Summoner Paths (Summoner Archetype)

I've been toying with summoner types and researching them for years while writing a book series and I settled on 5 main paths with many divergent options the further into a path tree one goes. These are as follows:

Dark (aligned to gods, deities, etc of a decidedly Dark nature). Dark does not mean evil, though it can. These primarily focus on summons like the following:
1. Demons and hellspawn
2. Shadow
3. Night creatures (wears, etc.)

Light (opposite of the above description)
1. Angels
2. Light aligned creatures

Neutral paths include Nature, Elemental, and Spiritual. These types of summoners can summon:
2. Elementals
3. Spirits (ghosts, phantoms, etc.)
4. Animals

I also like the idea of having a fae path somewhere, but that can be aligned to any of thse above. I also like the idea of contracts vs bindings. If the summons are Light-aligned its based on mutual agreement and there should be some quest line and/or reputation gained to achieve contracts and then these summons will only participate in battles aligned to their objectives. For Dark-aligned these would be bindings that require strength over mutual agreement and entirely predicated on the summoner being stronger than the summons.

Neutral-aligned would be based entirely on player progression and gaining more summons as the player progresses and accomplishes more tasks (no contract and no binding, just skills)

Anywho...thanks for humoring me!

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Comments

Songcaller

Steven said no to demons. At least warlock will also have no demon lol.

balr0g

I'm not sure how you have a well-rounded summoner archetype without hellspawn and demons. Hopefully he'll change his mind

Songcaller

Well, it depends on the lore but there is a demon cosmetic for player toons. Hence why I requested a Demonic and Angelic Shaman.

balr0g

Neurath wrote: »

Well, it depends on the lore but there is a demon cosmetic for player toons. Hence why I requested a Demonic and Angelic Shaman.

The good part about having the demon/angel lore just tied to the summoner path means it doesn't have to impact the world lore. This should be specific to just the summoner.

Songcaller

Yeah I'm with you on the notion but I was denied in the q&a session. It wasn't the question I asked but that's what happens when you rely on a third party.

Ael

If I recall correctly, it has been stated that religions would provide augments.

Being able to unlock some "angel summoning augment" after reaching some high rank in a religion path would actually be great !

Depraved

Ael wrote: »

If I recall correctly, it has been stated that religions would provide augments.

Being able to unlock some "angel summoning augment" after reaching some high rank in a religion path would actually be great !

or demon. religions dont have to be good. actually, religions are evil

Summpwner

Does the cosmetic matter so much? You listed a bunch of flavors, but you don't mention game mechanics at all, which is what will matter the most when playing the game.

balr0g

Summpwner wrote: »

Does the cosmetic matter so much? You listed a bunch of flavors, but you don't mention game mechanics at all, which is what will matter the most when playing the game.

I didn't explicitly call them, but skills/mechanics would be similar to if not inherited from the chosen summoner path.

For instance:
1. Elemental - a mutli-toered path going down any Elemental path, but not a true elementalist because your power is augmented by the summons
2. Nature - would be natural skills like a druid (healer, trapper, think grasping roots)
3. Spirit - attacks against the spirit, perhaps mana draining, spirit shock, etc.
4. Light/Dark - I think these would be most obvious given we have so many archetypes like this in other games.

No matter the path chosen though they would never be more powerful than say a straight elementalist/mage, paladin, priest, druid, etc because the summons would be designed to bridge the gap in power.

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