The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Thread!

[llamabeast]

I am currently working on Grendel, and (inspired by talks of Ziz) a Roc. Thanks to those who made those suggestions, I am having fun.

[JimMorrison]

Army Ant Queen - N - size 6, trample, poison cloud, fear, very high prot, summon ally: army ants (I'd say 3-4 per turn, 20hp, 20prot, PR 100%)

Vermin - N/E - An ancient hermit who has been transformed into a tool of vengeance by an angry forest. - stats similar to Skratti, N4/E4/D4, shapeshift to army ant (with increased stats, this guy should be a beast when transformed), automatic Creeping Death in combat

[MaxWilson]

Endoperez said:
I tried modding my suggestions, but using Seasonal Spirits and CB together leaves them without magic.

Any suggestions for the great bear spirit of autumn? He'll be E4N3D2 at least, 200 hp, ethereal, prot 30, regen 20 and will heal his afflictions. And fallpower 50, so that his hp fluctuate between 100 and 400. I think he's the weakest one of the four because he doesn't have any AoE effects, damage shields or weapons, and the others summon better helpers. Would trample and 20 AP be enough to keep the bear competitive in the late game? I could give it some reinvigoration as well, if necessary, and it will have magical claws and bite to use against anything too big to trample.

I'm dubious about that Prot 20 on an ethereal being. You've giving him E4--shouldn't he have to buff himself up to Prot 20/25 with spells? I should think even a super-large bear with really thick skin would only have Prot 12 or so.

What's the thematic reason behind D2? I like it in a way because it lets him get reinvig via Soul Vortex, but I'd like a thematic justification.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Because fall represents the beginning of decay...? Maybe.

Though I'd think that ethereal and regen 20 would really make him pretty awesome even with lower prot, especially given self buffing ability.

A question on seasonal power though, I thought it only gave a bonus? It's been some time since I played T'ien Chi but I was positive they had normal hp for the 3 seasons that they weren't boosted.

[Loren]

A thought on the four horsemen:

Make 4 separate summoning spells, each gets one horseman. Each requires a different path so it's *NOT* easy to get all 4.

Individually they are not all that impressive. However, get all 4 in a province and cast a 5th spell on them and you get a *VERY* good unit. (Note that the combined unit would *NOT* be wishable.)

Some ideas on the powers of the combined unit:

It would be a very good melee combatant.

Does not eat but gluttony 1000.

Spreads a deadly disease (like that disease demon), every battle round it has an autocast battlefield-wide enchantment that has a good chance of giving a bad disease to affected units. (The fused unit is immune.) Anyone hit by it or who hits it automatically is affected, they get no MR roll. Every turn of battle would cause them to take damage the same as the passage of a month.

An autocast battlefield-wide death attack of some kind.


Perhaps the fused unit would become uncontrollable after a while or perhaps even the next turn.

[Endoperez]

MaxWilson said:
I'm dubious about that Prot 20 on an ethereal being. You've giving him E4--shouldn't he have to buff himself up to Prot 20/25 with spells? I should think even a super-large bear with really thick skin would only have Prot 12 or so.

What's the thematic reason behind D2? I like it in a way because it lets him get reinvig via Soul Vortex, but I'd like a thematic justification.

I don't know what else to give him. Blood is useless if you only get it that late, and if you got it earlier you empowered as high as you need already. Astral makes them vulnerable to Magic Duel. Water and Air are already available on all three others via at least randoms. It's Death or Fire. Earth/Nature/Fire would also work, but Earth/Fire is almost as closely linked as Earth/Nature. Perhaps I should just give everyone a linked elemental random 2, but that still leaves the Earth summon least magically powerful.

As far as the thematics go, I have some kind of of evil "autumn kills summer, winter tries to make sure the dead stay asleep, spring is necromantic rebirth, summer is all poison and acid and melting corpses" theme going on. Thunderbird is Air/Death size 6 Spring Hawk with undead secondshape and several Great Eagles who transform into Ziz on death. Sun of Vitriol is basically Summer Lion + Green Lion + Poison Aura 20 + Fire Shield 10 with Fire/Water for acid spells, Great White Wolf has chill 19 and starts with several winter wolves and has prot 12 + ice armor + minor Air, which gives him buffs and Cloud Trapeze. I think I'll also give him ability to kill off undead somehow. Oh, and I mean to make them all cast Living X on the start of battle automatically, in addition to the other creatures they summon.

[MaxWilson]

Hmmm. Well, if you give everybody 9 magic paths they will be more magically powerful than Chayot and on par with Seraphim, and far above most Wished pretenders. I may tone it down a bit in my games. E4N3 is plenty competitive in my book, since 4 is "high end" magic for national mages.

-Max

[llamabeast]

9 paths does seem extreme, but I guess Endo's idea is that they are all uniques, and at 200 gems apiece definitely not cheap.

[llamabeast]

See the attached pic.

Comments very welcome. I'm thinking he will be a water/earth summon (coming, as he does, from watery caves). Also having him be cross-path should make him a little rarer - we don't want grendelkin running around all over the place.

[JimMorrison]

Pretty sweet. Maybe something could be done to jazz up his melee a bit? I mean I guess he does hit like a truck..... "Claw" just seems so uninteresting.

Also, perhaps he should get some natural reinvig, and maybe be amphibious, or poor amphibian at least?