Summon Small Mammal

Version 0.29: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Summon Small Mammal
Level	1
School1	Summoning
Source(s)	Book of Callings Book of Cantrips
Casting noise	1
Spell noise	0
Power Cap	25

Summons a rat, bat, or quokka to the caster's aid. Spell power increases the chance of summoning a quokka.

Summon Small Mammal is a Summonings spell which summons one weak monster. Summoners start with this spell memorized.

Effect

One small mammal is summoned. Higher spell power can result in a stronger mammal. There is a summon cap of 2; additonal summons will cause the oldest to very quickly time out.

Possible summons:

r Rat - Low damage and fragile, but better than nothing.

b Bat - Extremely fast and evasive, but does virtually no damage.

r Quokka - Decent damage and HP. Good all-round early on.

There is a 1 - 10 / <power> chance of a quokka. If a quokka was not summoned, there is an equal chance for either a rat or a bat.

Duration of the summon is around 27 turns; it does not depend on the spell power.

Strategy

• Summon Small Mammal is only a level 1 spell, but it stays useful for a short while in the early-game. Packs of mammals can quite handily defeat most normal threats in the dungeon up until the Ecumenical Temple. Even after the spell loses its killing power, it is still a cheap and useful means of making a disposable ally -- even having an ally block an enemy for a single turn is enough to let you gain some distance before heading upstairs.
• Summon Small Mammal also comboes well with Inner Flame; having an ally carry the enchantment gives you more control over where the explosion takes place (and therefore more leeway to escape the blast radius).

Monster Version

A single cast will summon 1 to 3 creatures, with duration of around 81 turns. Each summoned creature has 33% chance of being a bat, otherwise it will be either a rat, a quokka, or a river rat with equal chances.

The following enemies cast Summon Small Mammal:

• @ Eustachio
• w Gastronok

History

• Prior to 0.28, this spell had a summon cap of 4.
• Prior to 0.14, this spell could also summon grey rats, and had a summon cap of three.
• Prior to 0.13, this spell could summon multiple creatures, and was known as 'Summon Small Mammals'.
• Prior to 0.12, a more powerful version of the spell known as Vampire Summon was used by vampires, vampire knights, and deep elf summoners. It summoned 3-5 mammals (with orange rats in place of quokkas).
• In 0.6, it was nerfed again, limiting the effect to at most two summoned creatures, and green rats and orange rats were removed from the spell's possible results.
• Prior to to 0.4.3, this spell was affectionately called 'Spammals' for its easy ability to flood your surroundings with allied monsters. The spell was nerfed somewhat for balance reasons.