Conjuration is the Art of Calling and Binding. It is the discipline that draws matter, essence, and beings across boundaries, summoning them into the present world.
It is unlike Evocation, which channels raw energy, or Illusion, which deceives the senses. Conjuration alters reality not by shaping what is, but by bringing what is elsewhere into the here and now.
This may take many forms:
Summoning of Beings: Spirits, elementals, and fiends may be drawn from their planes.
Calling of Objects: Weapons, tools, or artifacts may be conjured from afar or shaped briefly from the Weave itself.
Creation of Space: Portals, rifts, and gates may be torn, allowing travel through the Weave or between planes.
To conjure is to place one’s hand upon the thresholds of existence, and in so doing, to risk tearing them wide.
Historically, conjuration was the most feared of disciplines during the War of Darkness, for it was by conjurers that Elgorath’s armies multiplied. Demons and spirits poured through unstable gates, overwhelming defenses. Yet it was also conjuration that preserved many — for Reyumi’s sages used it to ferry refugees from besieged cities and to bind fiends back to Draethor. Thus, conjuration has ever been both curse and salvation.
Conjuration exists to expand mortal reach beyond mortal limits. It is the discipline of summoning aid, bending distance, and bridging worlds.
For War: A conjurer summons allies when armies falter, or brings down fiends to turn upon their masters.
For Knowledge: They call forth spirits of long-dead sages, or elementals whose memories span centuries.
For Travel: They craft gates that span leagues in a step, or open doorways into hidden realms.
For Necessity: They call food to the starving, water to the parched, tools to the desperate.
Yet for all its utility, Conjuration is never without consequence. For what is called has its own will, and what is bound may one day unbind itself.
The Nine Laws weigh heavily on the conjurer, for each act treads perilously upon them:
Balance: To summon is to unbalance, drawing what belongs to one plane into another. The Weave demands recompense — something must always be lost when something is gained. A mage may summon fire, but in so doing he steals warmth from somewhere else.
Conservation: What is conjured must come from somewhere. An object or being cannot be invented; it is drawn from its rightful place. Thus, every conjuration is theft of place, and the caster is debtor to what was displaced.
Limitations: A conjurer may bind only what he can contain. To attempt more is to be overwhelmed. History recalls the Conclave of Soren, whose circle sought to bind a dread fiend of Draethor. Their wards faltered; the fiend remained free; the Conclave was slain within the hour.
Reflection: Over time, conjurers take on traits of what they call. Those who summon elementals grow cold, storm-scarred, or molten in their temper. Those who bind fiends find whispers in their sleep, until their voices mingle with the very entities they once commanded.
Thus, the Codex teaches that Conjuration is the most dangerous of the Nine to the soul, for it invites others to share its place within the caster’s essence.
To summon is to invite risk. Conjurers contend with perils unlike any other Path:
Unstable Portals: Rifts opened without care may widen, bleeding planes into one another. The fall of the city of Edrath is recorded as the fault of a single gate torn too wide, through which an endless storm poured for seven days until the land was drowned.
Rebellion of the Summoned: Bound creatures chafe at their shackles. An elemental of fire may break its chains and consume master and foe alike. A fiend may feign obedience until the moment its master falters.
Corruption of the Binder: The longer a conjurer commands a creature, the more his will entwines with it. Many have become reflections of their summons — cold as wraiths, cruel as demons, unstable as storm-spirits.
The Loss of Place: The conjurer ever risks being displaced himself. Those who conjure too often speak of feeling untethered, their souls drifting between planes until they are drawn bodily into the void.
Thus, while Conjuration may grant power unparalleled, it is the path most often barred to apprentices until their wills are proven unshakable.
The conjurer is a keeper of thresholds. He is both herald and gaoler, doorkeeper and thief. In times of crisis, he is salvation, ferrying the desperate or summoning aid unseen. In times of arrogance, he is doom, tearing doors that should never open.
In Courts: Conjurers are rare, yet prized. They may call forth witnesses from afar, or deliver decrees in moments across leagues. Yet few rulers keep them close, for fear of treachery.
In Academies: They are tightly watched, their studies limited by law. Their vaults hold summoning circles locked by abjurers, their tomes redacted to guard against rash ambition.
In War: They may summon battalions in moments, or call forth fiends to break enemies. But their service is double-edged, and generals fear their failure as much as they covet their aid.
In Faith: Priests are divided. Some see Conjuration as trespass upon the gods’ authority to govern the planes. Others see it as sacred, a bridging of realms permitted only to those of true devotion.
Thus, the conjurer is both honored and mistrusted — a necessity whose presence demands vigilance.
"Thus is the Path of Conjuration, third among the Nine. It is the path of thresholds, of summoning and binding, of doors opened and closed. It may save a city or damn it; it may call forth wisdom or unleash horror. Let the conjurer remember always: what is called has its own will, and what is bound will ever seek its freedom. He who forgets this truth shall not long remain master, but become the servant of that which he sought to command."
