Well, he could borrow someone else's daeva.

If that's a done thing, sure, he'll look into it. And maybe make another video, if he can figure that out. (He does more searches.)

He can make a video with lots of different software!

Borrowing daeva isn't systematic or anything but if he knows somebody who has one he can ask if the binding allows his test.

He really doesn't know many people yet! He's sure he'll meet someone eventually but it might be faster to figure it out himself.

(More searching: Is there a class he can take on summoning?)

There are! He can take online courses if he has his own circle printer (so the teacher can check his binding and it can go straight to the printer without the possibility of a miswriting). There also exist in-person courses.

A circle printer sounds like something he might want anyway, if they're not surprisingly expensive or prohibitively large. One that can do bigger circles than the ones he's seen so far, if that's an option.

Standard circle printers are six feet wide but he can get paper that's ten feet across and a printer that rolls around on top of it instead of rolling the paper through the device.

Neat! He'll get that one. And look at the in-person classes - he's especially interested in anything that talks about the ethics of summoning but he'll also look at any information they have up about the teachers; it'd be nice to find someone he clicks with, or who teaches other things he might like to learn.

All he qualifies for is entry level classes but he can find teachers who also teach summoning ethics or have published in books like "Summoning and Moral Philosophy".

That might explain some things, if the ethics part is considered advanced. He finds something to sign up for, anyway.

He is now enrolled in Middlesex University Supplemental School's Introductory Summoning with instructor Reg Johnstone, first class Wednesday evening.

Sounds like a plan. Is the blog up to anything interesting?

Somebody wants to know if he's going to write more actual posts or just talk to people in the comments. He has a message from Dogwood saying that they've held back some comments commenting on his personal attractiveness and/or the commenters' likely rhetorical desire to have sex with him but can let them through if he prefers.

...Dogwood shouldn't let anything through that'd be inappropriate for a child to see, by whatever standards of that are in common use here, erring on the side of being a little conservative, but the rest of it can go up.

He makes a post about what kinds of music are common among different species - humans have a whole variety of kinds, elves like long pieces with instrumental accompaniment that can be sung along with while working, gnomes favor experimental art and fables set to music, and he manages with the help of a very good walkthrough to put up a video of him performing a halfling traveling song and some dwarven throat singing, in the latter case clarifying that this is specifically the male mode and a female or nonbinary dwarf would do it differently.

People think it's weird that humans have variety and other species don't. As far as they know fairy and angel music is as varied as human music.

Well, he's not sure what's going on with daeva, but the other species in his world besides humans were made by particular gods with specific ideas in mind of what they should be like; it's not really surprising that they're relatively consistent given that.

That seems weird and oppressive! This one commenter thinks it might be nice to have a purpose like that. This other commenter thinks that reminds her of this TV show.

He's sure it seems weird if you're not used to it. At home, humans are the weird ones, albeit common enough to not be too weird. It's like having a calling, which is indeed pretty nice.

Do most gods make people? Do they make just one kind apiece? Doesn't anybody not like their god?

Most gods don't make people but lots of gods are associated with some species or another anyway; most species have an associated pantheon of up to half a dozen gods along with their creator. It's common for a creator god to make variants of their created species - there's something like half a dozen kinds of elves - but as far as he knows none of them have ever made two distinct ones, except maybe dragons and kobolds but they're apparently related, not separately created species. It's uncommon in most species but not unheard of for someone to not like their species' god; results of that vary depending on the species but it's usually not an especially big deal - gnomes deserve a mention here in particular, it's more common than not for them to claim that their god doesn't exist.

What's up with the pantheons?

The various species of people are made to particular aesthetics, but they've still got more than just one thing going on; the other gods cover other aspects of their lifestyles, or other values or interests that they have aside from the main one, which is usually covered by their creator. For dwarves, for example - their creator, Moradin, is the god of smithing and engineering, their primary concern; his wife Mya is the goddess of clan and family, which is nearly as important to them, and they also have gods of magic item crafting, death, oaths and family obligations, forges specifically, and revelry, all of which are important aspects of dwarven life.

This probably deserves its own post, really. He'll write one tomorrow.

Were the gods doing other stuff before they "formed a band", as one commenter puts it, and invented dwarves?

There's stories about that! They don't all agree on even the major points - elves and dwarves both claim to be the oldest species of people, for example - but they do agree that some of the gods were around for a while before they came up with the idea of mortals, forming alliances and getting into feuds and generally figuring out what to do with themselves. Some of the gods came later - Fharlanghn is relatively young for a major god, though older than humans as a species - and new ones still appear sometimes. He'll put together a post about that, too, or maybe a series of them.

Some of his commenters still think this is a weird promo for a TV show.