Variant Elemental Cosmology

[Nifft]

Summonable Elemental Critters:
Note that the actual numbers -- ammount of damage done, level of resistance, DR, etc. -- are to be filled in according to the size and HD of the critter summoned.

Wood:
Attack Types: Piercing (thorns), Organic Poison, Slashing (razorvine), Bludgeoning
- Acid, Cold Resistance
- Extra DR vs. Piercing

Ash:
Attack Types: Bludgeoning, Fire (magma or smoke), Inorganic Poison, Suffocation
- Fire Resistance
- Extra DR vs. all attacks OR Incorporeal (Smoke)

Ooze:
Attack Types: Acid, Suffocation, Bludgeoning, Organic Poison
- Acid Immunity
- Bludgeoning Immunity

Storm:
Attack Types: Electricity, Sonic (Thunder)
- Electricity Immunity
- Incorporeal

Ice:
Attack Types: Slashing, Piercing, Cold, Ranged (Hail)
- Cold Immunity, Fire Vulnerability
- Extra DR vs. Slashing & Piercing

Fire:
Attack Types: Fire, Bludgeoning, Piercing
- Fire Immunity, Cold Vulnerability
- Electricity Resistance

Earth:
Attack Type: Bludgeoning, Tremor
- Resistance to All Elements
- Extra DR vs. Slashing

Water:
Attack Types: Sonic (in liquid only), Suffocation, Cold, Fire (Steam)
- Resistance to Fire, Cold and Electricity
- Extra DR vs. All Attacks

Air:
Attack Types: Sonic, Ranged (Hail), Whirlwind (Bludgeoning)
- Resistance to Electricity, Cold and Acid
- Incorporeal

-- Nifft

 

[Khorod]

Just some quick reactions:

Wood:
1. Cold Resistance: Some plants have extreme reactions to great cold, causing them to burst.
2. A cool special attack would be planting an elemental seed in soil, or flesh, and having it grow over a period into a tiny Wood elemental. I can see such a thing as most likely to be bound as a familiar of all the options.

Ash:
1. If it is smoke, maybe it should have a vulnerability to wind effects- x miles per hour that would temporarily ruin its coordination, or completely disperse it for 1d4 hours.

Ooze:
1. Must it necessarily be organic?
2. Special Attack: Touch and your liquified.
3. I think it should be bludgeoning immunity. If a club is going to damage this thing, its all in the flaming property, or the Ooze-bane, or whatever.

Ice:
1. SA: Mist- by freezing the surrounding air, the Ice elemental can surround itself by a chill Obscuring Mist.

Earth:
1. SA: Cause Tremor/Control Earth.
2. SQ: One with the Stone: When detached from the ground, the Earth elemental looses many of his immunities.

Water:
1. Explain Sonic. I suspect I understand this already. I think it might be a little too subtely scientific for a game system- you already have two other elemental that do sonic.
2. Why does Fire have bludgeoning but not water?

Air: Can't think of any.

 

[Nifft]

Wood:
1. Cold Resistance: Some plants have extreme reactions to great cold, causing them to burst.
2. A cool special attack would be planting an elemental seed in soil, or flesh, and having it grow over a period into a tiny Wood elemental. I can see such a thing as most likely to be bound as a familiar of all the options.

"Cold" has a lot of power over Fire and Ash -- Wood digs deep into the Ice plane, so in my cosmology this makes sense. Real trees survive many winters -- sap is less vulnerable than blood. Your other idea sounds a little too long-term to be effective in battle.

Ash:
1. If it is smoke, maybe it should have a vulnerability to wind effects- x miles per hour that would temporarily ruin its coordination, or completely disperse it for 1d4 hours.

Ash(Smoke) and Storm Elementals are vulnerable to strong winds, just as someone in Gaseous Form would be.

Ooze:
1. Must it necessarily be organic?
2. Special Attack: Touch and your liquified.
3. I think it should be bludgeoning immunity. If a club is going to damage this thing, its all in the flaming property, or the Ooze-bane, or whatever.

Ice:
1. SA: Mist- by freezing the surrounding air, the Ice elemental can surround itself by a chill Obscuring Mist.

Ooze: 1.Yes, Ooze is proto-plant organic matter. Acid is a strong enough attack.
2. That's what Acid does, but it takes longer. Suffocate gives a pretty quick death though.
3. Sure, makes sense.

Ice: Nice flavor

Earth:
1. SA: Cause Tremor/Control Earth.
2. SQ: One with the Stone: When detached from the ground, the Earth elemental looses many of his immunities.

Water:
1. Explain Sonic. I suspect I understand this already. I think it might be a little too subtely scientific for a game system- you already have two other elemental that do sonic.
2. Why does Fire have bludgeoning but not water?

"Water: Sonic (in liquid only)" means that a Water Elemental can use a Sonic attack against a target only if both are in the same body of liquid. "Sonic" energy is a concussive attack -- sort of "ranged bludgeoning" damage -- available to creatures in the same element.

Given that definition, Earth Elementals should also have a "Sonic" attack -- but I'll call it "Tremor" because that sounds cooler

-- Nifft

 

[Moonsword]

<goggles in pleasant awe> Cool!

 

[Nifft]

Okay, now for more on 5d. You'll recall that, in 4d, every point (x,y,z) on a sphere N led to a sequence of similar points on an infinite number of other spheres, in order (in one direction) of N+1, N+2, N+3 and N-1, N-2, N-3 (in the other direction).

We can compress this notation to (x,y,z,N) to specify a unique point in 4d space.

For 5d space, we picture an infinite number of rows and columns, each containing a 3d sphere. Now each sphere has a 2d coordinate designating its location, and each point within each sphere has a 3d coordinate (x,y,z). To specify a unique point, we could use (x,y,z,M,N).

That's the "mathish-intuitive" explanation.

As for implications, consider this: at every point on a sphere, there are two co-existant 3d coordinate systems, sharing an one dimension ("up"). When a character on a sphere coordinate system at (x,y,z) turns to the other coordinate system, she finds herself on a plane (M,N,z) -- literally a plane, an infinite* expanse of surface. The character can traverse the plane and then return to sphere coordinates (x,y,z) on a different sphere.

This allows for a more "conventional" experience, while preserving the "ecological" interpretation and dynamic. Thus the need for 5d -- it's not just to be confusing, I promise!

-- Nifft

* My conception of the Elemental Planes isn't exactly infinite, but it's close enough for moral minds.

 

[Nifft]

The Timeless

Imagine a timeless infinity, where thought is movement, inspiration is creation and every moment from the past and future exist in harmony forever.

Imagine that timeless place burning faster than you can run, riven at the speed of light. Imagine the world crushed at its most basic building block by an ever-breaking wave which twists, flattens and shatters everything you have known. Imagine waking up in a cage, being dragged by your wings of thought by an oppressive force, ever yanking or kicking you where it wishes -- and always in the same direction, toward an unknown fate, while the thread of your mind is slashed senseless.

It is no wonder the Timeless hate us. Our reality is the death of everything they knew, and each relentless tick of our clocks rips through a nearly infinite expanse of their homeland. They are what exists outside time and space, and when the potential of each moment collapses into one solid reality, it collapses upon them.

Some of them linger, caught in the eddies of our time-stream by an event of great moment. They power the loathing of ghosts, the spite of shadows, the hungry hate of ghouls. It is said that they whisper in they ears of the dying... but no-one living knows what.

They are called the Timeless, the Void, or the Shadows.


The Timeless Void

It is the shadow of the possible.
It is the void which exists between one moment and the next.
It is an ever-renewed eternal stasis, melted by the perceptual needs of those who would use it for travel.

(The rest is just like the Shadow Plane from WotC's MotP.)

-- Nifft

 

[Khorod]

I understand what you are going with the water & sonics, but for much the same reason as you call Earth-sonics tremor, I think water-sonics lacks flavor, for all of its science.

I've always like the idea of a water elemental owning you when under the sea, but I have always pictured it as things it would use the water to do- more like Abyss.


The shadow plane is pretty cool. Coming even farther from the time-angle I've come up with vaguely similar idea. More cool stuff there.

So the plane of shadows consists of all our unrealized future realities, and as we set the past and present in stone, it ever so slowly rends and reduces that other plane. At the End of Time, would that make it a totally empty void, or would it cease to exist, having merged with the material planes? (I ask that only 'cause its an interesting epic plothook notion).

 

[Nifft]

I think water-sonics lacks flavor, for all of its science.

Yeah, I don't have a good name for it.
- "Impact"
- "Pressure"
- "Wave-Motion Cannon"?

(I ask that only 'cause its an interesting epic plothook notion).

The way I picture it, life, magic and time are all things which are "powered" by the destruction of the Void. If someone cast an Epic spell of enough power, it could render a region non-magical -- or even uninhabitable, as "echoes" of the past flood into the region which has already spent its near future.

-- Nifft

 

[Nifft]

Cities of the Planes

Many cities are merely 3d, to either aid the sanity of their inhabitants or to better avoid detection by minimizing their "footprint".

Flying Djinn cities can be found on both sides of the border of Storm and Air. They tend to be ringed with many metal circles, often forming a loose sphere, to avoid damage from lightning discharges. They tend to be disproportionately large for their populations due to the oppulance of their design -- large courtyards, minarettes, airy vaulted ceilings. These cities tend to provide their own light, and a gathering of them shines like stars in the sky. These cities are often situated above (and supported by) permanent magical whirlwinds, which move at the owner's discretion.

The Flying Brass Towers of the Efreet lords float at the border of Storm and Fire. They typically consist of a brass dish (quarter-sphere to hemi-sphere) with at least one tower rising above it. The main or central tower is squat and pointed, with several spherical side-rooms at its top level. The disks are often surrounded by magical flaming vortices which keep them aloft.

Unlike the Djinn, the Efreet have a "headquarters" -- the City of Brass. It is a huge city of brass (and other metal) towers situated on a huge brass disc, kept afloat by a gigantic vortex of flames. This epic vortex is powered by souls (human and otherwise), and fear of being fed to the vortex keeps most of the efreet's many slaves in line.

The High Elves who live within the plane of Wood, and they grow and tend many portals to Fey realms and the Material Plane. Over time, these portals either wither and die or grow into other, more complex structures -- in any case, there are no permanent structures in Wood, but there are many temporary habitations and way-points. (To be fair, what the High Elves consider "temporary" may in fact last several human lifespans.)

Some Formian colonies work within the planes of Wood and Ash, but they do so knowing that what they build will eventually burn. They prefer to build underground, where their structures have a chance of enduring. None the less, they need the resources they get from the plane of Wood, and so they keep starting colonies. The dynamic nature of the place makes residant Formians a bit neurotic.

By far the largest and oldest surface cities are those which float on the oceans of Water. From the salty, sulphurous brine near Ash to the fresh mangrove and lotus fields near Wood, many floating cities can be found with attractions and accomodations for air-breathers and waterfolk alike.

I'll be back with more later...

-- Nifft

 

[Nifft]

Across the chared ruins of Ash, between the rivers of molten rock and the clouds of choking poison, walks a metropolis of black steel and obsidian. It is a fortress ringed with fiendish limbs, claws and talons which both support and supply the city. The claws and talons sometimes rip up portions of the landscape to feed the city's forges. The Crawling Citadel, as it is called by those who do not know its true name, is said to be or to hold a portal to a far darker place.

-- Nifft