What are summoning pacts?
In the French version, casting a summoning spell required either a focus or an inscription containing that spell. In both cases, the summoner needed to draw a summoning circle in which to call the entity. Both third and fifth editions introduced an additional rule for a pact, which tied into the French version's different rapport systems.
In third edition The Players' Book, summoning an entity was a single roll rather than the two rolls of previous editions. The summoning rules stipulated that entities had a rapport with their summoner. Their level of positivity and hostility were rated respectively as the statistics Allié and Féal, translating to "allied" and "serfish" respectively. Being polite and respectful to the entity increased its Allié and decreased its Féal, while being cruel and dishonest did the opposite. Whether it was friendly or hostile determined the severity of failing the summoning test: friendly entities inflicted inconvenient but not very dangerous consequences, whereas hostile entities inflicted dangerous and potentially fatal consequences. Fumbles were the same in either case.
In third edition The Gamemaster's Book p170, a rule for making a pact was introduced. This could only be sealed with a summon from the Zohar, the archangels who govern the Sefirot. By entering a pact, the summoner agrees never to commit any act that could harm or hinder the entity. In exchange, the summoner can never fumble the summoning and the entity will be positively disposed towards him. To seal a pact, the summoner must summon the entity more than twice, swear loyalty and allegiance to it, and sacrifice 5 Ka "bullets".
In fifth edition Nephilim: Quintessence p198, the single roll from third and fourth editions was replaced by a separate summoning technique roll and a contract roll a la first and second editions. A successful contract roll sealed a pact with the entity. This meant the summoner didn't need to make further contract rolls whenever summoning that entity. However, fumbling the summoning roll broke the pact. By sealing the pact, the entities expected the summoner to follow certain principles in exchange for their obedience: the summoner must not call them frivolously, the summoner's requests must not stray too far from the entity's deep nature and "ethics", and the summoner must respect the entity as a conscious being and not an object or robot. Mistreating entities would result in them trying to subvert their orders and make things inconvenient for the summoner, until eventually they confronted the summoner directly and broke the pact. The summoner took various oaths based on the summoning world in which he specialized, which forced constraints on his behavior in exchange for making learning and practicing summoning easier. Accidentally breaking an oath required penance to absolve, while deliberately breaking an oath instantly broke all pacts.
On the US mailing list (which developed ideas independently of the French), I saw among other things brief proposals to slightly revise summoning for Liber Ka. Summoners no longer required foci, but could create their summoning rituals by researching magical names and so on as with the revised sorcery and alchemy spell creation. Here an inscribed summoning spell was called a pact and "sealed" with Ka sacrifice, as opposed to being two separate things a la the French version. As with inscribed sorcery, entering a pact with an entity allows the summoner to call it without drawing a summoning circle. The logic behind this is that the entity's "sigil" is drawn within the summoning circle to call it, whereas by sealing a pact the entity inscribes its sigil onto the summoner's aura directly (implying the summoner cannot do this alone like with sorcery or alchemy). I didn't find any mention that entering a pact required the summoner to observe any oaths, but that might've been implied.
There's more details from the books and stuff that I didn't recount here, but that's the gist of it. While the US version never got the chance beyond a few vague mentions (like the Sword of the Lictor attacking summoners who acted dishonorably), the French version developed multiple editions of rules for adjudicating relationships between summoners and entities. Long story short, the summoner needed to treat the entity nicely or else it would try its darndest to subvert his orders within the confines of the contract or even outright break the pact and attack him!
I'm still developing my own concepts for revising summoning. I've been putting it off for too long due to life and stuff, so I decided to write this post on pacts so that I feel like I'm doing something. I'd use the mailing list's ideas for pacts so that summoning inscription feels distinct from that of sorcery and alchemy. (The logic here is that inscribing sorcery takes a snapshot of the spell so that it may be cast later without ritual, inscribing alchemy involves internalizing the procedure so thoroughly that its preparation time is reduced to bare minimum, and and inscribing summoning requires the entity to sign its sigil on the summoner's aura so that their own ka-pentacle serves as the summoning circle.) I still need to develop ideas like warding circles (these would prevent entities from entering or exiting a warded area), the value of magical names (explaining their importance, guidelines for acquiring them, pitfalls of summoning without a specific name), and so on. Hope you enjoyed the trivia!
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