Summon to Hand

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    When a character has need of his signature weapon, or any other handheld item, he sometimes has the option of summoning it even if it's not nearby. This is usually an explicit power of the item itself, and is probably the most common power in magic weapons after absurd sharpness. Otherwise, it's something that particular character can do via telekinesis. A mundane equivalent can be achieved by attaching a line to the item so that it can be reeled in.

    The target object may teleport to its master's location instantaneously, but more often it will physically fly there, causing a delay between summons and appearance and potentially wreaking havoc to anything that happens to be in the way. The effective range varies.

    Expect overlap with Loyal Phlebotinum and Empathic Weapon, and maybe Clingy MacGuffin. Do not, however, confuse with Hyperspace Arsenal. For a weapon that automatically returns when thrown, see Boomerang Comeback. See also Precision-Guided Boomerang and its one-way equivalent, Throwing Your Sword Always Works.

    If the weapon can fight as well as travel to it's owner then it's a Flying Weapon.

    Examples of Summon to Hand include:

    Examples with summoning as a property of the item:

    Anime and Manga

    • Goemon of Lupin III has been known to keep a hold on his katana with string.
    • As has Jubei of Ninja Scroll.
    • Vash the Stampede of Trigun has done the same with his gun on at least one occasion.
    • Inuyasha's blade, Tessaiga, at least once nearly comes to him in a time of need.
    • This is parodied with Hinagiku summoning the Muramasa blade in Hayate the Combat Butler.
    • Inverted in X 1999, Arashi's sword is summoned out of her open palm when needed.

    Comics

    Fan Works

    • "God's Toothpick", a quarterstaff of Celestial origins owned by Douglas Sangnoir, demonstrates this property several times in the fanfic cycle Drunkard's Walk.

    Literature

    • Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone stories. Elric can summon his sword Stormbringer to his hand from far away.
    • In The Stormlight Archive, if a Shardbearer loses his Shardblade, he can retrieve it by banishing it back to Hammerspace and re-summoning it. Shardblades disappear automatically when the owner drops them unless they will otherwise. They can't be banished from a distance once let go.
    • In Katherine Kerr's Deverry books, the silver daggers that are a badge of a dishonoured warrior are enchanted to make them return to the "true owner" which just happens to be the rather tight-fisted dwarf that made them. The only exception is the one that belonged to Rhodry which follows him around due to a mistake made in removing the other spell on the dagger, which made it glow in the presence of elves.
    • Percy Jackson can do this with his sword Riptide.
      • Well, it's more Summon to Pocket, and it takes a little while.
    • In Harry Potter, a broomstick can be summoned into a wizard's hand by standing over it and saying "Up!" in a clear and commanding voice. There seems to be a knack for this, as most wizards are not able to do it, at least on the first try.
    • In The Kane Chronicles, Carter and Sadie can do this via their "locker" Duat which stores their weapons.
    • Bahzell can do this with his sword in The War Gods series. It is often how he proves he is a Champion of Tomanak.

    Live Action TV

    • Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Dragon Dagger, unless imprisoned, can float to its Ranger's hand. The Megazord's Power Sword descends from the sky.

    Mythology

    • Mjollnir of Norse Mythology is a Precision-Guided Boomerang and may have this power at a standstill as well, depending on your interpretation. The comics and film have continued in this tradition.
    • In Hindu mythological battle epics, the warriors can summon weapons by reciting a shloka. This is usually done under the breath because each weapon has a counter-weapon, and reciting the shloka out loud would put your cards on the table. Of particular note is a super-weapon called Bhrama-Astra that can be obtained by penance. Once the warrior obtains it, he can create it by reciting a shloka.

    Tabletop RPG

    • Dungeons & Dragons
      • Early editions had weapons with lines attached, allowing them to be retrieved after being thrown. They included the aklys (a short weighted club) and the harpoon.
      • The adventure T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil, when the PCs rescue Prince Thrommel. If his broadsword Fragarach is within sight, he can simply speak and it will come to his hand.
      • One of the Ravenloft villains has a cursed bloodthirsty sword that appears in his hand whenever fighting starts. He could get rid of it for good, but counts this as Cursed with Awesome, since he's strong enough to compensate for minor combat disadvantage from the curse and enjoys being in fact armed with a magical weapon even while "disarmed". And is just as bloodthirsty as the sword, for that matter.
      • Forgotten Realms has "Dagger of homing"—mildly enchanted daggers of Waterdhavian origin that reappear in their scabbards after a throw. In novels, Danilo Thann had one until traded away to Elaith.
        • Return of the Archwizards trilogy introduced "darkswords". They were designed as ancestral weapons, so anyone who has a right to wield one can call it into the hand at will. Of course, the wielders abused this property by throwing swords all the time, and these are sharp enough to cut anyone who happened to be on the way when flying back.
        • Wulfgar of The Icewind Dale Trilogy owned a war-hammer called Aegis-Fang. Simply by thinking about it, Wulfgar could recall the hammer to his hand so that he could strike his enemies with it even after he had thrown it at other enemies.
      • In 4th Edition, all magical thrown weapons will return to their owners' hands after an attack, whether successful or not.
    • Champions supplement The Circle and M.E.T.E.. If separated from his bow, Kor Hunter can summon it to him by using his Instant Change ability.
    • Daemon weapons in Dark Heresy may have a rule that states that the weapon may be called into the owners hand at will. Unfortunatly, it also hurts the owner to keep his hands off it, and holding it for a long period of time may result in unpleasant consequences.
    • In Nomine has artifacts with the "summonable" feature.

    Video Games

    • The ancient ZX Spectrum game Kentilla allowed you to do this - saying "Kentilla" teleported the sword to your hand - very handy if you were captured.
    • The Keyblade in Kingdom Hearts teleports back to the wielder if they hold their hand out for it. Possibly via Hammerspace, as that is where it spends a lot of its time and the method for getting it from there is identical. Sora actually uses this to his advantage in the second game where he agreed to give his Keyblade to Jack Sparrow in exchange for his help, and in the first with the Strike Raid limit.[1]

    Web Comics

    • After Quentyn accidentally makes his powerful sword Wildcard in Tales of the Questor, he is told the weapon is bonded to him and that in time he can learn to call it at need. This has not been seen yet though.
      • However it has flown into his hand on its own when he was in danger multiple times.
    • Gunnerkrigg Court: The owner of a blinker stone can make it teleport into their hand with a thought.

    Western Animation

    • The Sword of Omens from Thundercats had this explicit power. "Sword of Omens, come to my hand!"
    • Kim Possible: Ron can literally whistle and go "Magic sword!" and his magic sword will leap into his hand from a distance.
    • Jasmine in the Conan the Adventurer cartoon series had magically enhanced shuriken that would return to her when called.

    Examples of summoning as a power of the individual

    Anime and Manga

    • A common ability in My-HiME and Mai-Otome, where the characters make their weapons or other signature weapons ("Elements" in show terminology) in their grip.
    • The whole point of Requip magic in Fairy Tail, which summons weapons, armor, and clothing from Hammerspace. Erza is the most prominent of this type of mage.

    Film

    Literature

    • From Harry Potter, the Summoning Charm "Accio."
    • Denis Arilan does this with his Deryni powers in The Quest for Saint Camber: "A distracted snap of his fingers brought two empty goblets, floating over from the dishes cleared away after supper, one of which he filled from the flask."

    Live Action TV

    • In Charmed, Prue can make things come to her hand with her telekinetic abilities. Later, Paige has a similar ability, except that with her power, she holds out her hand, says the name of the object, and it teleports to her hand.

    Tabletop RPG

    • Dungeons & Dragons
      • Classic (AD&D1 - D&D3) spell "Drawmij's Instant Summons", preparing an item to teleport from almost anywhere into the caster's hand at any moment later.
      • The 1st Edition legerdemain cantrip Present allowed the caster to summon a small object to his hand from up to 2 feet away.
      • AD&D2 era spell from Dragon (magazine), "Hither" by Ed Greenwood—Instant Summons Lite: level 1 and no components, but limited to non-magical items already on the caster's person (e.g. on the bottom of backpack).
      • In 4E, Swordmages can do this with their bonded weapon.
    • In Earthdawn, the Summon Arrow talent allowed an Archer adept to retrieve arrows that he has fired that are within 100 yards of him.

    Video Games

    • Kain (BO 2) and Raziel (SR, SR2) in Legacy of Kain series can telekinetically make weapons fly right into their hands. It's implied to be natural power of all vampires.

    Visual Novel

    Web Comics

    • In El Goonish Shive Abe either summoned or created objects like "modern garb", shield and variety weapons. Susan was given the ability to summon a limited magical replica of any item she put into a prepared container—it's not very stable, but she can summon another copy. This power got rather hilarious side-effects with an object that itself was a spell effect.
    1. ↑ which consists of throwing the Keyblade repeatedly at the target as it returns to Sora's hand
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