Grognard's Grimoire: Summon Protector

When the idea of the Animal Kings first occurred to me, it seemed obvious their existence would also imply the existence of animal clerics. Over the course of play, I came to realize that animals needed magic-users too. Even if I hadn't, my inclusion of the Boss of the Rats more or less required that I postulate their existence.

In the course of thinking about animal magic-users, I realized that, like their clerical counterparts, certain spells would need to be re-imagined. This in turn led me to give some more thought to the way that animals and Men interacted with one another. Thus was born the summon protector spell.

The text in the quote box below is hereby designated Open Game Content via the Open Game License.

Summon Protector
Level: 1 (Animal Only)
Duration: See Below
Range: 1 mile per level

By casting this spell, an animal magic-user can obtain a human protector. The casting takes from 1-24 hours (referee's discretion) and uses up items of value appropriate to the caster's species (e.g. meaty bones for a dog, sparkly shards of glass for a rat, etc.) that have an equivalent value of 100 gp. The materials are consumed during the ritual. The referee decides the probability that a protector will respond to the spell and which type of protector is summoned within range. It is possible that no human will respond. This spell may only be attempted one time per year.

A protector is able to grant the caster access to its own senses and is able to understand the caster's wishes in a general, non-verbal way. In addition, a protector is loyal to the caster and will do everything in its power to aid and protect the caster, provided that doing so will not bring harm upon the protector. Protectors are more intelligent than ordinary Men (+1 Intelligence); they always possess a class and 1d4 levels (i.e. no 0 Humans). A protector grants the caster additional hit points equal to one-third of the protector's maximum hit points, when the two are within 120' of one another. However, if a protector is slain, the magic-user must subtract one-quarter of the protector's maximum hit points from his own maximum hit points, permanently.

A new protector may not be summoned for one year. If a protector is located, the referee may use the following as examples:

Protector	Abilities Augmented
Cleric	+1 to armor class
Fighter	+1 to hit
Magic-User	+1 damage per die with spells
Thief	+1 saving throws

Anytime a protector is summoned, there is a 5% chance it is a special protector. The type is determined by the caster's alignment. Special protectors still have a class and level, as above, but they also have a role in human society that gives the caster a possible advantage. A potential protector is entitled to a saving throw versus spells and, if successful, the spell fails and the caster must wait 1 year before trying again.

Alignment	Type
Lawful (Good)	Paladin
Lawful	Magistrate
Lawful (Evil)	Aristocrat
Neutral	Merchant
Neutral (Balance)	Druid
Chaotic	Barbarian

The Animal Kings

As some of you may recall, I introduced a character into my Dwimmermount campaign called the King of the Cats. I created the King as an improvisation through play, after the characters encountered a cat (later dubbed Dusty) deep in the depths of the megadungeon and Brother Candor got the idea of using his speak with animals spell in order to pump him for information about the ancient Thulian mountain citadel.

In general, I don't like to stall my players, preferring to come up with answers -- any answers -- to their queries on the spot, even if, in retrospect, they seems less clever than they might have been if I'd have taken the time to think up "good" ones later. My feeling is that the speed of a referee's replies is more vital to the continued success of a campaign than their "rightness," which is to say, I'd rather offer a mediocre answer now and expand upon its meaning later than slow down a session by agonizing over a reply -- or, worse still, defer an answer till another session. In my opinion, nothing undermines the "reality" of a setting than a referee dumbfounded by his players' unexpected questions.

Still, there are times when stalling of a sort might be appropriate and Brother Candor's intention to use speak with animals to converse with Dusty -- a very clever plan and one that shows just how useful supposedly useless spells can be if you're, you know, imaginative -- seemed like an appropriate time. So, I made mention of the Kings of the Cats and how all the information his subjects know is really his "property" and one must make an entreaty to him for permission to learn it. This gave me some breathing room to figure just what Dusty knew and, at the same time, it gave me the chance to introduce something unexpected of my own to the campaign.

The King of the Cats is my own invention but I drew on a lot of different sources, chiefly Moorcock's notion of the Beast Lords and Lovecraft's "The Cats of Ulthar," along with innumerable mythological tales about intelligent animals. I also probably remembered Gygax's Cat Lord, Rexfelis, whose name I almost stole for the King of the Cats before I thought better of it. While I'm not above swiping names and ideas from my inspirations, I prefer to do so only when they're sufficiently obscure and, given the prominence of Rexfelis in Gary's later fiction, I didn't think he qualified as obscure.

In meeting the King of the Cats, the characters learned that there were other Animal Kings -- or rather, it was strongly implied by reference to an ongoing war with the Rat King in Adamas and a snide comment about most humans being "stupidly in the thrall of the King of the Dogs." Through further play, I've fleshed out the cosmology of the setting a bit more and the players have begun to learn some details of how magic works and its relationship to gods and other supernatural entities. There's still a lot they don't know and probably never will (and not just because I haven't worked it all out yet). But one thing I am certain of: there are many Animal Kings and, like all "gods," they have clerics devoted to them and their clerics can cast spells.

Here are some rough guidelines for handling clerics of the Animal Kings:

The Animal Kings have very few clerics. Anytime an animal is encountered, there is a 1% chance that it is actually a cleric of an appropriate Animal King. The spells available to these clerics are listed below. Animal clerics cannot read scrolls and generally cannot use other clerical magic items unless it is feasible for them to be able to do so based on their physiology. Animal clerics gain 1 additional hit point per full hit die for each clerical level they possess. Thus, a 3rd-level cat cleric (which normally has 1d2 hit points) gains +3 hit points to its total, whereas a wolf cleric (2+2 hit dice) of the same level would gain +6 hit points to its total.

Spells Usable by Animal Clerics by Level
1-Cure Light Wounds, Detect Evil, Detect Magic, Protection from Evil
2-Bless, Find Traps, Hold Person, Speak with Humans
3-Cure Disease, Locate Object, Remove Curse, Speak with Dead
4-Cure Serious Wounds, Neutralize Poison, Protection from Evil 10' Radius, Speak with Plants

If druids exist in the campaign, referees may substitute spells from that class's list for those cited above.

Level Limits of Common Animal Clerics by Species
Ape - Gorilla (3), Chimp (5), Orangutan (7)
Badger - 3
Bat - 3
Bear - Black (5), Brown (3), Cave (4), Polar (4)
Boar - 3
Cat - 8
Cattle - 4
Crocodile - 5
Dog - 5
Elephant - 7
Frog - 3
Horse - 4
Hyena - 3
Jackal - 3
Lion - 6
Rat - 4
Shark - 5
Tiger - 6
Turtle - 7
Weasel - 5
Wolf - 5
Whale - 7

Clerics of the Animal Kings rarely reveal themselves to humans, let alone use their spells for their benefit. However, if their trust is gained, they can prove invaluable allies.