Animus (Sp)

At 2nd level, a Rivethun emissary learns to call down more powerful spiritual servants, using her spirit animal as the focus and conduit to create a hybrid creature called an animus. This ability functions as summon monster IV, except the Rivethun emissary can summon only a single creature at a time (though she can select a different creature each time and can always decide to summon a single creature from a lower-level list). This summoned creature appears in the spirit animal’s location, replaces the spirit animal for the spell’s duration, gains the familiar’s spirit animal ability, and obeys the Rivethun emissary as if it were her spirit animal. An animus typically retains some superficial traits of the spirit animal used as a conduit in its summoning, but gains no other abilities normally associated with a familiar (such as share spells or evolution points). The Rivethun emissary must be within 30 feet of her spirit animal to use this ability.

Rivethun Rivethun The animus remains for 1 round per caster level; it vanishes once this duration expires or it is reduced to 0 or fewer hit points. The spirit animal reappears in the animus’s last location and suffers none of the damage, status effects, or spells affecting the animus when it vanished.

As the Rivethun emissary grows in power and prestige, the effective summon monster spell she can use to conjure an animus improves, as indicated on the table.

The Rivethun emissary can use this ability once per day. At 4th level, she can use it twice per day, and at 8th level, she can use it three times per day.