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Elementals were the purest living forms of the four basic elements—air, earth, fire, and water—as well as several other, less common elements. They were intelligent, self-aware entities that were made up of the matter of their home plane. They could 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 took more magical power than mortals could conceivably wield.[citation needed]

Elementals were considered intelligent, yet they saw service typically as bound servants or guardians. For example, Gromph Baenre had a bound fire elemental in his magical study, and he used it as a contingency guardian. This binding grated on the elementals, as they were only summoned for a singular purpose. Once that purpose had been fulfilled, they were free to return to their home plane. In some cases, this bondage could span centuries, if not millennia.[citation needed]

Summoning and binding an elemental in this way required much in the way of personal power. An elemental that sensed binding of this manner would fight the caster mentally. If the caster lost this battle of wills, the elemental was free to wreak havoc on the plane it was summoned to. In most cases, the elemental would slay the caster and return to its home plane.[citation needed]

The four main elemental types were fire, water, earth and air. Races tied to a certain element were much more likely to summon an elemental of that same element. Salamanders were known to have the ability to request service from fire elementals. The efreeti were also known to have these agreements. Svirfneblin had close connections with the Elemental Plane of Earth.[citation needed] A svirfneblin cleric, Belwar Dissengulp, once summoned an earth elemental to protect his mining party from a drow ambush.[5]

Varieties[]

Elementals[]

Para-Elementals[]

Para-elementals were from the paraelemental planes, where the borders of the elemental planes intersected.[7]

Quasi-Elementals[]

Quasi-elementals were from the quasi-elemental planes, where the borders of the pure elemental planes intersected with the energy planes.[8]

Other Elementals[]

Appendix[]

See Also[]

Creatures
Planes

External Links[]

References[]

  1. Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, Christopher Perkins (2014-09-30). Monster Manual 5th edition. Edited by Scott Fitzgerald Gray. (Wizards of the Coast), pp. 123–125. ISBN 978-0786965614.
  2. Mike Mearls, Stephen Schubert, James Wyatt (June 2008). Monster Manual 4th edition. (Wizards of the Coast), pp. 104–105. ISBN 978-0-7869-4852-9.
  3. Skip Williams, Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook (July 2003). Monster Manual v.3.5. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 95. ISBN 0-7869-2893-X.
  4. James Wyatt (October 2001). Oriental Adventures (3rd edition). (Wizards of the Coast), p. 145. ISBN 0-7869-2015-7.
  5. R.A. Salvatore (December 2005). Homeland. (Wizards of the Coast). ISBN 0-7869-3953-2.
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Skip Williams, Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook (July 2003). Monster Manual v.3.5. (Wizards of the Coast), pp. 95–101. ISBN 0-7869-2893-X.
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Monte Cook, ed. (1998). Monstrous Compendium Planescape Appendix III. Edited by Michele Carter and Ray Vallese. (TSR, Inc.), pp. 68–71. ISBN 0-7869-0751-7.
  8. Monte Cook, ed. (1998). Monstrous Compendium Planescape Appendix III. Edited by Michele Carter and Ray Vallese. (TSR, Inc.), p. 78. ISBN 0-7869-0751-7.
  9. Jeff Grubb (December 1987). “Plane Speaking: The (Negative) Quasi-Elementals!”. In Roger E. Moore ed. Dragon #128 (TSR, Inc.), p. 57.
  10. 10.0 10.1 Jeff Grubb (December 1987). “Plane Speaking: The (Negative) Quasi-Elementals!”. In Roger E. Moore ed. Dragon #128 (TSR, Inc.), p. 58.
  11. Gary Gygax (August 1983). Monster Manual II 1st edition. (TSR, Inc), p. 103. ISBN 0-88038-031-4.
  12. 12.0 12.1 Jeff Grubb (September 1987). “Plane Speaking: The (Positive) Quasi-Elementals!”. In Roger E. Moore ed. Dragon #125 (TSR, Inc.), p. 69.
  13. Jeff Grubb (September 1987). “Plane Speaking: The (Positive) Quasi-Elementals!”. In Roger E. Moore ed. Dragon #125 (TSR, Inc.), pp. 68–69.
  14. Jeff Grubb (December 1987). “Plane Speaking: The (Negative) Quasi-Elementals!”. In Roger E. Moore ed. Dragon #128 (TSR, Inc.), pp. 57–58.
  15. Wolfgang Baur (March 1996). “The Dragon's Bestiary: Monsters of the Underdark”. In Pierce Watters ed. Dragon #227 (TSR, Inc.), p. 26.
  16. Kevin Melka, John Terra (March 1995). “Monstrous Compendium”. In Julia Martin ed. Ruins of Zhentil Keep (TSR, Inc.). ISBN 0-7869-0109-8.
  17. Andy Collins, Bruce R. Cordell (October 2004). Libris Mortis: The Book of Undead. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 112. ISBN 0-7869-3433-6.
  18. Matthew Sernett, David Noonan, Ari Marmell and Robert J. Schwalb (March 2006). Tome of Magic 3.5. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 165. ISBN 978-0786939091.
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