How Summoning Works

Every hero in Taonere arrives the same way. You open a rift, something on the other side notices, and whatever comes through is yours. You don't pick it. You don't preview it. There is no banner to study, no character you are saving up for. You provoke the space between worlds, and you find out what answered at the same moment they do. [ SUMMONING PROTOCOL ] » What arrives is decided at the moment of arrival. Never before. » It cannot be re-rolled, traded for, or aimed at a target. » It has never existed before and will never exist again. THE PART NO OTHER GACHA DOES Pull the same character twice in any other gacha and the game hands you a duplicate to shred into upgrade material. You already know that character. You have read their story. You are only collecting copies now. Taonere has no shred pile, because Taonere has no duplicates. Every hero is written into existence the moment you summon them — their name, their face, the world they were torn out of, the things they believe, the things they are afraid of, and the specific reason they are willing, or unwilling, to follow you. Nobody in any dimension has that hero. You will never pull them again yourself. And if they die, that is the end of that person. The roster remembers the gap. RARITY IS NOT THE SAME THING AS WORTH A hero who arrives blazing and a hero who arrives quiet came out of the same rift by the same method. The stars measure how much raw power came through with them. They do not measure how interesting that hero is to command, and they do not measure whether that hero will actually do what you say. Plenty of Masters have watched a prize summon argue its way out of an order while the one nobody wanted held the line. [ WHAT COMES ATTACHED ] » A CLASS — the shape their violence takes. Some are common. One is rare enough that most Masters remember the day they first pulled it. » AN AFFINITY — the element that answered alongside them. Some heroes arrive carrying more than one. A few carry something rarer than any element, and those Masters tend not to shut up about it. » AN IDENTITY — alignment, ideals, flaws, fears. This is not flavour text. It is read every single round to decide whether this hero obeys you, and it is the part that will surprise you. The strongest summons skip the common classes entirely and arrive already specialised — the kind of hero who does not exist anywhere else in the game and cannot be built, trained, or promoted into. They can only be summoned. No amount of grinding turns a soldier into one of them. CLIMBING WITHOUT PULLING A hero you already own can still rise, and for most Masters this is where the roster actually grows. The first step up is deliberately classless. A raw recruit has no craft yet, so they do not master one — they advance into one, and which one they advance into is decided by what they actually did out on the floors. Not by an item. Not by you. By the record of who they turned out to be when something was trying to kill them. Every step after that is about deepening the craft they already hold. A thief climbs as a thief. The materials for it are out there in the dark, and the deeper tiers are hunted rather than bought. WHERE TO START The daily summon costs nothing but showing up. And a raw recruit who survives their first descent is worth more to a roster than a spectacular hero who never leaves the lobby. Stars set a ceiling. What a hero becomes underneath it is decided out on the floors, by what they use and what they live through. Open the rift. See what answers.