D&D Summons Are Lifeless

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It feels great to get back into the rhythm of playing regularly, but one big thing a player brought to my attention was their little animal buddies. She didn't want to fully roleplay them all the time, but wanted them involved in the story. Then I realized that, outside of some cosmetic details for each character, summons and familiars never really... do their own thing. So why not! Elementals, fiends, undead and familiars should totally be characters in the story and not just little pokeballs you can use. Here be me video on it!
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[@judeblack4360]

I was in a campaign where our cleric inherited this warforged from a dead NPC ally. He tagged along with us under the control of our DM, acting as our bodyguard. Over time, he gained a personality and began worshipping the same god as our cleric. However, he wasn't terribly bright, and his interpretation of the faith was... unusual. I ended up helping him hide a body because he hugged a guy to death. Another time, we gave him 10 platinum to spend on whatever he wanted. He came back with a sack of 10,000 copper, and said "I bought more money". Good times.

[@dsargus3]

holy shit... "i bought more money" genius DM moment honestly

[@irithylldragon]

woe be to the banker who has a sack of 10,000 coppers slammed on his desk for converting back into platinums during the beginning of his shift 💀

[@MrNewber01]

Thats the perfect excuse to isolate the party from the NPC for a whole dungeon... or more... JUST IMAGINE THE TIMA IT WOULD TAKE TO GO TO EACH BANK UNTIL 10K COPPER I

[@ProduccionesPaquito]

This sounds like an amazimg idea for an Orzhov one shot

[@KertaDrake]

Meanwhile you accidentally caused a small economic crisis when the people around town realized they had no copper to pay for cheap items with and would have to overspend, while the shopkeepers and merchants had no copper to use as change, forcing people to either buy in bulk or lose money and disrupting the supply chains on hundreds of products...

[@Trashedac]

We can all agree dingbat soop is the best out of the familiars the idea of a literal devil on your shoulder is hilarious.

[@AzraelThanatos]

Unfortunately, the rest of the description seems to go more demon than devil. Remember that Devils are the ones being evil within the rules, so he wouldn't be stealing things but advising how to take advantage of things to get them and cause problems that way.

[@gideonmele1556]

@@AzraelThanatosit’s not theft, just serendipitous windfall

[@AlexReynard]

I'm hearing his voice as Denis Leary.

[@EvelynNdenial]

@@AzraelThanatos devils do things according to their rules, the ones that bind specifically them, and even then its to the letter of the law using every loophole and exploit available. so the devil would totally steal something if they thought it would benefit their plans, but as your familiar if you told them no stealing unless instructed then they'd do as they're told while looking for different ways to get what they want and corrupt you.

[@savnana3605]

I think the big problem that leads to stagnant summons is players don't want to RP with themselves, but either the DM doesn't want to take control of a player's summon. Or the player gets grumpy if the summon does non-beneficial things, because they would have just 'ordered it not to'. This creates a weird standoff where the player doesn't want to control the summon, but doesn't want anyone else to control the summon.

[@Cloud_Seeker]

Agreed. It is the biggest issue with them. From my perspective it is just a pain to deal with. The DM already have a lot on his plate, and the player should roleplay their summon to help with the burden, but then again roleplaying with yourself is just talking with yourself in front of other people.

[@theuncalledfor]

There are players that don't want to control their summon? Then why do they even have one?

[@DizzyDisco93]

Zombie hordes solve this problem.

[@Cloud_Seeker]

@@theuncalledfor There is this thing called action economy. The side with the most actions tend to win. Its the idea of having a sidekick. Or even as the rules go with the Knight background say. Having some retainers.

[@Brass319]

The way I run it is where you have to roll a check to summon the exact thing you wanted to, or else summon something similar or something completely different if you fail hard enough. To give an example, if a player wanted to summon an earth elemental but failed the check, they might summon an ice elemental (earth elemental with mildly adjusted stats) instead. Maybe a player rolling a natural 1 summons a powerful entity that remains ambivalent and attacks anyone in combat indiscriminately. Perhaps summoning something especially horrific takes its toll on the caster. The possibilities are endless, so long as the player is fine with that being the case.

[@rhylin26]

Our artificer’s homunculus is a small mechanical owl. He is the heart and soul of the party, and we would die for him.

[@OlOlOIIO]

I'm pretty sure those don't have the ability to talk. Howd it become the heart of the party? xD My artificer's homunculus servant was also a mechanical owl. I described it as looking like it was pieced together by rusted parts from a junk yard. And when it spoke, it always sounded like a internet dialup connection starting up. I too loved it. My owl boi, Marxies

[@plumbum9688]

@@OlOlOIIO cats usually don't talk too, but they can be the heart! I don't know what's up with all of the homunculus owls but i had one too, with a wizard who already had a normal owl familiar. Familiar was looking like a fancy owl, wearing black and white suit with a tie like a butler, i named her Lolo, and so homunculus was just a greener version of Lolo, but with two very beefy extra arms, like on all the memes. I named it Pepe

[@Mazerxce]

​@@plumbum9688flyby and 120ft of dark vision basically

[@parkersmith8711]

I have a little frog one that is based off the "gentleman I have an announcement" frog meme

[@maromania7]

With me, you don't just summon "any of that species, randomly, who now must obey you." You summon a bound creature. You resummon, it's the same one, or one of the same group. So the first time you summon them, I might not give them a personality. but they'll gain little tidbits each summon. Until eventually they're summoning wolves because they want fight alongside Margret Scratcher and Jolteon again.

[@HyenaPlayGames]

I also like the idea of the undead hoard starting a labor union.

[@necroarcanistxiii]

In my setting, the God of Madness is allied with the archdevils (claims the Asmodeus-equivalent to be his "drinking buddy") and has a union that prevents the mistreatment of Imps. They get paid wages in teeth (the currency of his realm) so they can buy nice things to bribe other devils with.

[@derpherp1810]

We have some demands. 1. We want to be mummified and embalmed, necrosis is actually super painful, I hate maggots constantly burrowing into my flesh, we need better healthcare and plus we want to look presentable not just for people but for ourselves as an undead collective. 2. We want a livable wage and schedule, we need coffins so we may rest, we need dark subterranean necropolises to shelter us from the blinding heat of the sun. 3. More hobby centers or undead spaces so that we may socialize, host parties, and chase our real dreams and passions 4. retirement, immortality gets boring and we'd like to retire so we don't loose our minds thank you. By retirement I mean assisted self termination. If you do not meet our demands, our spectral poltergeist friends will haunt the shit out of you and we will bring upon a plague unlike the world has ever seen. A dictatorship of the unliving, a society where the bourgeois and the living will be subject to our rule. okay fine, the living proletariat are fine. The bourgeois have to go.

[@LuizFerrazLF]

That was the central plot of a campaing i ran

[@KimKimeraKimes]

At our table we often roleplay we summon the same spirits every time. As such I get to know my Summon Celestial spirit, know her name and will hug and apologize to her if she got killed and resummonend in a battle multiple times.

[@thunderwe_ryesiam]

"They might show up at night, without...without spending...a spell slot." That can be absolutely terrifying or really epic depending on how you treated them when they're summoned. Imagine if you're captured in hell for execution and a bunch them that you became friends with came busting down the doors and revolted against others or the one who is tasked to guard you was your friend and he then secretly releases you(and gets killed, I can see this getting really emotional)

[@marcosalmeida3947]

Or better yet: they go to the underworld court, claim you two have a pact that makes you his property, and press charges against the devil that kidnapped you for attempt destruction of private property. This starts a major and drawn out court case that allows you and your allies to plan and enact a escape plan. Next time you summon bro devil, he says he's now filthy rich from the restitution money the court had to play for misplacing "his" 12th level wizard.

[@Tuskbumper]

I actually had a well dressed imp I wanted to roleplay as who calls my goblin "boss"

[@alpacaofthemountain8760]

What if elementals start out as emotionless, but as they stay around the party, they start to gain a personality

[@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149]

There's not much room for developing personality when you're a primordial being made out of fire who've also lived all your life in the plane of fire. You're just kinda all fire. But elementals have soul (or equivalent) and are no doubt intelligent enough _to_ have a personality. The idea that they'd be pretty impressionable in terms of personality kinda makes sense, cause there wasn't really anything there before. Anything they pick up is going to be core character traits, cause there probably wasn't much character there previously. It's like filling up a hole vs having to dig stuff out of a hole to fill it with new stuff. It's obviously easier to fill an empty hole.

[@Sivanot]

@@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149 Counterpoint: That's boring. You could easily say that Elementals who've lived in their respective planes for their entire existence, just kinda vibing, are mostly mindless spirits. But like the original commenter said, having elementals around, outside of their plane, start to make them develop minds. This doesn't just go away when they go back home, and some may be excited by the change, but some may be resentful, like other summons might be as well. This means you could also just summon an elemental that already has a personality as well.

[@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149]

@@Sivanot I must've been unclear, I am completely agreeing with the original commenter. I'll make some edits to make that clearer I guess

[@gaylordzapikowski9053]

In my campaign the Deep Gnome Wizard wanted an Oread (think Dryad but rock, the choice was purely thematic) summon to help in fights, but didn't have the quite the necessary components at first. The first time he casted the spell it ended up summoning a Satyr who was quite displeased about having been pulled from his date and promptly fucked off, but not before setting in motion a series of events that would plop a Grey Slaad in front of them for exactly 69 seconds. When the player got sufficient components to summon the Oread as intended, the very important problem arose of a guardian nature spirit that protects the earthen elements of nature being summoned by a being whose entire existence is usually spent mining for gems. As the campaign went on, the Wizard would consistently try to befriend the Oread, and was able to learn a variety of colorful and vitriolic words of Sylvan, a language he didn't speak. It made for wonderful roleplay but also made for useful ways of communicating certain things to the players. Generally speaking the way the summons worked in that campaign is that the summon could feel pain but not get injured. However one encounter they were dealing with a homebrew aberration that, due to the way it worked, could actually injure the Oread through the summon. This resulted in the Wizard actively trying to keep the Oread out of danger during the encounter and avoiding summoning the Oread in further encounters with those aberrations.

[@JGZiggy90]

I was a Oath of the Ancients Paladin and my Find Steed was a Elk named Yakul. He had the most kills out of our party of 6 lol. He'd flank around and charge/gore targets.

[@Hollowed0ut]

I semi-recently started a campaign as a paladin. And I chose my find steed to be an Elk and yeah those things are scary. I can just run around the battlefield charging enemies knocking them prone, and then beating them into the ground with my sword with advantage.

[@JGZiggy90]

@@Hollowed0ut I never rode on mine lol because you have a telepathic link with find steed, so it's literally have two characters

[@josiebianchi3481]

One of my players is an Eladrin paladin with an Elk steed, except he wanted the Warhorse statblock instead, so his mount is an Elk named "Horse." The party recently came upon another Eladrin paladin. His Elk was named "Camel."

[@MarcosRamos-fp9cr]

Yakul… Studio Ghibli haha

[@pitviper6652]

If you have a summon spell/ability. Congrats we are making an NPC together. Whether they be a little aloof, a bit sinister, or a big goof they have joined the roster and will have a personality.

[@theuncalledfor]

My Summon Undead is named Jackson, he starts with virtually no personality but slowly develops one, and he lives inside the crow skull that serves as the material component for the spell when not in use. He resembles a crow-humanoid, and his skull is a larger version of the intricately gilded and bejewelled crow skull that is his home. His eyes look like the two gemstones in the eye sockets of the skull. Skeletal form is just bone (plus the jewels and golden decorations), ghostly form is just the skeletal form except as a ghost, and putrid form looks like an overly tall and lanky kenku with bits of flesh starting to rot off. Some of the skin is sloughing off the skull, revealing that it's the gilded skull inside. The eyes are gemstones even in fleshy putrid form. All forms wear a very beautiful, ornate robe of black silk with golden ornamentation (though it just looks white in ghostly form), making him look like a Necromancer. In putrid form, parts of the robe are rotting off. In ghostly form, the robe sometimes has an integrated saddle so my Necromancer character can ride on his back. Jackson loves being pet on the head and being told that he's a good boy. My Necromancer makes sure to give him lots of pets for encouragement.

[@skeepodoop5197]

I played an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer who would always use the Summon Aberration spell to summon a Slaad minion. I roleplayed them as basically the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes, always gibbering nonsense and haphazardly running into trouble, not caring about death in the slightest. During a fight against a comically large tree, I sent the gremlin after Strahd, and over multiple rounds they slowly made their way closer and closer like that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But when they got to him, they clawed him and instantly broke his concentration for among the funniest scenes I had in that game. All throughout the rest of the game, I'd constantly summon my Slaad to taunt Strahd.

[@theuncalledfor]

Beautiful.

[@skeepodoop5197]

Another funny thing is the Slaad could totally talk the whole time, but chose the gibber nonsense.

[@LoarvicLoarvic]

This is a very Slaadyish way to behave!

[@ConstantChaos1]

My player summons for 24 hours not a few rounds (3.5 is wonderfully breakable) so not rping them is not an option lol Also if you want to truely break a character 3.5 warlocks with metamagic spell like ability feats (metamagic is gotten through feats in 3.5) and utilizing the flaw system to get extras can let a lvl 1 warlock do 216 damage a round if you build it right

[@Vrikrar]

I played a pathfinder game as a swarm monger druid who had a giant centipede as a familiar. Her name was Ditzee and she wore an oversized dirty pink bow on her head. She was an overprotective glutton I involved in all of my antics, and was so endearing that even one of my party members who despised bugsstarted bringing her food and treating her like a pet.

[@ilik3pi32]

Best familiars I've ever had are Gazers, either found organically or through Pact of the Chain Goolock.

[@SodaPopBarbecue]

Chain Goolock doesn't get a Gazer RAW. What did you do to get it?

[@somebody975]

@@SodaPopBarbecue presumably they talked to their DM who wasn't a complete wet blanket

[@ilik3pi32]

@@SodaPopBarbecue Ask the DM lol. I've run it a few times and never had one object. It's hardly a balance breaker and fits thematically.

[@zooker7938]

@@SodaPopBarbecue I think Volo's Guide suggests that gazers can be familiars.

[@MegaPokefan97]

​@@zooker7938I know Volo allows Crawling Claws to be familiars

[@kahunab7400]

One tip: have the player to the left of the summoner play the first summoned creature, and the player to the left of them play the 2nd summoned creature and so on... Encourage mild shenanigans from the players, while still not harming the parties teamplay.

[@ghastlyghifin4029]

My Fathomless Warlock Noble had a Water Elemental summon that he nicknamed Floatsam, and I liked to imagine that its living-whirlpool-tornado body always had a bunch of wood and bone and plant matter swirling around inside it. Plus an anchor in its arm for whenever it used a slam attack. My Warlock basically used it as a butler/henchman, so I never really elaborated on its personality beyond that.

[@connerrabon]

Summoner: *Summons Dog* Be the bestest boi! Summoned Dog: "I am Pontificus the Eerie. You DARE limit to such actions. Your boots will require a REboot when i'm done!" Summoner: 😧 *changes his form* Pontificus the Eerie:

[@EEEEESaladmanaway]

this gave me the idea for a bard with the awaken spell, who has a best friend who is a tree, but has to dispel the magic on them every 30 days or else the tree will attack him. its like a 50 first dates situation, where they have to make a new relationship every time. And the reason that they might attack the bard, is that they remember every time the bard has done this previously.

[@mythmakroxymore1670]

Having a familiar is, in shortest words, a great way to let your kid join the table. “Alright Carlos, you get to be a scorpion dragon go breathe fire and sting em for me!” “ROOOOAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!”

[@no.notfromRDR]

Thanks to you every time I see a rock elemental I'm gonna hear face off in my head.

[@dominussharith9016]

The way my DM has always done it is treating our familiars like second characters we control. They have interests and other motives on their own. Summons the same thing, but most summing spells have been reworked in such a way you can always have the summon as long as you give of the requisite spell slots that day. So they are treated more like big familiars that we are feeding magic as compensation for their help.

[@BlankSlatePodcast]

Honestly, I have fumbled this my entire DMing career and never noticed. Bless you for this video; it's going to revive companions in the game for me.

[@delongjohnsilver7235]

I once had a player’s fiend familiar act like a disappointed parent who feels he failed his child when his summoner didn’t do evil acts

[@muriomoira]

Hell yeah! Its really good to come up with personalities for each summon! My favourite character I ever played with was a folklorist bard that summoned creatures out of their own legends, each one with their own peculiarities and it was awessome!

[@CelticCubby]

My Druid has named each of the four elementals he summons, Ralf, Bob, Carol and Claire. He insists each of them have personalities. Ralf is the hot headed fire elemental, Carol is a bubbly water elemental who doesn't take things very seriously, Claire is the air elemental and always impatient to get back to her own life and Bob the earth elemental is just glad you summoned him for a visit.

[@DimiusG]

Didn't realize how much I needed Stone Cold as my wizard summon until now, thank you.

[@justtj8085]

One of my players familiar is a raven who has the personality of a rebelious middle school student, because it was the characters god who gave their pet sapience and when they were making a personality for her they just glanced through the characters memories to use someone from his past as a base. The only person from his memories who he associated with ravens was a 12 year old girl kenku who hated him.

[@ZakumPlayer]

Once a friend made a Elemental Ally Druid in Pathfinder, so he had 4 elementals and could always have one of them summoned, we spent hours making them as different as possible, it was such a good time.

[@derpbeholder1905]

One of my parties had a kobold named squee. He was the older brother of our warlock who is also a forclaimer (shout out to dingo doodles). Long story short is I absolutely loved RPing that little dude

[@datDrowningFish]

I love seeing this video the day after one of my players casted Summon Construct for the first time. I also loved adding it to the initiative along the 7 pcs, 1 ranger companion, 4 ally gith, 1 temporary ally evil wizard, and 1 enemy golem.

[@Cloud_Seeker]

The problem with summons has never been that they are not given a personality. The problem with summons is that most people do not want to give personality to another thing. The players already control their PC, and do not really want to have a secondary character to act with. And the DM already have plenty of them, and forgotten to actually use half of them when needed.

[@luigifan4585]

Basically, the player will give a summon a personality if they feel like like giving it one. No need to force it

[@bruceb7728]

i dont think semi-roleplaying a creature/summon is hard to do at all, and especially a dm when they do it constantly. and something that is close to ur players party too

[@nevisysbryd7450]

It is not that they do not want to handle another thing. The entire appeal of a companion is interacting with another being outside of yourself. The player playing said summon themselves will largely fail to deliver the sought engagement for those interested in that type of companion in the first place.

[@Bluecho4]

Yep. The DM naturally has a lot on their plate already, without devoting another portion of their brain to roleplaying the player's pet NPC. Whereas many players take to roleplaying their own character with difficulty, let alone a separate character _at the same time._

[@samuelrodriguez9801]

Watching this gave me the idea that if demons can have backstories it can involve the layer of the abyss that they lived in. For example an aquatic dretch from the Shadowsea or a horny succubus from Azzagrat.

[@vandal8443]

I find giving summons personality to be fun! I once played as a mystic theurge in 3.5 edition who had an owl as a familiar, one who would stand guard outside the theurge's door, standing on their door knob and pecking the hand of anyone that dared try and slip in. They were a saw-whet owl so they were small enough to pull it off... When the party druid used Speak With Animals on the little thing, they found out it had the personality of an exceptionally loyal but extremely angry somewhat stereotypical dwarf! At some point he got into a drinking contest with someone, the loser would pay for the drinks drank! He lost, but it was all part of his cunning plan, as the guy he drank against couldn't convince the bartender that an exchange like that happened between him and a now passed out owl. Good times!

[@starhalv2427]

My feylost ranger has a fairy friend that messes with her whenever it's summoned, and occasionally summons itself just to meet friend and her friends, and/or mess with her a little.

[@HolyApplebutter]

It's one of the reasons I like Shovel the Quasit summon so much in Baldur's Gate 3. She's constantly swearing, talking about how she wants to murderize things, and complaining that she's bored whenever you aren't killing things. Just that little bit makes her so much more fun to use than a regularly summoned imp or basic quasit.

[@slayallrebels5996]

"Don't listen that guy, he's trying to lead you down the path of righteousness. I'm gonna lead you down the path that rocks!" -Dingbat Soop, probably

[@ultimateninjaboi]

I once played a Chain Pact Warlock with an Imp familiar (Old Ones, specifically. And hed met the imp in some Eldritch ruin, so she was deeply infused with the same Eldritch nonsense as me). Was fun making a character and voice for her, and working with the DM to make it all work. Even had to play as her for a session and a half as my character was incapacitated and the party needed to unfuck the situation. Was some of the most fun ive had at the table. And the group still occasionally reminisces about that campaign.

[@tv9mpeti]

I have a friend who does this really well. In a long campaign we played and he DMed, another friend of mine played a witch and his familiar was an owl which had a personality and was portrayed by the DM. He did obey commands, but a lot of times expressed his opinion about them. Later in a short campaign the same friend was the DM again, and I played as a high level warlock. I always was a fan of summoning spells - mostly because of Naruto - and wanted to try the higher level ones, and there was my chance. So I summoned a barbed devil. The DM friedn portrayed it again, and gave it personality and dialogue so it was basicaly an NPC put in the game by one of the PCs. I alway felt like this is a territory of DMing where I can get better. In my current campaign one of my players is a pact of chain warlock and when we started I really tried playing his familiar, but I lately I forget it because there are so many other things to take care of. But thank you for this video, it was a great reminder for me to do this more.

[@masterscarecrow6779]

My artificer decided his homunculus would look like Gary Busey. Everytime he would reference to him everyone would post gifs and images of Gary Busey in our discord.

[@giladpellaeon1691]

I always give my familiars personality. Had a cat familiar for a wizard/rogue gnome who did a con job where the cat actively posed as a balefully polymorphed noble (the gnome needed money for wizard schooling as part of his backstory) and the gnome was his servant raising money to change him back. Occasionally in the campaign the DM would have someone recognize us and donate some coin...to the cat.

[@segevstormlord3713]

My current character in a campaign started with a familiar that was an untrustworthy fey spirit in the form of a raven. It was always eager to watch us suffer, was persnickety about doing things unless they benefitted him, too, and ultimately was far more powerful than most such spirits because he was serving as a familiar as a way to sneak past an oath-barrier keeping the fey out of the underworld. He would only be helpful, usually, up to the requirements of the familiar contract (i.e. the power level of the normal spell), but he could be bargained with for...extra aid. Or to refrain from taking liberties. His next familiar, after an agreeable and reasonably amicable parting with that one, was a small god, a defunct hearth deity (so a celestial spirit), who was willing to give advice on rules of hospitality and to provide some extra oomph in the home-and-hearth area when asked, because he was just glad to be something other than a forgotten godling wandering the wastes. A ritual that had a lot of plot stuff going on greatly empowered him, and he graduated to being a full fledged deity in his own right again. Still not a greater power, but a power nevertheless. We still have some positive interaction with him from time to time, though obviously he isn't a familiar anymore. My character's current familiar is a Pangol named Lyn who was a gift from the small gods in return for my character's devotion to helping them as a whole (he's a level 1 cleric, level X wizard, and he's a cleric of the small gods in general). She's quiet and stolid but very dedicated to protecting things and more than willing to engage in trickery and provocation to draw ire away from those she wants to protect.

[@Psycchan]

i have a goolock whos actually the physical manifestation of some powerful eldritch entity and just doesnt fully realize it, so anytime they cast summon aberration its like ringing for their butler charles the slaad wears a bowtie and is very tired of his job

[@loganfrandrup6590]

I actully wanted to play a Halfling Conjurer that treats all her summons like they are her frieand and each one has there own personality that I could work with the DM. So instead of saying "I cast Summon Construct and create a golem." it's "I summon Daisy" and she has a little bow on her head.

[@DZMoops]

I've been watching Rustage and a bunch of other youtubers play One Piece DnD and Isekai DnD for years now and I love that the DM is able to give each NPC a distinctive voice and the players can give their summons creative names and personalities.

[@rubberduckyoverlord6300]

For one of my characters, their Summon Fey spell is flavored to be them calling on a fey they had dated in the past. its literally calling their ex for help in a fight.

[@yourconscious]

I had an artificer aarakocra that due to a plot necessary time skip, reached old age before the rest of the party. From the beginning I knew I wanted to play a battle smith, but when the time skip happened, I saw the perfect opportunity to build a caretaker steel defender. Outside of combat I would have the defender carry my character around when he got tired or making him food in the morning, making the old bird get his exercise in and what not. My character would regularly get annoyed with the defender for taking care of him, despite specifically building it to do so. It was one of my favorite campaigns I've had the pleasure of playing

[@skytheannur6168]

Let me tell you about Gaz... that quasit has caused more mischief and mayhem than most, has taken a "Spa day" in a sink, rewired a construct to be it's personal mech for a time, and destroyed plumbing on a ship, all the while sounding like Stitch from Lilo and Stitch.

[@AzraelThanatos]

The summons without personality has been a thing for several editions apart from familiars and variant rules or specific summons. There's a great option for making unique summons from the 3.5 UA book where you can customize them and have a limited number of them that are customized there

[@cgaussie]

I've been running a home brew campaign for going on four years now, and whenever my players summon along these lines I've always given them personalities. These guys got goals and aspirations too, no matter how small, and it offers up really interesting and run role play situations when you sit down with a summoned fey and ask him what's going down in the feywilds which might have been burned down only to be remade due to the party dropping a mad god into it and the queen of the fey going 'nuke everything' to get rid of his presence. It's a fun wild time.

[@missingone9185]

I wanted to do something exactly like this whenever a conjurer summons an elemental or a necromancer successfully controls an intelligent undead with a personality. But I always feared that they'd think I'm forcing myself into their party with a proxy character rather than act as a DM who should be focused on building the world around them. I fear being labelled as cringe.

[@bmyers7078]

Just before the COVID lockdown, I was in a mini series at my cousins’ table. She was playing “Ralph the Ball of Lightning”. Her personality was similar to “Chubb” @ 3:14. It took me to the third (and final) session to realize she was the familiar of her husband’s Paladin character. He was “deus volt” Lawful Stupid & she allowed him to kill every opponent in sight.

[@frozenfairy2323]

I once had a fae warlock that got a gift from their Fae patron that was a magical ring that let the warlock cast summon elemental once per day, though it was restricted to being an earth elemental. We found out that the ring was empowered by the fae patron so she tied the summoning to an earth elemental that was just the Lincoln memorial statue but moving and spoke like Lincoln when addressed. The token used was just a picture of the Lincoln statue and everyone just laughed when they first saw it. Good times.

[@liopleurodon2000]

My character has a pseudodragon familiar that occasionally gets possessed by Bahamut to act as a snarky shoulder angel and to yell at our barbarian for mispronouncing his name. Our DM has fun roleplaying him

[@SupahTrunks7]

at our table many familiars are absoLUTELY individual characters and even the summoned giant goats that pull our wagon have personalities (one is a completely overdramatic drama queen we've named Hamlet) and one familiar even had a kill button on our bard that never procced bc he died to a shambling mound first (she was a pixie who he'd helped bind into service for one of our other party members and she was understandably NOT very forgiving so she poisoned him first chance she got with a sort of magical poison) just last session our warlock used summon demon in combat and the demon had enough dialogue and personality that when he tried to teleport to safety with us we pushed him out of the circle on purpose.

[@lachlanmckinnie1406]

I had a Pathfinder wizard with a crow familiar called Fluffles. Fluffles was not just a familiar, but also a scout and a messenger, and was more popular than the wizard. Good old Fluffles. I also named all the creatures I summoned, but can't remember them.

[@LoudYapper]

I am playing a shepherd druid rn and the main thing eith him will be his summons, I named his familiar Owl Oil, I named the healing spirit which appears is the form of a hedgehog Heddy. I cant wait to use conjure animals and some other summon spells to experiment with (mostly conjure animals xd)

[@kag2576]

Shoutout to the imp my friend had who was given to her by her eldritch patron and used every opportunity they had to be a passive-aggressive arsehole to them but would get genuinely agitated if they got in danger. That's the level of friendship I aspire for

[@charlottegoldman3580]

My warlock's imp is a little fancy man with a southern drawl. He enjoys cigars and a good whiskey and my warlock isn't a huge fan of him but every time she summons a familiar, Johnsworth shows up.

[@josephmanty6855]

If you want to really lean into this angle, there are two Pathfinder classess specifically built around this idea, the Summoner and the Witch. Summoners are bound to powerful spirits who act essentially as an extra party member, but shares turns and HP with the Summoner, and Witch's are like D&D Warlocks, except that instead of having a little bit of magic put in them, they were given a familiar to teach them magic. If you don't want to change systems, both could probably be changed to work in D&D, though it would probably take a bit of work, especially for the Summoner.

[@Totas_funnynumber]

This is why Dungeon Crawl Classics is peak TTRPG

[@Enjoysaeli]

I was running a homebrew setting and every time our druid summoned an elemental, they were pulling them from the same friend group/family unit. So when they ask their name when they get summoned, they asked if they knew the previous ones, and they're just like "oh, they were my roommate in college" or something like that. It was fun and made it interesting. They even got invited to a water elemental wedding before the game fizzled.

[@drakkondarkspell]

PC to Dingbat Soop: "You're a bad friend." Dingbat Soop to PC: "Am not. -I- am an enabler."

[@irgendeineperson5350]

Chubb the Lightbringer. If you summon him you just get Linkara.

[@Micdades]

I have a player who has a pixie friend who they saved a while back. They both know each other really well and are rogue's. One time the player wanted the pixie to scout out inside a building to see if there are any enemies. Because it's a pixie and likes mischief, she went in and came back out with a wine bottle. He took it and made a toast, swiging the wine down and gaining no information whatsoever. They maybe be a small, flying, I, magic cable ally, but the mischief side balances them out.

[@lozm4835]

I think the main concern with lifelike, interesting, diverse summons is... well... your character has complete, sometimes telepathic control over another sentient being. I posed this point to my DM who suggested giving my characters dog familiar more personality and even a class. Aside from the fact that familiars can't attack, it's a bit... unnerving that my character who is both good-aligned and has made a substantial point about how uncomfortable he is about how much the forces of his world (including some supposedly pro-freedom gods) are with forcing mortals to become servants or dedicate their lives to things that they don't necessarily want to do, would potentially be revealed to have been doing exactly that for some time. (And for reference, our characters are probably going to start a union sooner or later)

[@LupineShadowOmega]

My answer there is to assume that it isn't control so much as your goals aligning. Celestials, Fiends, and Fey all have their own agendas and while the individual might not be thrilled about being shot and sent back to their realm to be resummonded again at a later date, they are or tend to be at least...different professionals working toward the higher goals of their organization.

[@Cosmic-Sorceress-17]

Here's something with Elementals and maybe other summons: maybe they start with more incomprehensible and supernatural forms, in the case of elementals like how they are in the Monster Manual, but over time they take more humanoid traits just by observing and mimicking the party.

[@tripleh327]

I can’t shake from my mind the mental image of water stone cold and earth rock exchanging promos just before starting a match in the middle of a tavern

[@MrMaradok]

I like to think that the “Find Familiar” spell summons the same spirit, only with whatever form the summoner chose

[@insertuncreativepun3573]

I've got a rogue with a fiend raven familiar named Iris, she is just a little troll half the time. Mischief incarnate and treats her summoner as their dumbass younger sibling who needs her superior guidance.

[@FlapNasty3]

My Steed “Slumber”(when translated from Celestial) is like the abrasive older sister that deeply cares, hates being dismissed without a proper goodbye and I made it that she knocked me on my ass because of it. Doesn’t really like other people but does have a sweet heart for those my character cares about. Hell, Find Steed feels like you’re just using Polymorph on an actual Celestial spirit. Imagine a slightly strong powerful Celestial spirit being brought to the Material as a horse. I even have a story arc that when my character is of level, she’ll be able to be a Pegasus, her most desires and excited form. And that’s been foreshadowed by her design that she has a flat outline on the side of her body in the shape of wings.

[@FlaviaMorton-lq3ek]

So we were playing and upon getting the deck of many things I drew Knight: my character was a changeling paladin and since she mnew alot about identity crises, offered to help guide the newly born and confused being. She became my NPC daughter, who by the end of the campaign was a thriving and successful merchant and adventurer who would send my character letters telling her not to worry and how she was doing

[@jacobbalensiefer3846]

I stole inspiration from Jeremy from Escape from the blood keep for our Artificer’s robot dog. It was a running gag that he lucked into getting this old war machine running in the first place so he didn’t really know what it could do so all of its attacks where absurd. I remember one event where he was used the help action on an attack and the the dog did a full medical scan of the target revealing all of its vulnerabilities for a brief moment. So anyways just making them weird is a great way to have fun with companions.

[@thoriummothman]

considering the time period my campaign takes place in i had a idea for a summon the party gets a bus that uses souls as fuel with a bus driver that doesn't care about the safety of others and sucks at navigation so they take random routes to their location but will always arrive there on time

[@AceWolf456]

My DM likes to have us roll arcana for summoning creatures in the right mindset for fighting. We never have a “bad” summon, but if you roll well you may have an extra good summon. Our party, well it was one person but I don’t remember their class, once summoned a water elemental that was taking a bubble bath. (This was a Nat 1 arcana) So on top of having disadvantage on it’s first attack (a result of the Nat 1) it was also just naked. In this setting, elementals were just Genasi but fully made of the element, and taller, so we just basically summoned a naked person into combat. I’ll tell you, after combat we got a firm talking to by that elemental about how it was impolite to summon people out of their bath and how we should take more care as a spell caster. Then we got a magic item that let us summon a water elemental… guess who showed up? So yeah, a good DM can make summons more interesting and fun!

[@theuncalledfor]

I would heavily object to this if I was in the game. It's okay for other players if they're into it, but the game has enough random dice rolls already, I'll take my consistent and reliable summons thankyouverymuch.

[@tribbergrips1613]

I was able to make mine have a personality and a lot of purpose outside of combat. My character was a spy, and he had a Feywild Familiar named Elim. Elim was a white rat, most of the time. Sometimes he was a spider, or a bat, but he mostly liked to be a white rat. Whatever I asked for him to pop in as he would. One time I asked him to turn into whatever he wanted, DM made him choose a mink. Elim wasn't any of those things in reality. He was some sort of feywild entity of some kind. Could be humanoid for all my character knew. Its not like Elim could talk as a rat. Because my character was a spy he was used almost exclusively outside of battle. I would snake him into holes to check the other side, once I had him turn into a spider, enter a mysterious mans room and dangle from a web so i could look at who he was. I would use him as an owl to fly silently and watch someone. Come to think of it, Im not sure I ever used him in battle lol! Hes died so many times though...so many traps.... He hates it every time...

[@QuestionableObject]

I sometimes think about being a city druid and having an affinity for pests. Using rats as spies, summoning every cellar spider in a 5 mile radius to scare the shit out of people, playing telephone with barely sentient pigeons.

[@thediethrower1803]

This is why I directly related my undead summons in a campaign I'm playing in to my Undead Patron (undead warlock) and also have my familiar be a crab with it's own personality instead of just being a "whatever I need at the time". The crab also uses it's fey powers to play crab rave but that's not important to the point I'm trying to make.

[@cameronpearce5943]

One of the best example of Summons done right is in Lani Pator's Ties That Bind campaign. All the fey that Deneir can summon in that are fey that entered into a contract with him and were characters in their own right before he even learned the spell. Chemby is the best

[@Kopenich]

not exactly a summon but in a level 12 campaign we've had going for 3 years, circumstances lead to half the party being obliterated in a magic bomb. My character died but his homunculus (his "daughter") survived and the DM allowed me to play her as a sorcerer who manifested sentience and a more advanecd body cause of chaotic magic around the explosion. She already had a bit of a personality but its so fun to give minions and smaller characters attached to your core character life!

[@otakuofmine]

good funny ideas and of course useful as well. superb editing of memes, just perfection.

[@123boomism]

I've always ran elementals as the most eldritch of the summons. The idea is that each plane invokes a mental illness if you stay around them for too long so like Earth is depression and fire is mania

[@ClumsyReaper]

My Warlock, through DM fiddling, got a familiar that was technically an elemental, specificslly an air alligned one, who had taken the form of a Psuedo Dragon. And was pissed because prior, he was simply a gust of wind, entirely free, and now he’s stuck with me in the Underdark, where the air is still. He’s still willing to help, because he respects the patron and because I’m his only way out, and primarily acts as my eyes since the Warlock doesn’t have darkvision, it’s just that he’s generally disgruntled about the whole situation and prectically refuses to act in combat.

[@kamprouristheoharis8458]

I read the D&D in the title 5 times and my brain still went "Oh? Dark souls summons? Very unexpected"

[@scoots291]

Imagine if you will a family having dinner. Then all of a sudden daddy dissappear. All his family panics as they try to find him. Only to find out he was killed fighting as his life dependent on it to a bunch of magical kidnappers

[@thumbwrestler12]

That was awesome definitely going to try out soon

[@MemphiStig]

"As a guy who bought the book and *can* alter the rules..." Exactly. (Tho now technically you don't even have to buy anything anymore.) Have fun playing *your* game *your* way. Great ideas, btw. Love it!

[@bobmcbob49]

So, at the same time I was wondering what familiar my Fathomless Warlock should have, this video drops

[@FirstLast-cg2nk]

Celestial badger named Hufflepuff. You forget he's around until he goes and does something impressive, then kind of immediately forget about him again.

[@Rossscow]

My DM was great at this - I played a ranger with an animal companion. I never used Chucky in encounters, because my character would be too sad if his wolf died.

[@MagickP00dle]

"Look at my steeeeed, my steed is amazing. Give it a lick, mmm, it tastes just like raisins"

[@Szymra805]

Giggles maniacaly in pathfinder

[@Overcharge21]

Had two times where i got a summon and did something like this. First was a little mechanical fennic fox for my artificer and a find steed in the form of a polar bear for my conquest paladin

[@freakymoejoe2]

The party necromancer: "Yes, and?"

[@knuckles5451]

4e had specific designated creatures that were summoned. Which, while not as much freedom as other editions, did have the benefits of implying that it was the same creature each time. For example, I had a cowardly wizard with a sword purely cause his fire archon summon was determined to make my PC learn how to actually fight, Not just summon things. It was fairly low level, so each of the summons had some sort of personality. The pure utility, no attacking moves shadow snake I had would still launch itself at enemies, but would pass straight through them harmlessly. Got me a bonus on intimidation checks.

[@zackthatguy]

I had this druid who would summon satyr and I would make them act as a bunch of frat bros. Chad, Thad, Brad, and Dave. I miss those interactions.

[@Imasuky]

I make a point of all summons have personality. In a game I run had a side story of player attending the wedding of her main summon, she served a role like best man.

[@itsme924]

An easy way to get around rolling hella initiatives is to just have them all go on the same turn. Just helps speed things up

[@necroarcanistxiii]

I'm running an epic level 5e campaign, and the Bardlock the party started with, the Kenku Domino (He's currently off True Polymorphed into an avatar of Tiamat and is giving the head of the Bard's College a PTSD-induced drinking problem) got a special Epic ability that let him have 2 combat familiars, scaling with his Warlock level as he is Pact of the Chain. He has 5 different buddies who each have their own personalities, and all have even had major roleplay moments. Domino's personal familiar, MIss Steak, an echo of his spirit, is a mischievous raven who tends to vomit lightning first, ask questions later... much like how the party's introduction to Domino was countering a raid on a village with Circle of Death.... affecting EVERYONE! Steak hasn't been at the forefront tho coz her little brothers tend to take up spotlight. Steak once nearly got the party arrested for attacking the handmaids of the High Elvish royal family so they didn't reveal the party's position, trying to infiltrate the castle when someone took control of the crown and the princess escaped. The next familiar Domino picked up was an Imp named Spring. Think Johnny Bravo with the flair of Undertale Mettaton and you get the concept of the glamorous little bastard. He tends to steal things not nailed down. We recently found out Spring is the youngest grandson of my setting's version of Asmodeus. When the Tabaxi Rogue made a deal with one of the Morningstar Devils to get vengeance on the Yuan-Ti who mutated his tribe into brood drones, Spring had to sign the contract as a witness, alongside his cousin Ophelia, the Queen of the Imps, who wrote the contract on behalf of her mistress, who is currently trapped inside a battleaxe. Spring is currently Domino's favourite, which may or may not be because the archdevil patron trapped inside Domino's guitar is actually Spring's father, the devil Kul'Sansphonthy, so he's gotten the most time to have his character explored. He even contracted a cosmic void plague that even turns gods insane and had to have his soul sewn back together by the God of Madness, as a favour because the party had been protecting his favoured Warlock's family. The third familiar was a quasit named Pyr Mida. He is a little on the quiet side, his full body hazmat suit and gas mask don't help. He has a rivalry with Spring for obvious reasons. He has very bad corrosive farts that turn things to liquid gold, and like Spring, he loves stealing. We're not sure where Pyr got those powers, but the Dragonborn Barbarian-Cleric thinks all signs point to him serving Juiblex. Pyr's crowning achievement was stuffing liquid gold down people's throats to interrogate them during the Vampire Bard saga. The fourth familiar is Ilruphoss, a Shadowfell-tainted Pseudodragon. He is very stoic and doesn't interact with the others much, but recently he has been True Polymorphed into a Young Shadow Dragon in order to spy on the armies of Orcus and Bhaal fighting a turf war over Evernight, creating his own little army of Shadows to do his bidding inside the city. The final familiar is known only as the Goodboi. He is a spirit pupper who hasn't realized he died... but this Egyptian-themed doggo originally had the power to unleash sonic borks laced with radiant energy, but Domino altered his powers to be more of a support pet. He now has different gemstone auras that offer benefits, such as slow regeneration, increased AC, or the ability to reflect spells. Goodboi was the centre of attention when he, along with Spring, were slain by the cosmic disease. Using a powerful artifact, the party managed to cure the doggo, slowly and painfully, and he has grown attached to a Celestial Warlock NPC who was also hit by the disease, but it mutated into a different form inside her. She's currently looking after the pup for Domino, and Doggo is being her emotional support as she slowly goes insane from the revelations she's having.