Summoner (character class)

The Summoner (sometimes referred to in English localizations as Caller) is a character class (or "job") featured in Square Enix's Final Fantasy series of RPGs. Unlike their cousins the White Mages, Black Mages or Red Mages, Summoners do not use conventional spells. Instead they call upon entities of great power (whose name and source varies from game to game) to attack their enemies, protect their party or render other forms of aid. This type of magic is known within the franchise as summon magic.

The summoner has appeared in the following games in the Final Fantasy series:

• Final Fantasy III
• Final Fantasy IV (Rydia)
• Final Fantasy V
• Final Fantasy IX (Dagger and Eiko Carol)
• Final Fantasy X (Yuna and others)
• Final Fantasy XI
• Final Fantasy Tactics
• Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

Even games in which no distinct class of summoner exists often involve summon magic to some degree. Examples of this can be seen in Final Fantasy VI through Final Fantasy VIII.

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History and description

Summoners are included as part of the Final Fantasy franchise's famous "job system" in the games Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. In the first of these games, Final Fantasy III, an additional class, the Conjurer, was made available. Conjurers utilized the same magical spells as summoners, but to different effect: the conjurer acts primarily as support, and the creatures they summon will have some sort of beneficial effect on the player's party, similar to traditional white magic. Summons invoked by the regular summoner class, on the other hand, were generally offensive in nature, similar to traditional black magic. It was this latter type of summoning that would be dominant in later appearances of the summoner class.

The character Rydia from Final Fantasy IV was raised in the isolated mountain village of Mist, a small community of summoners. Although largely isolated from the outside world, the corrupt king of Baron saw the power commanded by the residents of Mist as a threat to his own plans of conquest. Under direct orders from the king, Dark Knight Cecil Harvey and Dragon Knight Kain Highwind delivered a bomb to the village, killing all of its inhabitants save for Rydia herself.

In Final Fantasy IX, Princess Garnet Til Alexandros of the kingdom of Alexandria has the fairly unique skill of being able to summon forth powerful extradimensional beings known as Eidolons. Likewise, the six-year old Eiko Carol, the only apparent survivor of Madain Sari, the lost village of the summoners, has the ability to call upon Eidolons.

On the world of Spira in Final Fantasy X the title of "summoner" is given to skilled magic users who have trained in the process of summoning powerful beings known as Aeons in order to defeat Sin, a powerful monster who periodically returns to devastate the surface of the world. While many summoners compete to be the one to stop Sin when he appears, only one such summoner can succeed. That summoner, who invariably sacrifices his or her life in the process, is granted the title of "High Summoner," and are worshipped by the followers of the religion of Yevon. At the start of the game, there have been five individuals to have earned the title of High Summoner: Yunalesca, Lord Gandof, Lord Ohalland, Lady Yocun, and Lord Braska. The story of Final Fantasy X involves the travails of Lord Braska's daughter, Yuna, as she sets out to defeat Sin and earn the title of High Summoner herself. Summoners also perform the Sending, a dance ritual that sends the spirits of the dead to the Farplane lest they become fiends.it:invocatore