Call Canine Familiar

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Call Canine Familiar
Level	3
School1	Summoning
Source(s)	Book of Callings Book of Beasts Rod of Summoning
Casting noise	3
Spell noise	0

Summons a canine to the caster's aid.

Call Canine Familiar is a level 3 Summonings spell which summons one or (rarely) two "h" glyph monsters to fight for you. Higher spell power results in better canines and better odds of summoning two at once. Possible summons include:

• Jackal
• Hound
• War dog
• Wolf (replaced by wargs half the time if playing a hill orc)
• Warg

Strategy

At low spell power, this spell is too expensive and weak to be worth it; instead of summoning 6 mammals for 3 mana, you will probably only get a jackal or at best a hound early on. However, at middling spell power you can often get war dogs, and by the time you meet your first orc warrior or ogre, you should be able to summon one to your aid reliably. Wolves come a little later, and are a little less powerful than war dogs. Hill orcs can get a lot of use out of wargs at high spell power, while other species will only see them rarely when spell power is maxed out. Wargs deal as much damage as war dogs with their primary attack, get two extra attacks, and are immune to poison.

Even though you expend 3 mana points for each summon (very rarely do you get two), and you still get jackals even at very high power, Call Canine Familiar is a surprisingly powerful spell that can single-handedly take a summoner all the way through the bottom of the Lair. The only trouble you might face are packs of war dogs (you can't get enough friendly war dogs consistently to fight them), death yaks, and hydra. However, both death yaks and hydra can be defeated with a pack of about 5-6 dogs if you have a good mix of war dogs, wolves, and wargs. Alternatively, you could upgrade to Summon Scorpions if you have it, but the creatures this spell summons may appear hostile.