“Stop rubbing that lamp, you idiot. I do not care what you have read, it will not grant you wishes. I brought you here to show you something real, something true. See this mural? It shows the ancient city. The true city that came before. They called it Majilis and it was made of brass by the spirits. They had golem servants and human lovers and, in that day, it was said you could trade them a year of your life for a favor. We are not here to gather treasure this night, fool, we are here to learn. The djinn still sometimes come to these places, and you must understand their history if you are to know how to behave. They are powerful and wicked and proud and you must know them if you hope to survive a summoning. Now, bring the lamp here and we will light it, it grows dark and these ruins are dangerous at night.” Instinct: To burn eternally

• Grant power for a price
• Summon the forces of the City of Brass

“Surely, my good man, you must know why I am here. Must know who I am. You said the words. You spilled the blood and followed the instructions almost to the letter. Your pronunciation was a bit off but that’s to be expected. I’ve come to give you what you’ve always wanted, friend. Glory, love, money? Paltry things when you’ve the vaults of hell to plumb. Don’t look so shocked, you knew what this was. You have but one thing we desire. Promise it to us, and the world shall be yours for the taking. Trust me.” Instinct: To bargain

• Offer a deal with horrible consequences
• Plumb the vaults of hell for a bargaining chip
• Make a show of power

The planes are not as literal as our world. Clothed in the elemental chaos are places of stranger stuff than air and water. Here, rivers of time crash upon shores of crystal fear. Bleak storms of nightmare roil and churn in a laughter-bright sky. Sometimes, the spirits of these places can be lured into our world, though they are infinitely more unpredictable and strange than mere fire or earth might be. Easier to make mistakes, too—one might try calling up a wealth elemental and be surprised to find a murder elemental instead. Instinct: To perfect its concept

• Demonstrate its concept in its purest form

Do you think the phrase “drag him to hell” means nothing? It is unfortunately literal, in the case of the chain devil. Appearing differently to each victim, this summoned creature has but a single purpose: to wrap its victim up in binding coils and take it away to a place of torment. Sometimes it will come as a man-shaped mass of rusting iron, hooks and coils of mismatched links. Other times, a roiling tangle of rope or kelp or twisted bloody bedsheets. The results are always the same. Instinct: To capture

• Take a captive
• Return to whence it came
• Torture with glee

There are a thousand forms of devil, maybe more. Some common and some unique. Each time the Inquisitors discover a new one they write it into the Tormentors Codex and the knowledge is shared among the abbeys in the hope that atrocities of that particular sort won’t find their way into the world again. The barbed devil has long been known to the brothers and sisters of the Inquisition. It appears only at a site of great violence or when called by a wayward summoner. Covered in sharp quills, this particular demon revels in the spilling of blood, preferably by impaling victims piecemeal or in whole upon its thorns and letting them die there. Cruel but not particularly effective beyond slaughter. A low inquisitorial priority. Instinct: To rend flesh and spill blood

• Impale someone
• Kill indiscriminately

“So was it written that the heavens opened up to Avra’hal and did an angel from the clouds emerge to speak unto her and so did it appear to her as her firstborn daughter—beautiful, of ebon skin and golden eyes—and did Avra’hal weep to see it. ‘Be not afraid,’ it commanded her. ‘Go to the villages I have shown you in your dreams and unto them show the word I have written on your soul.’ Avra’hal wept and wept and did agree to do this and did take up her sword and tome and did into the villages go, a great thirst for blood on her lips for the word the angel wrote upon the soul of Avra’hal was ‘kill’.” Instinct: To share divine will

• Deliver visions and prophecy
• Stir mortals to action
• Expose sin and injustice

The triton ruling houses were chosen, they say, at the dawn of time. Granted lordship over all the races of the sea by some now-forgotten god. These bloodlines continue, passing rulership from father to daughter and mother to son through the ages. Each is allowed to rule their city in whatever way they choose—some alone or with their spouses, others in council of brothers and sisters. In ages past, they were known for their sagacity and bloodlines of even-temper were respected above all else. The tidecallers prophecy is changing that: nobles are expected to be strong, not wise. The nobles have begun to respond, and it is feared by some that the ancient blood is changing forever. It may be too late to turn back. Time and tide wait for none. Instinct: To lead

• Stir tritons to war
• Call reinforcements

The triton are not a militant race by nature. They shy away from battle except when the sahuagin attack, and then they only defend themselves and retreat into the depths where their foes can’t follow. This trend begins to change. As the tidecallers come to rally their people, some triton men and women take up arms. They call these generals “sub-mariners” and build for them armor of shells and hardened glass. They swim in formation, wielding pikes and harpoons and attack the crews of ships that wander too far from port. Watch for their pennants of kelp on the horizon and the conch-cry of a call to battle and keep, if you can, your boats near shore. Instinct: To wage war

• Lead tritons to battle
• Pull them beneath the waves

Part priest, part outcast among their kind, the tidecaller speaks with the voice of the deeps. They can be known by their mutations—transparent skin, perhaps, or rows of teeth like a shark. Glowing eyes or fingertips, angler-lights in the darkness of their underwater kingdom. They speak in a strange tongue that can call and command creatures of the sea. They ride wild hippocampi and cast strange spells that rot through the wooden decks of ships or encrust them with barnacles heavy enough to sink. It is the tidecallers who come, now, back to the cities of the triton, bearing word that the prophecy is coming to pass. The world of men will drown in icy brine. The tidecallers speak and the lords begin to listen. Instinct: To bring on The Flood

• Cast a spell of water and destruction
• Command beasts of the sea
• Reveal divine proclamation

A fishing village caught one in their net, some time ago. Part a man and part some scaly sea creature, it spoke in a broken, spy-learned form of the common tongue before it suffocated in the open air. It told the fishermen of a coming tide, an inescapable swell of the power of some deep-sea god and that the triton empire would rise up and drag the land down into the ocean. The tale spread and now, when fishermen sail the choppy seas, they watch and worry that the dying triton’s tales were true. That there are powers deep below that watch and wait. They fear the tide is coming in. Instinct: To spy on the surface world

• Reveal their secrets
• Strike at weakness