in Umineko No Naku Koro Ni uses this trope. At least, in the mansion. Given that the meta-world appears to be where all the magical stuff lives (at least at this point in time), anyone magical can pop up at any time.
Literature
- In Second Apocalypse the character Iyokus is specialized in demon summoning.
- This is what makes the supervillain Devilmaster so feared in the Whateley Universe. He summons, stores away, and controls all kinds of devils. Then sics them on people.
- In Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, The Horn of Valere is used to summon heroes of legend from every age of history to kick ass on behalf of whoever blows the horn.
- The Dresden Files. Several evil sorcerors summon demons to help them fight. When a demon is summoned, that's only its vessel. If destroyed, then whoever summoned it can make a new one easily. It's very difficult to permanently kill one, but one way to it easier is to use a magical holy sword.
Live Action TV
- Andrew, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, summoned powerful demons to battle Buffy. After his return in the following season as an ally to Buffy, he never summoned a single demon again, in one of the worst examples of Villain Decay in that show's history.
- In all fairness, summoning demons wouldn't be a strictly kosher strategy once he'd thrown in with the good guys...
- This is lampshaded at one point, when he is begging to join the good guy team (instead of just being a hostage for them), and is asked what exactly he would bring to the table. He points out his skill at summoning demons, receives an askance look, and admits that skill isn't exactly a useful one for the good guys.
Tabletop Games
- This is how Daemons of Chaos are brought into battle in both Warhammer 40000 and Dawn Of War.
- Dungeons And Dragons errs on the side of game balance in regards to summoning magic. All casters have some form of summoning magic, at all levels of casting, but the creatures summoned aren't all-powerful. They do, however, fight right alongside everyone else in combat, meaning nobody has to step out for the summon to take their place. There are also the "Planar Binding" and "Planar Ally" spells, which call forth an exceptionally powerful creature, by force or bargaining respectively. And at the highest end of things, there are a handful of spells that take quite a lot of time to cast, but conclude with the caster summoning his own private squad of powerful, loyal monsters.
- There's also the gate group of spells, which simply makes the monster (such as a powerful demon, though there are other choices) be here... And says nothing about its attitude toward the caster.
- In Magic The Gathering all creature cards are actually spells that call them forth to fight in the duels.
- Some even work in the Eastern fashion, as one-shot super-monsters. Ball Lightning
 is the canonical example of a very large, very damaging, very brief red summon.
- Lorwyn's Evoke mechanic was an explicit attempt to invoke the Eastern style. A creature could be summoned, bringing with it an additional effect, or, for much cheaper, summoned very briefly for the effect alone before it vanishes into the Graveyard.
- In Mage The Awakening and Werewolf The Forsaken, it is possible to summon spirits from the Shadow, though they are by no means obligated to serve the summoner (without additional magics or rituals, at least) and can often quite hostile. The Mage Sourcebook Summoners has details for summoning other beings, including cryptids (weird terrestrial mutants, such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster), chtonians (beings which inhabit the Underworld which cannot be reliably said to have ever been alive), Abyssal beings and even the denizons of the Supernal Realms. The last two are noted to be very hard to summon, quite difficult to control, and extremely dangerous.
Video Games
- One of the first examples is Rydia from Final Fantasy IV; while summoners were actually introduced in the previous game, Rydia brought attention to the job. Since then, Summon Magic in some shape or form has been a staple of the Final Fantasy series. In some cases the summoned beings even play a role in the plot.
- Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XII were unusual in that they went with a variety of the Western trope, having them replace everyone on the team but the summoner and fight like a party member.
- Final Fantasy XI summons are even more Western in battle application, making the summon a variety of 'pet' that costs Mana to summon, to keep summoned, and to use its powers. In a doubly dissonant subversion, conflicting both with their storyline role and their traditional usage in the Final Fantasy series, summons' attacks are actually fairly weak unless you use your desperation ability or reach level 70... out of 75.
- This is the entire magic system in Flight-Plan's Summon Night series. The stones that allow you to summon act more like spellbooks in that they need to be equipped and each has a set of available abilities that a particular summon can do. Most are the Eastern variant, coming out to deal/heal damage or possess units (as buffs/debuffs). A few also follow the Western variant as they can also be summoned into units, giving the summoner an instant ally. However, doing so denies the use of said summon for any its other skills until it is recalled. If it falls in battle, all the abilities of said summon are unavailable for the rest of the battle. Summon Night 4 did allowed the player to use a summon's skills while it is out on the battlefield as a unit. It hangs a lampshade on this by having said summon teleport from its current location to pull out the attack, and then teleporting back.
- The Pain Rings in Black/Matrix 00, another game by Flight-Plan, also follows the Eastern version.
- Romancing Sa Ga does this also; but summoning elementals, to really summon the very powerful monsters you need special items to do so.
- Frequently occurs in the Tales Series as well, starting with the first game, Tales Of Phantasia.
- Tales Of Eternia, the second game to use Summons, ratcheted up the pace of the battle in every way, including making all spells take place in real time... except summoning the Greater Craymels. But then, it also switched the summons from being just another kind of spells (as Klarth used) to being a sort of magical Limit Break charged up by repeatedly using the proper element of spells. (Anyone who's played the game enough knows how often you get to summon Undine, whose domain contains both water and healing spells.)
- Nippon Ichi games don't use summon magic as a separate type, but the highest-level elemental magic is shown calling forth some massive entity to bring the pain.
- Western trope example: Several Hero units in War Craft III are capable of summoning beasts, elementals, or demons to aid them in battle.
- In World Of Warcraft the Mage class also has an optional elemental summon. So do Druids, Priests and Shamans with the right talents, although their summons are rather short-lived and can't be controlled as directly. Recent addition Deathknight can call short lived ghouls, while a talent allows them to keep a ghoul as a permanent pet much like a hunter or warlock.
- All Controllers and Dominators in City Of Heroes and City Of Villains, with the exception of Mind Controllers/Dominators, can summon a creature that fights for them. Dark Miasma Defenders and Corruptors can also summon the Dark Servant, while Masterminds are entirely built around having a small army of henchmen pets fight for you.
- Phantasy Star Online also uses a summon-type attack as a Limit Break.
- I don't know if you'd call this a subversion, but Phantasy Star Universe has something of a thing going on about summon magic in its player communities. CASTs (androids) get their massive artillery pieces teleported from satellites, BEASTs get their nanoblasts where they turn all big, furry, and dangerous, but Humans and Newmans (space elves) get nothing but the ability to wield a comparatively weak type of special weapon. As such, one of the common things posted by the newbies, ignorant that its been said by, and doomed, a thousand newbies before them, is "Wouldn't it be cool if Newmans got summons?". Cue instant storm of flames from more regular players who've heard this one and argued against it so often that it's like some kind of berserk trigger for them (although admittedly, the Phantasy Star setting has Never used summons (excluding MAG photon blasts, I suppose (see above )), and has a good few reasons against them). That and if it's big and summonable, then in Phantasy Star you're probably trying to kill it before it eats your environment control system and makes it spit out a Cute Monster Girl (Of course, that's how we got the Newmans in the first place...).
- Golden Sun enables you to summon monsters by temporarily using up "Djinn" which are ready on standby. They can be summoned individually for minor attacks, or you can use up a lot of them at once to summon more powerful spirits; either way, they're ready to help again after a few turns of rest.
- The problem is that while resting or in standby, you lose the stat bonuses the Djinn give. The cycle goes like this: 1) Djinn equipped, grants stat bonuses. 2) Unleash a Djinni, cause a special effect depending on the Djinni, and put it in standby mode. 3) Summon a combination of unleashed Djinn to get spiffy effects and deal major damage. The Djinn rests for a few turns each before being reset and grant bonuses again. If the character has no Djinn set, he or she is usually at almost 50% of normal capability.
- Beating most Navis in the Mega Man Battle Network games will get you their NaviChips, which let you summon them to perform an attack. NaviChips come in multiple levels (as many as five in some games), and they always freeze time, making them especially valuable. To keep players from Navi-spamming, there's a limit of five NaviChips per folder (a deck-like structure of thirty chips), but you can increase it in various ways.
- In the original Mega Man series, Rush, Beat, Eddie, and the only-seen-once Tango probably count.
- Dungeons And Dragons, and all its computer game adaptations, have plenty of summoning spells... although not all of the beings summoned are going to be instantly cooperative.
- The D&D-based PC game Planescape: Torment is notable for lacking much in the way of the Western-style ally summons its similarly-based contemporaries feature, but does feature several of the Eastern-style instant-massive-damage summons, especially at very high level, where they're accompanied by spectacular CGI-video animations.
- In games like Baldurs Gate, summoning creatures is usually an excellent way to rip medium-low level adversaries apart; however, higher level wizards tend to have spells which allow to quickly "banish" the summoned creatures, making them useless.
- Unless you keep summoning them, in which case they very quickly run out of banishing spells and start draining their useful spells while their combat protections wear off, leaving them as terrible, unarmored fighters.
- In the Kingdom Hearts games, the summons are Disney characters from other worlds, mostly worlds that don't appear in the game. Some of them change the gameplay temporarily when summoned, like Dumbo, who makes KH's melee combat into a temporary Third Person Shooter... er, Squirter.
- All special and magic attacks in Persona 3 are of this variety, as the main characters' special powers (and their combat statistics) are derived from magic demons that are representations of your psyche, created by your mind through Tarot Motifs and summoned on the battlefield... By shooting yourself in the head.
- Persona 1 and Persona 2 are similar, but without the suicide implications.
- Castlevania: Circle of the Moon does it with traditional mythological beasts, but Symphony of the Night has fun with it with the "Power of Sire" item, which summons an image of Vlad Tepes Dracula (the real Dracula) to attack.
- Use the Power of Sire on Dracula himself. laughter and headaches for all!
- Septerra Core stays firmly in the Eastern Summoning side with its card-based magic system. The Summon card, combined with elemental cards, are basically powered-up versions of normal spells. Combined with other cards, the summon often changes the card's normal effect to straight damage-dealing (with two exceptions: one, a powered-up healing spell, the other causing numerous status effects). All summons conjure beings from the in-game mythology.
- Summoner employs both, as appropriate for their backgrounds. Monsters clearly based off of Western mythology, such as minotaurs and golems, hang around for a while to knock some heads, while the great dragons you get from the rings hidden in the ancient China-like part of the world do one thing and disappear.
- And in Summoner 2, the main character actually becomes what she 'summons' for a short period of time.
- Pokemon are essentially miniature summon beasts.
- In Drakengard, your party members' pact-partners when summoned function like the Eastern version of this trope, whereas your dragon acts more in line with the Western version.
- Lost Kingdoms has both Eastern and Western varieties.
- Some games in the Super Robot Wars series have attacks where A unit summons mechs or weapons that aren't available for normal use (such as supporting characters). For example, Quatre in some games often has his strongest attack summon the Maguanac Corps to fight by his side for one ridiculously unfair beatdown. Super Robot Wars W has a variant with the "Support Request" ability, that allows you to call in a non-deployed character to perform an supporting attack.
- The characters in the Xbox 360 RPG Blue Dragon have the ability to summon the creature that dwells in each of their shadows (a bat, a phoenix, a minotaur, a tiger, and yes, a blue dragon) to help them fight. This is pretty much the key mechanic of the game.
- In Legend of Dragoon, the final spell all the character receives is a Dragon summon. However, given that ALL the magic in this game has extremely over the top destructive effects, this is overkill.
- Most of the Ultima games have one or more "Summon Creature" spells, ranging from rats to insect swarms to demons. All of them followed the Western example (obviously) by creating them as friendly NP Cs that fought until killed or the summoning wore off.
- In theory, the The Elder Scrolls universe contains evocation magic (under the label of "Conjuration" as of Morrowind). These spells take a creature from somewhere else and bring it in front of the caster under their command. In practice, there are three types of this:
- "Creature summoning" takes a creature from somewhere else and brings it in front of the caster, under their control, for a fixed duration of time
- "Item summoning" combines Summon Magic and spontaneous Item Crafting magic. In Daggerfall there was a spell that could create a type of weapon or armor at a random quality level, from nothing; in Morrowind, not only is there the aforesaid "creature summoning" spells but there is a spell that summons specific quality armor or weapons enchanted with the souls of a summoned creature (Daedric Armor).
- This is repeated in Oblivion.
- In Daggerfall, "Atronaches" were golems that were physically constructed and imbued with souls by a mage. The process is never explained but this is most probably a precursor to future "Conjuration" magic.
- Enchanted weapons can be
stolen found here and there throughout Arcanum; aside from the usual increase-speed or deal-poison-damage modifiers, some particularly cool weapons have a chance to summon woodland beasties or even the undead.
- There are a number of spells for summoning temporary allies in the Exile/Avernum series. Before summoning demons, it's necessary to cast another spell to keep them from immediately turning on you.
- This is the form of magic in the Genoforge series, and its practicioners are the basis of the world's society. Using the correct spells, summons stay around… A LONG time. Some of them are very sophisticated, too, sophisticated enough to make a lot of people uncomfortable.
- Yukari of Touhou has the superpower of "altering boundaries", allowing her to teleport anything from anywhere to anywhere. During the games, she teleports bullets from one side of the screen to another to confuse the player.
- This is taken to extremes in the many doujinshis involving her, and in a Crowning Moment Of Awesome she once summoned an actual nuclear bomb before teleporting out when she was losing a fight with Yuka.
- The Servants in Fate Stay Night. You prepare a magic circle, usually made of blood. Optionally, you can add a relic of that hero or specify them as a Berserker. Then they show up, you make a contract for a week or two throughout the Grail War. The Servant stays until either they are defeated or the Grail War ends, at which point the Grail stops helping you supply them with Prana and they go home. Except for Gilgamesh. Saber and Rider too in two of the different endings. Oh, and the magus who summons them generally has absolutely 0 chance of ever being able to beat their Servant in combat, though there are a few exceptions.
Webcomics
- Cherry, the oddly Genre Savvy elf from the now-defunct RPG World could summon with magical stones.
- In Adventurers!, Ardam could use summon magic as well, though it usually backfired amusingly on him. Also, his Crowning Moment Of Awesome hinges on an inversion: pulling an enemy into the realm of summoned creatures so they can all beat the hell out of it. This was thought to be impossible until, in the middle of battle, Ardam figured out how to do it.
- MS Paint Adventures affectionately parodies the one-shot-attack summon with a strange array of options: Wilford Brimley, Henry Clay, and a trio of blind jazz musicians are a few examples.
- Done a few times in Sluggy Freelance, all involving spells found in the Book of E-Ville. Most summoned creatures are demons, who are used to grant wishes, seek vengeance, or buy beer. However, at one point Bun-Bun summons the Groundhog's shadow (yes, the one which tries to scare a groundhog every February 2nd so there can be six more weeks of winter); the spell goes wrong, and the Living Shadow ends up stuck to Bun-Bun for several years.
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