I keep getting asked how I create servitors. I decided to just make a topic laying out my process and you can research/read more about it and decide if what I do is for you. I sort of have a hybrid model. I’ve got a book from Damon Brand on the subject, as well as having taken parts of what I do from other sources and adding my own twists. I take longer than many magicians who follow a more concise method, but for me this seems to work best.
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First I decide what the servitor is supposed to do, or if I am making it for someone else, I ask them what they want their servitor to do. I get really detailed in this step, and usually make notes either in my journal or on a 3x5 note card, putting each task on a separate line. I consider what are my food sources, what is the name, what is the kill switch and what appearance will this servitor have.
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Food/energy sources- You can really let your imagination go here in my opinion. I try to build each servitor with two or more energy sources, so that essentially it keeps running on its own with little intervention or need to check up just to be sure it’s fed properly and not running amuck.
I like to use things such as negative energy surrounding the owner, as a source of sustenance. I will also usually come up with a simple few word phrase, that will feed the servitor automatically when I think the statement. For example the phrase I love you Olive, will immediately transfer energy directly from my self, to that servitor, without the need of fully summoning the servitor from its current task.
- Once I have the majority of the details worked out, I spent time deciding what form/appearance my servitor should take. Once again, your imagination can go wild on this. I like humanoid/animalistic appearances. while others like geometrical shapes, monsters etc. If you can imagine it, you can make it into a servitor.
I’ve even used artwork that I have had commissioned. I like my servitors to take on an appearance that somewhat represents it’s purpose. For example, my daughters servitor appears as a young woman carrying a sword, dressed fully in black and red leather, she was designed to protect my daughter and transmutate negative energy, thoughts and feelings into positive, happy ones.
- For most servitors, I actually create a sketch of their form. I spend time searching for images that I can work with, blend together and make my own form from. I might pull eyes from one image, a nose from the next, an outfit from yet another. I have anphantasia, so I cannot make the picture in my mind myself. I feel like spending time on this step, actually helps bring it to life, gives it energy etc.
Because of my anphantasia, I look for images facing the same direction, or even flip them so that the mirror image is facing the same direction. This helps me get a handle on the angles, perspectives and details that I can’t see in my mind before I sketch.
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This is the step where I begin my sketch. Sometimes I toss two, three or more partial sketches due to my failing to get the right angles and stuff onto paper. I’m using cheap mechanical pencils and a cheap sketch pad I picked up a year ago, and I hate to waste things, so even though it makes it difficult to get a clean sketch, I use what I have till I don’t have it and can get something else.
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This step takes me as long or longer than the first few steps combined. It will take me an average of 2-3 hours to get a rough sketch onto paper, shade it, smudge my shadows for depth etc. Usually about halfway through the sketching process, I find that I begin to have imaginations of interactions with the servitor.
A good example of this is Oisin, the servitor I created for Velenos. I orginally added freckles to his sketch, I thought they were cute. I almost immediately had an impression of the servitor standing in front of me, stamping his feet and pouting about the freckles. I removed them.
The next imagination of this servitor I had, he still showed up freckles. I asked about it, and got the response that he would essentially consider them, as Mom thought they were cute. When I am done with the sketch, I write the servitors name at the top, draw a sigil up and if I am going to digitize the image, I do that next. Most I don’t digitize, but I have a few.
- Next I charge the servitor. Usually I just sit with the image in front of me, allow my imagination to let impressions of situations with the servitor flow and push energy to the servitor. I push the either from either my third eye area, my hands or both.
Lately I have been using a sigil, designed to store energy from a particular activity that I often engage in. I named the sigil, to keep everything well organized, and I have a tab for it in my journal. When I have new servitor that I am working on, I open my journal and change the sigils target to the name of the servitor I am charging. I then place the sigil and the servitors image in my peripheral vision and then intentionally do the tasks that the sigil is to pull energy from. Occasionally I will pause, focus on the servitor a few minutes and push energy from myself into the servitor.
If you are asking an entity to give life to your servitor, or to aid in charging it- this is where I would do it.
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Once I feel the servitor is sufficiently charged for life, I write up it’s stat sheet. This looks something like a dungeons and dragons character card, or a lit-rpg stat sheet. I have a particular way I like to lay it out, and number each line/item as I go. For example: under the servitors name, then the next line looks like this:
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Can by summoned by:
-Name
-Sigil
-Image
-Anything else created to aid in summoning such as an enn. (I’ve only done an enn for one person, at their request, the rest I have not created on for as I feel it’s unnecessary.)
I take my notes, make sure I included all of the details I came up with in the first step, add and amend as necessary. For some servitors, I specify who and what can change their programming and under what conditions. I make sure my Kill Switch is the last line, and include exactly how to activate this switch. For most servitors, my Kill Switch can only be engaged by saying the Kill Switch out-loud, with the the explicit intention of ending the servitors life. I also try to choose three phrases, that I won’t accidentally say, but that I could recall even in an emergency.
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Now I attempt to summon the servitor. Once I get an impression of the servitor, I go over their stat sheet and programming, which I feel like is already embedding into them, as the details are where I started. I don’t write it up until the end, so that it can be easily changed, but I always have all the details and Kill Switch picked out and noted down on scrap paper/note cards before I even begin to sketch the servitor and give it form.
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At this point, I usually note that the servitor seems to be hanging around. I will have impressions of it usually as well. I made a bird for someone on balg, and for three days after I sent him off, I would get impressions of him hopping around my little table that I have sitting near by with supplies for whatever I am doing today on it. Now the servitor can be tasked, bonded with, taught etc.
My process is a little different from most of the ones, if not all of the ones I’ve read about. I am not even 100% sure how it works so well for me, just that it seems to work for me really well.
Examples of one of my servitors (Note you will not be able to summon this servitor more than likely, she is currently tasked with explicit instruction to not respond to anyone not listed in her programming.)
I can get pretty into lit-rpg
