Does a created or summoned creature have an ability to spawn or summon another one?

Question

Let's consider I am a Pale Master. I created a wraith.

Those undead have this ability:

Create Spawn (Su): Any humanoid slain by a wraith becomes a wraith in 1d4 rounds. Its body remains intact and inanimate, but its spirit is torn free from its corpse and transformed. Spawn are under the command of the wraith that created them and remain enslaved until its death. They do not possess any of the abilities they had in life.

So, If I will create a wraith and it kills someone, I will control two wraiths? If I command the original wraith to help me using the one it created, would it work?

Answer 1

OK, so there are two aspects of this that can go one of two ways:

1. Your minion can be summoned, or else called, created, or whatever else.

2. Your minion can summon, or else call, create, or whatever else, its own minion.

Summoning

As you can see, in both cases the difference is “summon” versus “something else.” This is because summoning has a particular rule:

A summoned creature cannot use any innate summoning abilities it may have

That means if you use summon monster V to summon a bearded devil, that bearded devil could not use its summon devil spell-like ability. By the same token, if you are fighting a real bearded devil, it can use its summon devil ability to summon another bearded devil (35% chance of success), but the second one cannot use its summon devil ability at all.

Anything else

For everything else, unless it explicitly says otherwise, this rule does not apply.

If you create your minion without summoning (e.g. lesser planar binding, animate dead, and so on), then you have the real deal and that minion is able to use its own summoning abilities.

For instance, if you use lesser planar binding for a bearded devil, you get the real thing, not a summon. This is because lesser planar binding is a Calling effect, instead of a Summoning effect. The called bearded devil can use its summon devil ability just fine; its summoned bearded devil, however, cannot.

If you have a minion with a non-summoning form of creating minions (e.g. create spawn), then that minion can use that ability, whether it was summoned or not. So a shadow can use its Create Spawn ability, regardless of whether it was summoned via summon undead V (Spell Compendium) or created permanently via create greater undead.

Delegation

Assuming you control your minion, and your minion controls its minions, you can effectively control your minion’s minions by ordering your minion to control them in particular ways. However, you do not have direct control over these minions, which means if your minion that you were using as an intermediary is removed from the picture, you have no control over its minions.

So, if you did summon undead V for a shadow, and it used Create Spawn, and then summon undead V’s 1 round/level duration ran out, you’re left with a spawned shadow that you have absolutely no control over.

Answer 2

No, summoned monsters can't summon other monsters.

According to Summon Monster I:

A summoned monster cannot summon or otherwise conjure another creature, nor can it use any teleportation or planar travel abilities.

Yes, spawned creatures can spawn other creatures.

There is no rule that I am aware of that if [you] create spawn, the creature you spawn that is also capable of creating spawn, can create [their own] spawn; unless specifically noted in their entries as such. It isn't a stretch of the imagination and thematically makes sense. You create an empire - your empire creates mini-empires. You would ultimately be in charge overall, but not in direct control of those 'lesser' creatures.

According to the Vampire entry:

A vampire that is enslaved may create and enslave spawn of its own, so a master vampire can control a number of lesser vampires in this fashion.

According to the Shadow entry:

Any humanoid reduced to Strength 0 by a shadow becomes a shadow under the control of its killer within 1d4 rounds.