Ever since the new summon options for the regular Summon Creature spells have been added I've been curious about the fiendish/celestial template for the animals, Fiendish Hawk, Celetial Rat and so on. Is there much story to these creatures at all, they just kind of become corrupted by evil energies or imbued with good. Do they speak or understand any other language as a result?

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~Draco Bloodcloak~ In the mind of a tielfing
~Xanhorn Dragonsbane~

Good question.

Celestial/Fiendish summoned creatures are not normal animals/vermin that have fiendish blood in them. They're not like the animal/vermin equivalent of tieflings. I say this because some people incorrectly assume they are.

The lower planes of the Hells, or alternatively the celestial planes, are populated by creatures who resemble normal creatures on the Material Plane. The Material Plane has dire toads, which are big fat amphibians. The lower hells has fiendish dire toads, which are big fat amphibians with horns and fangs and maybe barbs on the tongue or something equally hellish.

What a summoner does is he grabs one of these creatures that resembles a Material Plane creature and drags it into the Material Plane. For all intents and purposes, you mechanically give them the fiendish/celestial qualities, and change animals/vermin into "magical beast" subtypes, but other than those specific changes, they retain all the normal abilities/features of the Material plane.

So, to answer your question, no, they don't speak or understand any extra languages from what I see.

In my own head, I have always preferred the interpretation that fiendish/celestial summons are fiendish or celestial entities from the lower hells that have their own diabolical or divine form that simply does not translate into the Material Plane, and so the summoner gives these entities a form resembling creatures familiar to the Material Plane. Kind of like how classical demons can't really materialize in the physical world but affect it through limited telekinetics and direct possession.

Sorry if this isn't right on topic but related to the lore on summons. The epic mummy dust Geared Guardian which I've always been curious about. Is that in the game world a summon i.e. a creature pulled from say Mechanus or somewhere? Or are they constructs built by the spellcaster? I've seen both, some PCs rp building them but others just cast a spell and 'poof' got themselves a geared guardian. Lorewise it seems they should be summoned as everything else is from that spell in Amia (although the original spell mummy dust seems to create mummies so why not create a construct instead in the Amia homebrew). Just wondering if there is any consensus on this.

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aaegus battlehammer™

cloak rockhewer

murtaugh gunn

The lore for them is explained in their description. They are summoned constructs from Mechanus, and are not created by their summoners.

Ahh.. I've never had the opportunity to read the description since I've haven't had one. I should take the time to read other people's next time I see summons around.

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aaegus battlehammer™

cloak rockhewer

murtaugh gunn