
Stephen Ede |
Believe it or not this discussion happened with the female player in my group.
Kingmake - the party has allied with a Roc - Advanced + Half Fiendish.
The Roc is a female and would like a male to give her fertile eggs.
The party as part of the deal has promised to do their best to provide her with a mate for that purpose.
The the Druid (female player) asked if she managed to summon a Roc would it be able to mate with/fertilize the female.
Question 1) If the Roc's had sex would the sperm remain after the summons spell ended?
Question 2) If the sperm didn't remain but had managed to fertilize the females ova before the spell ended would the ova remain fertile?
I will admit even by my standards this was an unusual discussion to be having GM to player.
My feel is
1) Maybe. My understanding is that if you eat a summoned creature you don't normally get nourishment after the spell ends. But not sure if blood stains ectre last, or poison lasts after the summoned creature goes. If poison continues to work then sperm should as well.
2) Yes. The ova aren't summoned so once the egg is fertilized the affect should remain even after the sperm has gone. Much as even once the summoned creature has gone any poison effects/conditions you have taken remain.
But I would like to here what others think.
Thanks

VRMH |

Question 1) If the Roc's had sex would the sperm remain after the summons spell ended?
No, unless the summoning spell lasts long enough for the sperm to actually fertilise an egg cell, at which point the gamete would no longer be a part of the summoned Roc and would therefore remain behind.
Question 2) If the sperm didn't remain but had managed to fertilize the females ova before the spell ended would the ova remain fertile?
One could argue that a zygote (fertilised egg cell) is part of the mother's body (and in the context of a game with teleportation spell that's probably a smart thing to do), or one might say it's its own creature. But it's definitely not a part of the male parent.
So, how long do we think it would take from intercourse to fertilisation, in the case of a advanced, demi-fiendish Roc?

mkenner |

Interesting question. Personally I feel that in D&D worlds, procreation is a more profoundly mystical matter than modern day biological science would suggest. I don't think we should really consider it in terms of respective gametes combining to form a zygote.
Summoned creatures, regardless of duration aren't really there. They're more of a copy or a projection, since their death doesn't actually harm the original being. I would personally suspect that they don't actually have a soul and are merely a construct of magic based off the original being.
As such, if I were GMing this situation I'd be tempted to have some interesting results to this sort of experiment. For example the summoned creature successfully impregnates their partner, however the child is affected by being born out of a magical paradox. Perhaps the child is born without a soul, or with a weakened one. Perhaps the child has some sort of sorcerous nature or is vulnerable to possession by beings from outside of time and space. They might grow sickly and weak over time, requiring the PCs to go on some sort of quest to find a way to restore them to a fully natural creature. You can build entire adventures or even campaigns off of strange questions like this.
This sort of interference with the natural order might also anger clerics, druids, the divine powers, aeons or inevitables as well.
I have a rule in my games called "The Law of Unintended Consequences". Anytime a spell is used in a way that makes everyone go 'huh, would that even work?' or pauses the game long enough to make me think in depth about it gives me free license to get creative with interpreting the results. I've warned my players about this in advance.
As a side-note called creatures though, should be able to procreate normally.

mkenner |
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Also if your world runs on a more scientific model, then I would say that logically the fetus could only survive if the zygote had already undergone cellular division. At that point entirely new strands of DNA would have been formed from proteins that didn't originate from the summoned creature's genetic material. After cell division, one blastomere would collapse with its DNA fragmenting in half (which wouldn't be entirely healthy as scraps of broken RNA would be sent throughout the Morulla potentially interfering with chemical processes and protein formation). However it could likely survive this early trauma and continue to divide without further problems.
I'm not sure how quickly a Roc's cells undergo division though, so it's hard to say for certain. However I suspect that it would be a rare summoning spell that would have a long enough duration.
And yes... I have thought about this WAY too much.
BTW : I love mkenner's post and rule :-))
Thankyou. :D

Stephen Ede |
Thanks people.
I would note since that the Druid is a Blodeuwedd, so well short of summoning a Roc at this point. So whether it's a quest to find a Male Roc, or a Quest to find a way of summoning a Roc in such a way that it can impregnate the Mother, either way it's a significant quest.
As for unintended consequences - The PC Blodeuwedd carried out a political marriage with the PC Silver Dragon ruler of the realm (Kingmaker). But neither of them thought out the fact the royla marriages have a huge amount of symbolic ritual in them, otherwise know as ritual magic. And that Blodeuwedd get pregnant through a form of ritual magic, not sex. As a consequence some 3 months down the track they just found that She is level draining him and the energy is been used by her to form a Blodeuwedd child. She now casts restoration on him every day to make sure he survives the impregnation process. :-)
Yes, this party is fully aware of the "unintended consequences" feature, but they keep taking the candy I offer them. They always think "this time I'll get the untainted candy". hehehehe
5 PCs and 1 NPC Cohort. 3 are carrying a 2nd NPC personality in their heads, 2 are or have been pregnant with out intent, 2 are in the process of selling their souls to a Demon Prince, and one is getting level drained by his wife. Didn't force any of them into anything, I just offered the candy :-)
Of course they still top me at times. Like today one of the Silver Dragons worked out a Scheme with the Tiefling Witch where they would buy Sheep and Baleful Polymorph them into Kobolds to increase the population of the Kingdom. The initial plan was to kill any sheep that failed their fort saves but made the will save and still believed they were sheep. The Dragon saw no conflict with his belief he is LG alignment!!!

Dragonchess Player |

Your druid could develop a higher-level version of eagle aerie that summons a single roc for 1 hour/level (unless used for combat). Based on the CR of a giant eagle (CR 3), the (rough) equivalent summon nature's ally spell (IV, giant wasp), and the required summon nature's ally for a roc (VII), I'd say that roc aerie (or whatever name is used) would be an 8th level spell for a single roc, 9th level for multiple rocs.
As a more "complicated" solution, convincing the silver dragon ruler to impregnate the female roc is also an option. An advanced fiendish half-dragon (silver) roc... that's a half-sibling to the realm's heir...

Kalridian |

On the topic of the short duration of the summoning spells:
I have a houserule in my games that changes the duration of the spells to "concentration + what it would normally be".
This makes summoning worthwile on lower levels and on top of that gives the players the option to creatively use summons out of combat. (they once sold a summoned horse while the wizard was sitting around the corner concentrating.)
It has never broken the game balance up to now and makes for funny RPG moments

Stephen Ede |
Dragonchess and Kalridian, thank you for the suggestions.
I don't see the Druid getting access to 8th level spells anytime soon. The Blodeuwedd levels chew up to many levels. Although maybe they can duplicate the affects as Ritual Magic. Rare ingrediants, several days of enchanting and presto. Of course this would take months of research and probably accessing rare tomes they don't have.
The idea of creating a modified variant of summon that lasts as long as you concentrate on it is something doable.
Hmm, I've been looking for ways to stall the party for a while so their Kingdom can grow a bit. These possibilities might do the trick. :-)

mkenner |

Or does it.
Venomous snakes do poison damage. Are you all going to argue that poison effects disappear after the snake poofs?
It's not anywhere in the rules, but I think it would be a natural and logical house rule to implement that would increase the consistency of magic. The poison disappearing from the target would be equivalent though to the spell Neutralize Poison. Ongoing effects would cease, however any damage, temporary ability damage or hit points lost would remain.
After all, spells cast by summoned creatures instantly end the moment the conjuration ends.
Equally, I liked this counterpoint from Google, "So can I research a Conjuration [Summoning] Conjure Mead spell and get drunk with no hangover side effects then?"
According to the Conjuration section in the Magic chapter of core rule book, creatures return to wherever they're from but objects don't unless specifically mentioned in the spell. So a theoretical Conjure Mead spell wouldn't be comparable. Conjure Mead would be more like Create Water most likely from a rules standpoint.