Planar Calling and Compulsion

Lesser Planar Binding

A dangerous rite for securing the service of a lesser planar creature—either by modern magical compulsion or by the older sequence of calling, containment and negotiated release.

D&D 5.5e/2024 contains Planar Binding but no separate Lesser Planar Binding, so the first rules panel is an independent CR-limited conversion. Pathfinder 1e and D&D 3.5e preserve the original calling spell, in which an elemental or outsider is drawn into an inward-facing magic circle, allowed several routes of escape and bargained with for one service.

Calling versus summoning
Inward magic circles
CR 6 or 6 Hit Dice
Service and command
Spell Resistance
Escape and dispelling

Lesser Planar Binding spell trapping a planar creature inside a magic circle — A lesser planar creature held within an inward-facing ritual circle while the caster presses the terms of service.

I · Spell Overview

The call, the cage and the command

Bring or hold the creature

The modern conversion does not bring a creature from another plane. An eligible creature must already be present and remain within range throughout the casting. Pathfinder 1e and D&D 3.5e use the spell itself to call an elemental or outsider into a prepared trap.

Keep containment separate

Magic Circle against Evil and its corresponding variants provide confinement. The circle is a separate spell with its own direction, duration, boundary, Spell Resistance interactions and failure points.

Resolve resistance correctly

The D&D 5.5e/2024 conversion uses a Charisma saving throw and has no Spell Resistance procedure. Legacy rules use a Will save to resist the call, then allow specified daily escape methods after the creature appears.

Define service precisely

The modern effect compels obedience for a fixed duration. Legacy service begins only after an opposed Charisma negotiation succeeds and normally ends when the agreed task is completed. In every edition, hostile intelligence makes vague wording dangerous.

II · At the Table

Quick Rules Reference

Resolve the spell in this order, then use only the matching edition panel immediately below for the exact target limit, save, duration, Spell Resistance, concentration and service procedure.

Choose the edition. Do not import Challenge Rating, Hit Dice, Charisma saves, Will saves or Spell Resistance from another ruleset.
Prepare containment. Modern binding usually needs an inverted circle to hold an existing creature. Legacy binding requires an appropriate inward-facing magic circle.
Check the target. The modern conversion permits one Celestial, Elemental, Fey or Fiend of CR 6 or lower. PF1e and 3.5e permit one elemental or outsider of 6 Hit Dice or fewer.
Complete the casting. The modern caster takes the Magic action each turn and maintains Concentration for 10 minutes. Legacy casting takes 10 uninterrupted minutes under its own edition’s rules.
Resolve arrival or binding. Modern: Charisma save at completion. Legacy: Will save to resist being called; Spell Resistance does not prevent the initial arrival.
Resolve containment and escape. Modern: use the active circle or restraint. Legacy: track daily Spell Resistance, dimensional-travel and Charisma escape attempts.
Resolve service. Modern failure compels service for the duration. Legacy service begins only after the caster wins the opposed Charisma check.
Track every spell separately. Binding, magic circle, Dimensional Anchor and any summoning or creation spell have distinct durations and counterplay.

III · Edition-Separated Rules

Lesser Planar Binding Mechanics

The rules below are mechanics compatible for different game editions. Use only the panel matching the campaign’s ruleset. The D&D 5.5e/2024 panel is an independent conversion; the Pathfinder 1e and D&D 3.5e panels retain their own calling terminology, class lists, saving throws, Spell Resistance and negotiation rules.

D&D 5.5e / 2024 Pathfinder 1e D&D 3.5e

Independent D&D 5.5e / 2024-compatible conversion

Lesser Planar Binding — D&D 5.5e / 2024

This conversion follows the official 2024 Planar Binding structure but imposes a CR 6 limit, shortens the casting to 10 minutes and reduces the consumed jewel to 500 GP. It does not replace or alter the official unrestricted spell.

Level: 5th-level Abjuration
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: 60 feet
Components: V, S, M
Material: A jewel worth 500+ GP, consumed
Duration: 24 hours
Target: One Celestial, Elemental, Fey or Fiend of CR 6 or lower
Save: Charisma
Concentration: Required during casting only
Classes: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Warlock, Wizard
Spell Resistance: Not used
Higher Slots: 6th: 10 days; 7th: 30 days; 8th: 180 days; 9th: 366 days

Binding the target

Choose one eligible creature within range. The creature must remain within 60 feet of you for the entire casting. This spell does not summon, create or call a creature; the target must already be present. An inverted Magic Circle is the usual way to confine an unwilling target while the rite is performed.

Because the casting time is 10 minutes, you must take the Magic action on each of your turns and maintain Concentration throughout the casting. If your Concentration is broken, the spell fails, no spell slot is expended and you must start again. The target must remain eligible, within range and behind a clear path for the completed spell to affect it.

When the casting completes, expend the spell slot and consume the jewel. The target then makes a Charisma saving throw against your spell save DC. On a successful save, it is not bound and the spell ends. On a failed save, it is bound to serve you for the duration.

Service and hostile obedience

A bound creature follows your commands to the best of its ability. You can order it to accompany you, guard a place, carry a message, retrieve an object or perform another task it can understand and attempt. The spell grants neither telepathy nor a shared language, and it cannot make an impossible instruction possible.

The target does not gain the Charmed condition and its attitude does not automatically improve. Immunity to Charmed therefore does not by itself prevent the binding. A Hostile creature seeks literal, self-serving or harmful interpretations whenever your wording leaves room to do so.

If the creature completes all your commands before the spell ends, it travels to you to report that fact when you are on the same plane. If you are on another plane, it returns to the place where it was bound and remains there until the spell ends. Completion does not dismiss it early.

Summoned or created creatures

If another spell summoned or created the target, that spell’s duration extends to match this binding’s duration. The originating spell remains a separate ongoing spell.

The extension changes the originating spell’s maximum duration; it does not expressly remove a Concentration requirement. The same caster cannot maintain a summoning spell’s Concentration while also concentrating on this 10-minute casting, so a second caster is normally required when the target comes from a Concentration spell. Unless the GM adopts a different campaign ruling, the originating caster must continue to maintain that Concentration after the binding succeeds.

If the originating spell ends, a summoned or temporarily created creature disappears, returns or otherwise ceases to exist as that spell directs. Lesser Planar Binding controls service but does not independently keep such a creature present.

Ending, dismissing and dispelling

After completion, the spell requires no Concentration. Its caster can dismiss the time-span spell without an action while not Incapacitated. The caster’s death or absence does not automatically end an undismissed binding.

Dispel Magic can end the binding. Because this is a 5th-level spell, the 2024 spellcasting-ability check is DC 15. Casting Dispel Magic with a higher-level slot does not remove that check under the 2024 wording.

If Dispel Magic targets the creature, resolve a separate check for every ongoing spell of level 4 or higher on that target. One casting can therefore attempt to end both the binding and a separate summoning or creation spell, but each effect is checked independently.

Higher slots and repeated castings

The duration increases to 10 days with a 6th-level slot, 30 days with a 7th-level slot, 180 days with an 8th-level slot and 366 days with a 9th-level slot. The CR 6 limit never increases.

Multiple castings of this spell on the same creature do not combine. The most potent applicable casting governs; if the castings are equally potent, the most recent governs while their durations overlap. An older casting can still resume governing after a newer one ends if the older duration has not expired.

Pathfinder 1e rules summary

Planar Binding, Lesser — Pathfinder 1e

School: Conjuration (calling) [see text]
Levels: Arcanist 5, Medium 4, Occultist 5, Psychic 5, Sorcerer 5, Summoner 4, Unchained Summoner 5, Wizard 5
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Components: V, S
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One elemental or outsider with 6 HD or fewer
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: No and Yes; see text

Prepare the inward trap

Prepare an appropriate magic circle focused inward and place the fixed trap within the spell’s Close range. For a nongood target, use Magic Circle against Evil; use the corresponding circle variant when another alignment requires it. Begin the 10-minute calling spell within 1 round of completing the circle as the practical resolution of the circle’s timing requirement.

State the kind of elemental or outsider to be called. Calling a particular individual requires that creature’s proper name. The chosen creature cannot have more than 6 Hit Dice.

Will save and initial calling

The target makes a Will save. Success resists the spell. Failure immediately draws it into the prepared trap. Spell Resistance does not prevent this initial calling, which accounts for the “No” part of the spell’s Spell Resistance entry.

The calling is instantaneous. Once the creature has arrived, Dispel Magic cannot reverse the call or send it home. The circle and any Dimensional Anchor remain separate ongoing spells and can be dispelled through Pathfinder 1e procedures.

Containment and daily escape attempts

An ordinary inward-facing circle can contain the called creature for no more than 24 hours per caster level. A creature too large to fit is not bound by the inward trap. Breaking the powdered-silver boundary ends the circle immediately; the prisoner cannot disturb it directly or indirectly, but another creature can.

After appearing, the creature can try each of the following methods once per day:

Spell Resistance: test its Spell Resistance against your caster-level check. If you fail to overcome the resistance, it escapes and destroys the ordinary circle.
Dimensional travel: use plane shift, teleportation or comparable movement that the ordinary trap does not block. A successfully applied Dimensional Anchor prevents this route.
Charisma escape: succeed on a Charisma check against DC 15 + half your caster level + your Charisma modifier.

If the creature breaks free, it can flee or attack. An ordinary circle prevents physical crossing but permits the prisoner’s ranged weapons, spells and magical abilities to cross its boundary.

Special calling diagram

A hand-drawn special diagram takes 10 minutes and a secret DC 20 Spellcraft check. An unpressured caster can take 10; taking 20 requires 3 hours 20 minutes.

The prisoner cannot use Spell Resistance against a successful diagram.
None of the prisoner’s attacks or abilities can cross it.
The Charisma escape DC increases by 5.
Dimensional Anchor can be cast on the circle in the round before the calling spell and then lasts as long as the circle.
Any outside disturbance of the diagram, even a straw laid across it, releases the creature immediately.

Negotiating one service

Describe one service and any offered reward, then make a Charisma check opposed by the creature’s Charisma check. Apply a +0 to +6 bonus to your check according to the nature of the service and the value or suitability of the reward. If the creature wins, it refuses.

You can make a new offer or repeat an old one every 24 hours.
Impossible demands and unreasonable commands are never accepted.
If you roll a natural 1 on your Charisma check, the creature immediately breaks free and may escape or attack.
A clever creature can obey the wording while subverting the intended result.

Completion, return and open-ended service

When the agreed service is complete, the creature need only inform you and is instantly returned whence it came. It may remember the coercion and seek revenge later.

If the assigned task is open-ended and cannot be completed through the creature’s own actions, the binding can last no longer than 1 day per caster level. The creature immediately receives another chance to break free with the same chance to resist that applied when it was trapped.

Calling consequences and descriptors

A called creature is physically present. It does not disappear merely because the circle is dispelled, and if it is killed, it actually dies rather than reforming as a summoned creature would.

The spell gains the air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful or water descriptor when the called creature has the corresponding nature specified by the Pathfinder rule.

D&D 3.5e SRD-compatible rules summary

Planar Binding, Lesser — D&D 3.5e

School: Conjuration (Calling) [see text]
Level: Sorcerer/Wizard 5
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Components: V, S
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels); see text
Target: One elemental or outsider with 6 HD or fewer
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: No and Yes; see text

Calling procedure

Prepare an appropriate inward-facing magic circle within the spell’s Close range. For a nongood creature, use Magic Circle against Evil; use the corresponding alignment variant for another target. Begin the 10-minute casting within 1 round of completing the circle as the practical resolution of the legacy timing language.

State the kind of elemental or outsider to be called. A specific creature requires its proper name. The target must have no more than 6 Hit Dice.

Will save and Spell Resistance

The target makes a Will save. Success resists the call; failure draws it immediately into the trap. Spell Resistance does not block that initial arrival.

Once trapped, the creature can test each escape route once per day: its Spell Resistance against your caster-level check, dimensional travel, and a Charisma check against DC 15 + half your caster level + your Charisma modifier. A successful Dimensional Anchor prevents dimensional escape.

Circle and diagram

The ordinary inward circle can hold the called creature for no more than 24 hours per caster level. A creature too large for the area is not trapped. The prisoner cannot disturb the powdered-silver boundary directly or indirectly, but another creature can break it. Ranged weapons, spells and magical abilities can cross an ordinary circle.

A hand-drawn special diagram takes 10 minutes and a secret DC 20 Spellcraft check. Take 10 when unpressured, or take 20 in 3 hours 20 minutes. A successful diagram prevents the prisoner from testing Spell Resistance against the circle, blocks all its attacks and abilities from crossing, raises its Charisma escape DC by 5 and allows Dimensional Anchor to be cast on the circle during the round before the calling spell. Any outside disturbance releases it.

Service check

Describe one service and any reward, then make a Charisma check opposed by the creature’s Charisma check. Apply the rule’s +0 to +6 adjustment to your check according to the nature of the service and reward. If the creature wins, it refuses. You may make new or repeated offers every 24 hours.

An impossible or unreasonable demand is never accepted. If your opposed check is a natural 1, the creature breaks free and can flee or attack. Exact wording matters because an intelligent recipient can subvert an instruction without openly violating it.

End of service

After completing the service, the creature informs you and is instantly returned to its place of origin. An open-ended task beyond the creature’s own ability lasts no more than 1 day per caster level and grants an immediate new escape attempt.

Dispelling, death and descriptors

The completed calling is instantaneous, so Dispel Magic cannot undo it. A targeted Dispel Magic can still end the circle or Dimensional Anchor by making the D&D 3.5e caster-level check of 1d20 + caster level, maximum +10, against DC 11 + the effect’s caster level.

A called creature is physically present and actually dies if killed. The spell gains the air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful or water descriptor appropriate to the creature called.

Edition differences at a glance

Rule element	D&D 5.5e / 2024 conversion	Pathfinder 1e	D&D 3.5e
What the spell does	Binds an eligible creature already present.	Calls a creature from another plane, then negotiates service.	Calls a creature from another plane, then negotiates service.
Target limit	One Celestial, Elemental, Fey or Fiend of CR 6 or lower.	One elemental or outsider of 6 HD or fewer.	One elemental or outsider of 6 HD or fewer.
Initial defence	Charisma save at completion.	Will save to resist the call.	Will save to resist the call.
Spell Resistance	Not used.	Does not stop arrival; later supports a daily escape attempt.	Does not stop arrival; later supports a daily escape attempt.
Service	Compelled for a fixed duration after a failed save.	Begins only after the caster wins an opposed Charisma check.	Begins only after the caster wins an opposed Charisma check.
Completed spell	Ongoing, dismissible and dispellable.	Calling is instantaneous; containment remains dispellable.	Calling is instantaneous; containment remains dispellable.
Proper name	Not required.	Required to call a specific individual.	Required to call a specific individual.
Return	No automatic dismissal at early completion.	Instant return after the agreed service is reported complete.	Instant return after the agreed service is reported complete.

IV · Adjudication

Rules Clarifications and Edge Cases

Does Lesser Planar Binding itself create the creature?

Only in the legacy editions, and even there it calls rather than summons. Pathfinder 1e and D&D 3.5e transport the actual creature into the trap after a failed Will save. The modern conversion affects only an eligible creature already within range.

Is a Magic Circle mandatory?

Yes for the PF1e and D&D 3.5e calling procedure: the spell explicitly requires a prepared inward-facing circle. The modern conversion does not list a circle as a formal component, but an unwilling target must remain within 60 feet for the full 10 minutes. An inverted circle, secure chamber or other restraint is therefore normally essential.

What happens when the target is too large for the circle?

The circle’s rules control containment. A legacy creature too large to fit within the inward circle is not trapped by it. In modern play, use the actual 10-foot-radius, 20-foot-high Cylinder created by Magic Circle; Lesser Planar Binding does not enlarge the ward.

Can the prisoner attack through the circle?

An ordinary legacy inward circle is not a solid wall: ranged weapons, spells and magical abilities can cross, although the prisoner cannot reach across or attack the circle itself. A successful special diagram blocks the prisoner’s attacks and abilities. The modern Magic Circle imposes its listed attack and condition protections but does not grant total cover.

Does Dimensional Anchor stop every escape method?

No. In Pathfinder 1e and D&D 3.5e it closes the dimensional-travel route, but it does not stop the daily Spell Resistance test or Charisma escape check. In modern play, follow the independent Dimensional Anchor conversion; it limits magical travel rather than ordinary movement.

Can Dispel Magic send a legacy called creature home?

No. The legacy calling has instantaneous duration. Dispelling the circle removes containment, and dispelling Dimensional Anchor restores magical travel, but neither action reverses the completed call. A separate dismissal, banishment or negotiated release is needed.

Does a 2024 target’s Charmed immunity protect it?

No. The conversion does not impose the Charmed condition. The creature relies on its Charisma saving throw and any feature that applies to saving throws against spells or magical effects.

What if the modern target is invalid?

If the target has the wrong creature type or exceeds CR 6 when the casting completes, it is an invalid target. Under the 2024 invalid-target rule, the slot is still expended and the creature appears to have succeeded on its save when the spell would normally have no effect after a successful save.

Can a command force self-destruction?

The modern creature must follow commands to the best of its ability, but the spell does not let it perform an impossible act or understand undefined instructions. Legacy creatures never agree to impossible or unreasonable services. In every edition, adjudicate the exact words and the creature’s intelligence rather than inventing obedience beyond the spell.

What happens if the caster dies?

A completed modern binding requires no Concentration, so the caster’s death does not automatically end it. Legacy calling and an accepted service also continue according to their terms, while the circle and anchor continue only for their remaining durations. The death of the person who could clarify an ambiguous command may make the situation more dangerous.

Why does the circle say the calling spell must follow within 1 round when the spell takes 10 minutes?

The legacy texts create a timing conflict. The workable table ruling is that the caster must begin the 10-minute Planar Binding casting within 1 round of completing the inward circle. Requiring the spell to finish within that round would make the printed combination impossible.

V · Combinations and Counters

Build the trap, close the exits, protect the wording

Magic Circle against Evil

The defining partner. Modern play normally inverts the circle to hold an existing creature during the casting. Legacy play requires an appropriate inward circle as the receiving trap. Its boundary, duration and vulnerabilities remain independent of the binding.

Dimensional Anchor

The specialised answer to teleportation and planar escape. It does not stop Spell Resistance, Charisma escape, physical attacks or an outside creature from damaging a legacy diagram. The modern page presents it as an independent 2024-compatible conversion.

Dispel Magic

Against the modern conversion, target the ongoing binding and make the 2024 DC 15 check. Against PF1e or D&D 3.5e, dispel the ongoing circle or anchor; the instantaneous calling remains. Always use the matching edition’s dispel procedure.

Stronger binding tiers

Planar Binding and Greater Planar Binding extend the legacy family to more powerful creatures and larger Hit Dice totals. Do not increase this spell’s 6 HD cap merely because the caster level is high.

Practical counterplay

Interrupt the casting

In 2024 play, damage, incapacitation or another concentration-breaking event can end the 10-minute casting before the slot is spent. Moving the target beyond 60 feet or behind Total Cover before completion also defeats the attempt.

Break the boundary

Legacy circles depend on an intact physical line. A servant, familiar, infiltrator, falling object or environmental disturbance can release the prisoner even when the creature cannot touch the circle itself.

Attack the correct effect

A circle, anchor, summoning effect and completed modern binding can coexist. Identify which effect keeps the creature present, confined or obedient, then resolve Dispel Magic against that effect under the active edition.

Exploit language

A hostile planar intelligence does not become foolish. Ambiguous destinations, undefined deadlines, conflicting priorities and careless permissions can turn apparent obedience into sabotage.

VI · Campaign and World Consequences

Why lesser binding still changes a world

Proper names become strategic assets

In Pathfinder 1e and D&D 3.5e, a particular individual can be called only by its proper name. Archives, stolen catalogues, inherited grimoires and deliberately false names become matters of intelligence and counterintelligence.

Dedicated chambers become infrastructure

Reliable callers need undisturbed floors, measured circles, secure sight lines, vetted assistants and safeguards against ranged retaliation. A binding room is closer to a fortified laboratory than a casual spellcasting space.

Planar retaliation outlives the service

Neither a failed save nor a won Charisma check erases memory. Repeated coercion can create personal vendettas, hostile planar policy, rescue attempts and mortal agents seeking the caster’s diagrams or proper name.

Material cost limits modern practice

The modern conversion consumes a 500 GP jewel whenever the casting completes. Access to suitable gems limits routine use, encourages specialised trade and gives enemies a clear logistical point to disrupt.

Service is not loyalty

A compelled creature may obey while preserving its own goals. A legacy creature may accept because the reward is useful, because escape has failed or because the offered task advances a larger plan.

Ethics become visible

Binding an intelligent being by force is a political and moral act, even when the target is dangerous. Courts, guilds, cults and planar powers may judge the caster by whom they bind, why they do it and what service they demand.

VII · Adventure Design

Adventure Hooks

Each hook turns a specific rule—range, proper names, daily escape attempts, separate spell durations or twisted commands—into the centre of play.

The Sixth Hit Die

A supposedly legal target arrives with an unexpected advancement, template or hidden nature that places it above the spell’s limit. The circle holds something, but the thing inside may not be the creature the summoner named.

The Name in Two Hands

Two rival grimoires give different proper names for the same outsider. One is an alias; the other belongs to a far more dangerous relative who has been waiting to hear it spoken inside a prepared trap.

Ten Minutes of Silence

The characters must protect a modern caster through the full binding while enemies attack the chamber, the target bargains from inside the circle and every serious blow threatens Concentration.

The Daily Test

A legacy prisoner has failed every escape method for weeks. Tonight its Spell Resistance succeeds, and the only warning is a ward-keeper’s interrupted report from inside the supposedly secure complex.

The Completed Command

A bound creature reports that its task is finished, but the result is catastrophic. It obeyed every word and used the most destructive interpretation available. The party must prove whether the disaster was malice or exact compliance.

Dispel the Right Layer

A planar creature is present through one spell, trapped by a second, anchored by a third and commanded by a fourth. The characters have one Dispel Magic and seconds to identify which effect matters most.

VIII · Historical and Occult Development

From written binding to the conjurer’s circle

Historical magical practices did not operate as a single continuous system and do not demonstrate that fantasy planar calling was real. The spell instead combines recurring motifs: powerful names, written constraints, marked ritual space, spirit invocation and the danger of exact wording.

Late-antique magical handbooks

The Greek Magical Papyri preserve ritual instructions from Roman-period Egypt involving names, signs, material preparations, attraction, protection and binding. British Library Papyrus 121 is a fourth-century magical handbook containing rites for purposes ranging from healing to coercive attraction.

British Library: binding language and magical signs in the Greek Magical Papyri

Pentacles and spirit-calling manuals

Early-modern ritual manuscripts systematised circles, pentacles, powerful names, consecrated tools and procedures for calling spirits. Harley MS 2267, copied in 1600, contains sections on binding people or things, making pentacles and calling spirits.

British Library: Harley MS 2267, a manual of ritual magic

The circle as a recognisable image

By the nineteenth century, the conjurer standing inside a marked circle while dangerous beings gather around it had become a familiar visual shorthand. An 1813 engraving after William Marshall Craig shows a wand-bearing conjurer, fire and demons arranged around a magic circle.

Wellcome Collection: conjurer within a magic circle, 1813

From invocation to game procedure

Fantasy roleplaying turns these motifs into a sequence that can be adjudicated: establish a boundary, identify the being, bring it into the prepared space, close exceptional escape routes and define the service. The danger comes from treating any one step as sufficient on its own.

IX · Mythological Parallels

Divine prisoners, chained powers and contained winds

These stories are thematic parallels rather than direct historical sources for the game spell. They share its central idea that a supernatural being or force can be confined, compelled or released through a particular boundary.

Ares in the bronze jar

In Greek myth, the Aloadae giants Otus and Ephialtes imprison Ares in a bronze vessel for thirteen months until Hermes rescues him. The episode closely parallels the spell’s warning that supernatural power does not guarantee freedom once a prison holds.

Theoi: the Aloadae and the imprisonment of Ares

Prometheus bound

Prometheus is chained as punishment, while his intelligence and defiance survive physical confinement. The story offers a strong model for a prisoner who remains articulate, dangerous and politically significant despite secure bonds.

Theoi: Prometheus and his binding

Aeolus and the bag of winds

Aeolus gives Odysseus a sealed bag containing the dangerous winds. When the seal is opened, the released powers overturn the voyage. The image resembles an elemental binding whose safety depends on an intact container and disciplined assistants.

Theoi: Aeolus and the confined winds

The dangerous bargain

Stories of compelled supernatural service repeatedly turn on names, prohibitions, gifts and literal promises. Lesser Planar Binding makes that narrative structure mechanical: identity determines the target, the boundary creates leverage, and wording determines whether service becomes aid or revenge.

X · Sources and Compatibility

Rules basis and related spell references

The three rulesets remain separate throughout the page. The modern version is expressly identified as an independent conversion, while the two legacy panels preserve their own target limits, saves, Spell Resistance, calling diagrams, opposed Charisma checks and instantaneous calling.

Primary rules references

Related spells and creature rules

Compatibility: D&D 5.5e/2024 mechanics are independently adapted from the official modern Planar Binding framework. Pathfinder 1e and D&D 3.5e rules are presented as edition-specific summaries of their respective open rules references.

Licensing: D&D 3.5e rules references derive from Open Game Content under the Open Game License v1.0a. Current D&D SRD material is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Pathfinder rules references are attributed to Paizo’s official Archives of Nethys resource. Product names and trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.