The art of summoning, as the name implies, brings something from elsewhere to the summoning location. There are several types of summons known. The primary type is creature summoning, which is what most people think of when they think of summoning. There are also special summons that call forth structures such as gates or statues. The use of seals can allow summoning of people, and elaborate seals can be used to summon demons to this realm.
Methods
There are currently only two known methods to summon something. The first method involves using the Kuchiyose no Jutsu technique to summon a creature or structure. Most creatures require a summoning contract to be signed before they are summoned (or at least, summoned more than that first kind) while structure summoning is a still mostly unknown area.
The second method involves creating a seal array designed to summon a specific item - typically a person or a demon - to the seal array. For instance, short range summoning scrolls are frequently used in Konoha's Chunin Exam to punish those that violate directions. Those scrolls are about as feasible as one can make people summoning without substantially more complexity. The other method, used in demon summoning, is to draw the seal array on the ground. Once the design and creation is complete, the array is activated and the target is summoned to the middle of the array.
Types
Creature
Creature summoning is divided into two categories, based on primarily a single criteria. It is unknown where summons live when they aren't summoned - one theory involves a different plane of existence, while another has them living in hidden areas of the world.
Major
Major summon families are some of the largest and most powerful summons in the world. Each Major summon family has a single member that is considered the Boss Summon for the family. The Boss Summon is the most powerful summon a person can pull from the family and it handles leading the family.
Known Major Summons:
Minor
Minor summon families are generally smaller in size and power compared to Major summons. The most distinctive difference is that these families lack a Boss Summon. This does not make them any less useful than Major Summons however.
Known Minor Summons:
Unknown Type
Structures
Summoning structures is a rare and still fairly unknown concept. There are currently only three to four known structure summonings. Two were created by one person, and two are possibly tied to Rinnegan users.
Known Structure Summons:
- Rashoumon
- Sanju Rashoumon
- Rinnegan Summons
Other
Item
The use of seals allows people to store items inside the seal for later use. This has given rise to the use of summon scrolls to carry around large objects without taking up much space. Some items stored in a scroll for later retrieval include puppets, weapons, and just about any inanimate object. While it is technically a summon, most ninja refer to it as sealing and unsealing the items.
