The caster opens a gate to Tartarus and releases a dead Titan or Monstrum imprisoned in that horrible place. The Titans were gods in ancient times, but were defeated and imprisoned in Tartarus aeons ago. The dead Titan once had tremendous powers, but the imprisonment in the realm of perpetual pain might have destroyed the mind of the ancient god.

Tartarian Gate is a Conjuration 9 7 ritual which summons one of a number of non-unique tartarians for 10. The unspecified tortures these ancient gods and titans undergo in Tartarus are not pretty; although all tartarians have the potential to be powerful mages, many are feebleminded and most are summoned as units instead of commanders, requiring a Gift of Reason/Divine Name and healing to unlock their full capabilities. Their shattered soul trait cannot be removed and causes them to occasionally do random actions on their own, leaving them unable to take orders.

Due to the difficulties involved in making tartarians useful and the high research and magic path requirement, Tartarian Gate is not usually a threat until the late game. Although tartarians can make good heavy thugs, where they stand out is as an alternative to Elemental Royalty for summoning durable, high-path mages that are difficult to assassinate and can reliably cast critical battlefield spells. When human mages are dying in droves to Flames from the Sky and all the unique summons are gone, tartarians can still be mass produced to bring a supply of big, diverse casters to late game battles.

All tartarians have a 50% chance to be feebleminded and an independent 20% chance to be a commander instead of a unit. They then have a 50% chance of gaining a new affliction (equal odds of major or minor) and continue rolling at 50% odds until an affliction is not gained.¹⁾ Remedying these issues makes most tartarians much more expensive than the 10 price tag would suggest.

Commanderifying a tartarian is as simple as casting Gift of Reason for 20 or Divine Name for 25, but healing feebleminded is slightly more complicated due to tartarians being undead. The following methods will NOT work:

• The Chalice
• The true healer trait on another commander

The following methods WILL work:

• Having a pretender with a recuperation bless and giving the tartarian a Shroud of the Battle Saint (only works on tartarians with a body slot)
• An active, friendly Gift of Health

The usable healing methods are difficult to achieve; the former requires planning for a greedy strategy since the beginning of the game, while the latter means controlling a rather powerful global. Assuming these conditions are fulfilled, however, a tartarian can be made functional for a total price of around 40 gems. This is (in absolute terms) cheaper than the obvious comparison, Elemental Royalty, and tartarians have the potential to be more powerful mages than even the Royalty.

A table of tartarians is included below. As undead, all tartarians have significant cold resistance, poison resistance, spirit sight and a ridiculous amount of hitpoints. They also have fear, being scary gods who have returned from the realm of perpetual pain. The shattered soul trait is similar to insane, but allows more destructive random actions; see the dedicated page for more details. Note that the paths will only be revealed once feebleminded has been removed and the tartarian made a commander.

All tartarians have the following abilities, which will be omitted from the table for brevity:

• Cold Resistance (15)
• Poison Resistance (25)
• Fear (10)
• Shattered Soul (25%)
• Poor Amphibian
• Undead
• Need not Eat
• Spirit Sight

Image	Name	Abilities	Comments
	Tartarian Cyclops	23 Eyes (1)	Magic phase heavy thug that can also support armies with earth buffs and minor air magic.
	Tartarian Cyclops	4 Eyes (1)	Easily capable of casting all the big earth buffs and Earthquakeing enemies. Can thug in a pinch too, though with less panache than its Cloud Trapeze-capable cousin.
	Tartarian Spirit	32 Regeneration (5%) Fear (12) Ambidextrous (5) Mountain Survival	Comes with ambidextrous so it can dual-wield its sick length 4 chains. The death magic allows this tartarian to cast Soul Vortex and be much more dangerous on its own. It also adds a bit of fear, which is nice. Like the cyclopes, it is perfectly capable of army support duty with moderate earth too.
	Tartarian Titan	5300% 200% Female	The female titan is arbitrarily weaker than her male counterpart, similar to the twiceborn equivalent. Still, with a guaranteed 3 random in her primary path and a durable chassis, she is likely to be useful in some capacity. Occasionally she will be 5 in a path!
	Tartarian Titan	7300% 200% 200%	Just like the female titan, the male titan can random every single magic path but gains an additional +2 random. This titan is probably the most exciting option out of the bunch; not necessarily a reliable way to get crucial magic diversity, but packs a lot of magic power in a durable chassis with full equipment slots.
	Tartarian Monstrum	4200% 200% Flying	Has a huge amount of hitpoints, even compared to the other tartarians. Unfortunately it is the only tartarian who can't wear a Shroud of the Battle Saint, and it is definitely not worth summoning tartarians if they can't use magic. It is otherwise quite mobile with flying and has respectable magic paths.
	Tartarian Monstra	6200% 200% 100% 100% Swamp Survival Swimming	A compromise between the titan's magic paths and the monstrum's hitpoints. Unfortunately it is only guaranteed 2 in a path, which is not quite enough to cast big battlefield spells but may allow it to be an effective heavy thug or supercombatant with the right randoms.

Dominions 5 Late-game Strategy: Conjuration by Perun, 29:40 onwards