Elemental

Elementals are the purest form of what non-scientific peoples consider the basic building blocks of matter. They are intelligent, self-aware entities that are made up of the matter of their home plane. They can be summoned to any plane of existence, except the plane of concordance to their element. For example, summoning a Fire Elemental to the Elemental Plane of Water would take more magical power than mortals can conceivably wield.

Elementals are considered intelligent, yet they see service typically as bound servants or guardians. For example, in the book (NEED TITLE!) Gromph Baenre has a bound Fire Elemental in his magical study, and he uses it as a contigency guardian. This binding grates on the elementals, as they are summoned for a singular purpose. Once that purpose has been fulfilled, they are free to return to their home plane. In some cases, this bondage can span centuries, if not millenia.

Summoning and binding an elemental in this way requires much in the way of personal power. An elemental sensing binding of this manner will fight the caster mentally. If the caster loses this battle of wills, the elemental is free to wreak havoc on the plane it was summoned to. In most cases, the elemental will slay the caster and return to its home plane.

The four main elemental types are fire, water, earth and wind. Certain races are more likely to summon certain types than others. In the book, Homeland, Drizzt Do'Urden witnesses an Earth Elemental summoned by a Sverniblin shaman to protect a mining party from the drow ambush. Salamanders are known to have the ability to request service from Fire Elementals, the Efreet are also known to have these agreements.

The New Elementals
Since the creation of Monster Manual II, four new elemental races have evolved. These include elementals of ooze, lava, steam and ice. Ooze being a mixture of earth and water, lava a mixture of fire and earth, steam a mixture of fire and air, and lastly ice being a mixture of air and water.

See also:

Elemental Plane of Fire

Elemental Plane of Water

Elemental Plane of Earth

Elemental Plane of Air

Paraelemental Plane of Ooze

Paraelemental Plane of Lava

Paraelemental Plane of Steam

Paraelemental Plane of Ice