Allies

An ally is a creature on your side. It follows you, fights what you are hostile to, and comes along when you move on. Allies come in two kinds:

• Summons are called by a spell for a while, such as the druid’s wolves.
• Companions are beasts that are yours for good, such as the ranger’s hound.

The witch’s beast, her familiar, is a kept beast of its own kind. Companions and Familiars have pages of their own. This page covers what every ally shares, and the summons.

An ally is an ordinary creature of its kind, with its own eyes, speed, attacks, and hit points. It fights only what you are hostile to. With Beast-friend, your wolf leaves the rats alone as you do, and a shopkeeper or someone you are talking to is never its idea of a foe. It never blocks your way for long: you swap places with it as with anyone friendly.

The messages call it yours (“Your wolf bites the kobold.”, “Your wolf dies.”). A faint mark under its letter on the map tells it apart from the creatures around it.

Orders

Three orders, in the Allies group of the abilities menu, go to every ally of yours on the level at once. None takes time, but each is your voice, and others hear it.

• Come to heel: follow you and fight what threatens you. This is what an ally does unless told otherwise. It heels again by itself when a fight would take it too far from you.
• Hold here: keep its place, fighting only what comes close.
• Set on: go to a place you can see and fight what is there, then come back to heel.

There is no order to send an ally away. A summon goes when its time runs out, or when it is slain.

Following you

When you take stairs or leave an area, allies close to you come along and appear beside you. Those farther away stay where they were and wait. Your companion comes along wherever it stands.

On the overworld your allies travel with you unseen, and step out beside you at the next place. A summon’s time runs on wherever it is: one left behind, or on the road too long, is gone when you next look for it. When hostile creatures follow you on the stairs, your allies find their places first.

Experience

An ally’s kill is yours. It counts in full for your quests, and builds what a kill of yours builds. It pays you half the experience your own blow would. The classes that live with beasts, the ranger and the druid, are paid in full (see The rules). The share goes by your class, whatever brought the ally. The ally itself gains nothing.

If you are trained in Heal, you can tend an ally beside you as you tend yourself (see Treating yourself).

Summons

A summon spell calls creatures to stand beside you for some minutes. A stronger Presence keeps them longer. Each spell keeps only so many of its own at once; call again past that, and the oldest gives way to the new. You cannot lead more than a few allies at once on one level, whatever brought them. A summon leaves nothing when it goes or dies: no corpse, and nothing it carried.

Your own spells that harm an area hurt your allies in it too.

“Learning” is what the spell adds to the difficulty of learning it from its grimoire. The calls are very hard to learn, even for a caster well above their level.

The risen

Rouse the dead is aimed at a corpse you see, of any age. The corpse is used up, and what it was stands where it lay, or on the nearest free cell. An ogre’s corpse makes an ogre.

It keeps everything of its kind: its stats, its natural attacks and armour, what it resists, and any creature tag it had. But it stands at a share of its hit points, with no gear and no pack, and has no name and no trade. A shopkeeper’s corpse rises as a mute, empty-handed body. A mimic’s corpse rises as a mimic, disguised as nothing.

It serves as a summon does. When it falls again or its time is up it leaves nothing, so nothing rises twice. The corpse of a unique creature will not rise for you, and whatever leaves no corpse never comes to this.

Now and then it rises berserk: “The dead thing stands, and it knows no one.” It joins the berserk and is friendly to nothing. It attacks what it sees: you, your allies, the peaceful, and another berserk alike. It takes no orders, and counts neither toward its spell’s limit nor toward how many you may lead. Its time runs as a servant’s would, however long your talents would keep a summon. It leaves nothing when it falls, and killing it pays as killing any of its kind.

The charmed

Beguile is cast at a hostile creature you see. There is no check and no limit by level: it always takes. “The ogre takes you for a friend.” From then on it is your ally by every rule above. It follows you, takes your orders, and pays you for its kills as any ally does, and its own band turns on it.

When the charm’s minutes are up it is itself again, hostile, wherever it stands (“The ogre shakes off the charm.”). It never follows you to another level: the moment you leave, the charm ends and it stays behind as it was. It keeps its gear, and when it dies it leaves its corpse and what it carried, as any of its kind.

The charm never takes on:

• a unique creature, or anyone with a name and a trade;
• an animated thing;
• what has no mind: the undead, constructs, vermin, and whatever has risen berserk;
• a creature already at someone’s side;
• any creature past how many allies you may lead.

Escorts

Someone you bring home for an escort quest is an ally too, from the moment they agree to come. They follow you, come along on the stairs, travel with you over the overworld, and come to heel or hold as told. But they are never set on anything, and they strike only at what stands right beside them.

Give hands them any weapon or armour they can use. They put it on at once and drop what they had there. Once home, they are no one’s ally any more and stay where they are.

The druid’s calls

The druid calls the wild:

• Call of the wild at level 6;
• Call of the forest at 25;
• Call the elements at 40, whose element the wild chooses.

Each call keeps one of its own beside you. From Pack leader (level 32), every call brings one more, keeps two of its own, and lasts half again as long. Lord of the wild (level 60) keeps three of each, and what you call stays until it is slain.

Beast-bond, a Wayfarer talent for those with some Handle animal, makes every ally of yours strike surer and take less harm.

The rules

See also: Companions, Familiars, and Magic.