By casting this spell, the character requests the character's deity to send the character an elemental or outsider (of up to 8 HD) of the deity’s choice. If the character serves no particular deity, the spell is a general plea answered by a creature sharing the character's philosophical alignment. If the character knows an individual creature’s name, the character may request that individual by speaking the name during the spell (though the character might get a different creature anyway).

The character may ask the creature to perform one task for the character, and the creature may request some service in return. The more demanding the character's request, the greater return favor the creature asks for. This bargaining takes at least 1 round, so any actions by the creature begin in the round after it arrives. If the character agrees to the service, the creature performs the task the character requested, reports back to the character afterward (if possible), and returns to its home plane. The character is honor bound to perform the return favor.

A creature may accept some form of payment, such as a magic item, in return for its service. The creature may keep it or may deliver the item to another member of the character's religion somewhere else, where it can help the religion’s cause.

Note: When the character uses a calling spell that calls an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type. For example, lesser planar ally is a fire spell when it calls a fire elemental.