I'm putting together a summoner and it occurred to me that I don't really know how long it takes to summon a spirit say. Does it come to you at the fastest speed it can manage, or is it teleported into your presence? Does it vary by how you summon it?
What kind of Summoner? Hermetic? Goetic? Other?
I am particularly thinking Hermetic magic, but also interested in others if they differ.
Darned if I can find a general guideline, but I should think that in general a disembodied spirit should be able to move as fast or faster than the wind, say up to 40 mph/ 70 kph.
That begs the question of how far the spirit is when summoned. Usually I would think that most spirits would be within an hour or two of travel.
Which leads to some more hypotheticals
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Could you design a spell to teleport the spirit to your location. Since you can do this with people I see no reason why not.
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If a spirit travels to the summoner under their own power, where do they start from? Where would a named spirit from folklore necessarily be? How about someone who has ascended to the hall of heroes? Where is that if the spirit needs to travel? How about an elemental, are they geographically located? I can see this working for an earth elemental but not for a fire elemental.
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If it takes time for the spirit to get to you, does the summoning spell need a duration? The canon spell in TM:RE is duration concentration. If your spirit is travelling from the other side of Europe that could be a long wait.
Most of these things are rituals or require ritual-like time, right? That's certainly true of ReXx rituals to summon spirits and (Spirit) Summoning and other Summoning that uses the same rules for (Spirit) Summoning. Considering non-ritual stuff to move things can move them instantaneously, is there really an issue with saying the spirit arrives right at the end of the spell or ritual?
I assume that most summonings teleport the spirit unless otherwise stated. It's how you get a spirit into a circular ward, for example...
Ramidel has a very good point, if a magus wants to summon a spirit into a ward, he must teleport the spirit inside, otherwise the spirit would never be able to go in.
Ergo, teleportation.