Supernatural Natural Creatures?

[NilsRichter]

Hi,

I was just browsing Druid stuff and stumbled over the wording of "Summon Nature's Ally".

What is the difference between a "natural creature" (which can be summoned) and an "animal" (which seems to be a well-defined creature type)? The SRD also lists Fey, Elementals and Magical Beasts as examples for the spell, which do not seem very "natural" to me. Is this one of these RAW vs RAI things, I have heard about?

Cheers

[Khedrac]

Fey and elementals (and some magical beasts) are all aspects of or linked with Nature as a concept - hence they are what is summoned by the summon nature's ally line of spells.
The list of summonable creatures includes animals (especially for the weaker spells) as they too are closely linked with nature.