ravenloftian demi & para-elementals?

[jules]

any more thoughts on the subject?

[ewancummins]

I'm not so sure about quasi-elementals (where the elemental planes touch on the Negative and Positive Energy Planes) working as dread elementals. Positive para-elementals are beings of as much positive energy as elemental matter and might not be susceptible to corruption. Negative para-elementals are often destructive enough that they don't really need dread elemental status to be horrors in their own right.

Ash, dust, salt, and vacuum para-elementals would already be infused with negative energy, so they might not need any further modification. If you think about it, each of those para-elements is already pretty creepy. Ashes and dust are associated with death, salt can represent thirst (and I believe salt para-elementals have some sort of dehydration power) and vacuum is invisible (and silent) yet at the same time almost instantly fatal.

Those are the negative quasi-elements. There are versions presented in Libris Mortis, albeit as undead elementals (how does that work?).

Positive quasielementals could be associated with Ancient Dead, if the Ancient Dead are really connected with the Positive and not Negative plane.

[thekristhomas]

Lightning quasi-elementals were in I10, i think. I don't see that they need a "dread" equivilent, but maybe they heal golem?! I just had an image of Frankie from the Groovy Goolies saying "I needed that"

[thekristhomas]

Just for my own reference:

Elementals
Air
Water
Earth
Fire

Paraelementals
Ice
Ooze
Magma
Smoke

+ Quasielementals
Lightning
Steam
Minerals
Radiance

- Quasielementals
Vacuum
Salt
Dust
Ash

[ewancummins]

Galeros write an article about dread elemental domains and darklords. I contributed some little bit of stuff to it.

But these were the four major dread elemental types.

[thekristhomas]

To take a page from some pseudoscience, I would look to things like aether, ectoplasm, orgone or miasma for inspiration.

Soot, Rime, Ember, Quicksand. Just throwing out some possibilities.

So Rime would be a Ravenloft Ice paraelemental? That sounds cool

I think the idea to create Ravenloft elementals is best when it emphasises the "wrongness" you try to summon a Water Elemental you get a massive blood monster, it's not about "elemental+death/undeath=ravenloft elemental" IMO it's just about spookiness

[ewancummins]

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Im ... &type=card


Good times.

[ewancummins]

MCA note:

Blood elementals are conjured from either large quantities of blood or from water drawn out of the lungs of drowned men.

Grave elementals may be called forth from the soil of graveyards, battlefields with mass burials, etc.

Pyre elementals are called forth from funeral pyres or some other large fire associated with funereal rites.

Mist elementals are the odd one out: they come straight out of the Mists of Ravenloft.

So three out of four are pretty explicitly connected with death.
But the forth one isn't death-related in an overt way. However, Ravenloft Mists are likely an extension of the Border Ethereal, and the Ethereal Plane is a transitive plane associated with ghosts and similar creatures.

[ewancummins]

So let's see...



Paraelementals
Ice
Ooze
Magma
Smoke

+ Quasielementals
Lightning---byproducts of one of Mordenheim's experiments. They were originally standard lightning quasi-elementals but the process by which they entered the Demiplane altered them. These creatures can zap freshly slain animals or humanoids and animate them as zombies, but only for a short time.
Note--unturnable 'zombies', like Yellow Musk Creeper created puppets. When the charge runs down or the tissues and organs are overloaded, the partially reanimated body falls down, scorched and very much dead.


Steam
Minerals
Radiance

- Quasielementals
Vacuum ----
Salt-----conjured from the alchemically refined "essential salts" of a dead man, a Dread Desiccator rises as a withered, salt-crusted image of the deceased person. It's not an undead creature but it may be turned as a special category monster.
Dust---
Ash----


------------

I've added a couple of possibilities. Anybody else got ideas for creation/conjuration and possible modifications of these elemental types?

[thekristhomas]

From a DM with tricksy players they might try to get round the demiplanes influence over their elemental summoning by trying to summon paraelementals, so it's a good idea to have some Ravenloft alternates in the bag.

Rime paraelementals I picture being something used by Meredoth alongside his snow golems, also on ice caught ship wrecks, but thats probably from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" lol

ectoplasm elementals sound terrifying what would the attacks be? save vs possesion/domination on a succesful hit?

miasma elementals stalk the domain of Nosos and occasionally Falkovnia spreading disease

IMC Salt has an effect on ghosts (ala Supernatural) making a Salt elemental a useful (if dangerous) tool for Ghosthunters

As well as appearing in I10 Lightning elementals seem like the kind of thing that would be a side effect of Mordenheims experiments

Completely freestyling here: A Paridoner has recently invented something he calls the "Plumbed Locomotive" by all reports it seems to be a variant iron golem similar to the legendary "Juggernaut" but for pulling trams, but intelligence suggests that it's motive force is supplied by a trapped steam elemental who has become quite mad

I can't help feel that Radiance elementals should either be deadly to vampires (cos it's like sunlight) or cause radiation sickness in humans, or maybe both. The radiation doesn't seem particularly gothic though, Bluetspur? maybe they were summoned to help deal with the vampire illithid problem?

Ravenloft Ash elementals can only be summoned using the remains of a mass funeral pyre which has been extinguished, and contain bone fragments and pieces of unburnt flesh (Sri Raji?)

The dust elementals of G'Henna are summoned by the Priests of Zhakata when hunting heretics in the wastes, they can only be summoned from land which was once farmland whose owners starved to death, which is in ample supply for the priests of that land

I'm struggling to come up with a single idea for either Mineral or Vacuum, whether it's a Ravenloft version, or a way to use the original in a Ravenlofty way, any ideas?

[ewancummins]

I hesitate to drop spoilers for even older stories.
Have you read much Lovecraft?
If so maybe the something like

VIEW CONTENT:

The Colour Out of Space could serve as a model for a Dread Radiance Elemental.

[ewancummins]

From a DM with tricksy players they might try to get round the demiplanes influence over their elemental summoning by trying to summon paraelementals, so it's a good idea to have some Ravenloft alternates in the bag.

Rime paraelementals I picture being something used by Meredoth alongside his snow golems, also on ice caught ship wrecks, but thats probably from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" lol

ectoplasm elementals sound terrifying what would the attacks be? save vs possesion/domination on a succesful hit?

miasma elementals stalk the domain of Nosos and occasionally Falkovnia spreading disease

IMC Salt has an effect on ghosts (ala Supernatural) making a Salt elemental a useful (if dangerous) tool for Ghosthunters

As well as appearing in I10 Lightning elementals seem like the kind of thing that would be a side effect of Mordenheims experiments

Completely freestyling here: A Paridoner has recently invented something he calls the "Plumbed Locomotive" by all reports it seems to be a variant iron golem similar to the legendary "Juggernaut" but for pulling trams, but intelligence suggests that it's motive force is supplied by a trapped steam elemental who has become quite mad

I can't help feel that Radiance elementals should either be deadly to vampires (cos it's like sunlight) or cause radiation sickness in humans, or maybe both. The radiation doesn't seem particularly gothic though, Bluetspur? maybe they were summoned to help deal with the vampire illithid problem?

Ravenloft Ash elementals can only be summoned using the remains of a mass funeral pyre which has been extinguished, and contain bone fragments and pieces of unburnt flesh (Sri Raji?)

The dust elementals of G'Henna are summoned by the Priests of Zhakata when hunting heretics in the wastes, they can only be summoned from land which was once farmland whose owners starved to death, which is in ample supply for the priests of that land

I'm struggling to come up with a single idea for either Mineral or Vacuum, whether it's a Ravenloft version, or a way to use the original in a Ravenlofty way, any ideas?

It looks like we have similar ideas about Lightning.

Vacuum elementals could be entities that entered Ravenloft from Wildpsace, riding aboard a spelljammer.
Invisible, silent creatures that snuff out fires and strangle voices, creeping about a wrecked galleon that rests high atop a mountain?

[thekristhomas]

I've read most Lovecraft, that's a classic

Yes that's a really nice idea with the Vacuum, much better than a humanoid made of hoovers!!

[jules]

Salt elementals probably wouldn't hurt mummies very much as they are already desiccated by the very act of mummification itself.

[ewancummins]

Salt elementals probably wouldn't hurt mummies very much as they are already desiccated by the very act of mummification itself.

I agree.

They are mainly a threat to living creatures.