Summoning Contracts

Introduction

There are some things even stranger than ninja who can manipulate chakra to give themselves superhuman abilities: for examples, animals who can manipulate chakra to give themselves superhuman abilities. These animals are commonly called “summon creatures” by shinobi, as that is how they will usually be encountered: by another ninja summoning them.

Animals are summoned for numerous reasons, such as aiding in battle or, more frequently, performing something they can do better than the ninja calling them. The vast majority of these animals have human-level intelligence and performance well beyond what would be expected of their species, and most of them can speak fluently. Exactly where these intelligent, talking, chakra-manipulating animals came from is a mystery even to shinobi.

That being said, ninja tend to be pragmatic about these matters. There are two things a shinobi needs to summon: knowledge of the technique (Kuchiyose no Jutsu), and a contract.

A contract is exactly that: a piece of paper which the ninja must sign their name to (typically in blood). Once the contract is signed, they gain the ability to summon the corresponding animal at will. In exchange, the ninja must give up some of their own chakra whenever they call the animal.

These contracts are supernatural in nature; they cannot be destroyed (rather, if they are, they’ll reform without any signs of damage). A ninja may summon any contract they’ve signed, and dismiss it, at will; some carry the contracts with them as a fashion statement or means of showing off, while others prefer to keep them out of sight so as not to tip their hand to prospective enemies. Either way, the physical contract is not needed to actually summon the animal it corresponds to.

How They Work

You get the contract by purchasing the Summoning Contract talent.

After that, what exactly it allows you to do depends on your XP total. In each contract’s description there will be a section labeled “Access”, beneath which you will see XP amounts and the names of individual summons and techniques granted by the contract. Once you have the listed XP amount, you may use the appropriate summon; there is no additional cost to acquire them once you have the contract.

Once you have a contract and access to a particular summon, you may call on it. To do this, you need to use Kuchiyose no Jutsu (a C-rank ninjutsu); the Chakra cost, Speed, and so forth, are all listed within the entries for individual summons.

Summoned animals are not pets. At best, they are allies who happen to be on friendly terms with their summoner. If you summon a creature to perform its duty, it will do so without (much) complaining. However, it won’t casually “hang around”, train with you, or be eye candy. If you try to ask it to do so, it will just leave.

Avatars

As mentioned, these intelligent animals have their own social structures; most are fairly loose, and not organized in any fashion particularly recognizable to humans. One thing they all have in common, however, is the presence of what ninja have come to refer to as an “avatar-class” summon.

Avatars are the pinnacle of their species. They may not, strictly speaking, rule the other animals summoned by their contract, but they are universally revered and deferred to. In most cases avatars are more intelligent, and vastly more powerful, than any of the other animals of their species. They also tend to grow to enormous sizes, even beyond what’s seen in other summon animals (though this is not necessarily always true, and many avatars are not actually the largest example of the species).

They’re also astoundingly long-lived. Many of the avatars have been alive for over a century, and are likely to live quite a great deal longer still. It’s even said that some of them have, in the past, fought against the legendary bijuu–and while they may not have won, the fact that they’re still alive says a great deal.

Avatars are also much more independent than the other animals their contracts call. Summoning one does not mean that it will help you. Certainly, some will; others may only do so for certain requests, or under certain circumstances, or with an expectation of something in return.

In game terms, what this means is that a GM must be around whenever you summon an avatar; they will handle the details of the above.

Limitations

The greatest limitation in most summons is how frequently they can be used. Each individual summon and technique may only be called upon once per week (OOC day), unless specified otherwise. For example, if you had the Bird contract and summoned the Corpse-Devouring Crows, you coldn’t use that particular technique for an IC week (OOC day); on the other, you could still summon an Owl Sage or Flawless Messenger.

Additionally, summons will not directly work against someone with their contract. The techniques granted by a summoning contract can still be used, but the full-fledged “Summons” of the contract will refuse to act in a battle between contract-holders.

Beyond that, you may under normal circumstances have only one summoning contract, unless you take the Multiple Summonin Contracts talent.

How To Read

There are some similarities in most summoning contracts; this is here to clarify what things mean, and help you understand them better!

Contracts offer two things: Techniques and Summons. For something listed as a Technique, you are summoning animals to accomplish a single, specific task. For example, in the Snake contract, the “Hidden Shadow Snake Hands” technique: you summon multiple snakes, they perform an attack, and then they are unsummoned.

Things listed as Summons are animals that will stay around for longer. They’ll take actions you ask of them (within reason), and they’ll fight alongside you or try to accomplish a goal using their capabilities in less strictly-defined ways. Each Summon will have its own node describing it. These are all summoned by performing Kuchiyose no Jutsu (C-rank General Ninjutsu). The Chakra cost, Speed, and Seal Speed listed in these nodes are the ones used for Kuchiyose no Jutsu’s “Variable” values.

In each contract, the first node will be labeled “Info.” This gives a brief overview of the contract, including how it’s viewed and how the animals behave. While not mechanically significant, this is important to understand their nature.

Below that, there will be a section labeled “Access”–this is important. Simply signing a contract will not immediately give you free reign to summon the appropriate animals at will. Summons will only respond to shinobi who they believe are worth their time, or whose chakra is of high enough quality. You must meet the minimum XP listed to use a given technique or summon a specific animal.

Breach of Contract

The “contract” between shinobi and summoned animal is, for the most part, a one-sided thing. The ninja calls the summon when they need its help, the summoned creature renders its services and then leaves. In most cases they ask for very little, if anything at all, in return, beyond the chakra used to call them forth.

…That is, aside from respect. Different animals have different opinions, moods, desires, and idiosyncracies. Powerful summons will often object to being summoned trivially, and hardly any summon will put up with being openly disrespected by its summoner in its presence.

Several behaviors constitute ‘breach of contract’. For all summons, regardless of contract, the ones below always qualify:

• Directly attacking your own summoned animal.
• Injuring it too badly in the crossfire (for example, catching your summon as well as an opponent in an area-of-effect technique).
• KOing your summon, or dealing enough damage to inflict a Major or higher wound on it (counting any effects that increase damage for the purposes of determining wounds) will qualify.
• Openly insulting or demeaning your summoned animal. Frustration in combat is acceptable, but berating it is not.

If a breach of contract occurs, the summoned animal will promptly excuse itself from the battle. That entire summoning contract will be completely unusable for the next three OOC weeks.

Most summoned animals are fairly helpful and even tempered; in most cases, only the conitions listed above will constitute a breach of contract. Some, however, can be testier. In the individual descriptions of certain summons, there will be a list of additional Breach of Contract conditions. Meeting any of those conditions will constitute an immediate breach of contract, with the effects described above.

Notably, all Avatar-class summons have special Breach of Contract conditions, which are not listed. One must simply assess their personality and, based on that, do one’s best not to offend them or earn their ire–sucking up to them may not be all that good of an idea either, as some hate summoners who aren’t confident or who spend too much time simpering.

Summons Combat

Introduction

Inevitably, ninja will try to call upon their summoned allies in combat, either against other ninja or to counter other summoned creatures. Accordingly, the combat-worthy summons have functional stat blocks for when this comes up.

Actions

When in battle with their summoner, a summoned creature’s actions should be tracked normally: if it takes a Speed 14 action on IC 50, it cannot act again until IC 64. However, unlike a normal person, summons do not act automatically.

They will only take actions when directed by their summoner (this can be the character doing it, by shouting out instructions, or the summoned creature choosing what to do, controlled by the player). Acting this way usually has an AP cost: the summoner spends a certain amount of their own AP, and the animal takes the appropriate action.

AP can be spent to lower the Speed of their actions, again paid by the user. Summons to not accumulate AP on their own. They do not have Willpower unless specifically stated, and the summoner may not spend Willpower on their behalf.

If the summon is acting alone (for example, stalling enemies) while its summoner is not involved in combat, it can act without having to pay AP to do so. It accumulates its own AP at the rate of 5 every 20 IC, which it can use normally.

Damage

Technically, summons have HP. However, once they reach 0 Vitality they will automatically vanish in a puff of smoke, being un-summoned. This means that it’s impossible to actually kill a summoned creature (they can die–you just have to track them down “in person”, which is typically more trouble than it’s worth).

Summons don’t suffer from wounds.

Fatigue

Summons do not have Fatigue levels, as such, though they still make Stamina and Chakra Exhaustion rolls, and accumulate penalties to those rolls, normally. Instead, whenever a summon fails a Fatigue roll its penalties reset normally and it automatically loses 20% of its maximum Vitality.

This is part of representing how, as discussed in Damage, summons disappear once they’re no longer able to fight: it doesn’t really matter if they’re worn out by overexertion or by being beaten on too heavily, one way or another they’re not able to go on.

Unsummoning

If you are ever in a position where you want to unsummon one of your summoned things, all it takes is a Speed 5 action and poof! You can unsummon any single summon, or even multiple summoned things all at once.