Before it releases at Gen Con, Paizo has given us the opportunity to preview the Air chapter of the Rage of Elements and let you in on some of the new creatures, items, and spells in the book.
The Air chapter in Rage of the Elements is divided up into five subchapters: Shifting with the Breeze, Elemental Lords, Air Spells, Air Items, and Air Creatures.
If you want to travel to the Plane of Air, you will find portals at the center of the strongest storms. Once on the plane, you will be able to fly, even if you lack the ability on your home plane. Because the plane is so large, you may use the sky streams, flying mounts, and small airships to aid you in traversing the plane. But beware, air hides many secrets and dangers, including phades and pockets of dead air. Make deals and explore at your own peril.
If adventure is in your blood, there are many points of interest on the plane to explore, from the wrecks hanging in the dead air to the twilight of Night’s Embrace. Visit the fortress of Grazulk’s Resplendent Fastness to fight giants for wealth and magical tomes. Or explore the abandoned Spheres where genies of wood have appeared.
Ranginori, the Zephyrous Prince, has recently returned to the plane after being liberated from his imprisonment. He now seeks to rebuild his domain, regain his strength, and form new alliances. He extends his hand in friendship to allies and worshippers who can help bring balance to the elemental planes.
The Air chapter in Rage of the Elements is divided up into five subchapters: Shifting with the Breeze, Elemental Lords, Air Spells, Air Items, and Air Creatures.
Shifting in the Breeze
The main part of this section is to give some backstory and story threads to players new to the Plane of Air. It introduces us to the Anemoi, powerful air elementals who live in the Universe and carry out important tasks given to them by ancient deities.If you want to travel to the Plane of Air, you will find portals at the center of the strongest storms. Once on the plane, you will be able to fly, even if you lack the ability on your home plane. Because the plane is so large, you may use the sky streams, flying mounts, and small airships to aid you in traversing the plane. But beware, air hides many secrets and dangers, including phades and pockets of dead air. Make deals and explore at your own peril.
If adventure is in your blood, there are many points of interest on the plane to explore, from the wrecks hanging in the dead air to the twilight of Night’s Embrace. Visit the fortress of Grazulk’s Resplendent Fastness to fight giants for wealth and magical tomes. Or explore the abandoned Spheres where genies of wood have appeared.
Elemental Lords
Hshurha, Duchess of All Winds, takes capricious delight in crafting schemes so intricate that they defy explanation. Her reputation for cruelty is well deserved. Unwary guests and supplicants will find themselves abandoned by their guides to become lost in the twisting halls of Vergas Precessional. Most air elementals worship her as a mother goddess.Ranginori, the Zephyrous Prince, has recently returned to the plane after being liberated from his imprisonment. He now seeks to rebuild his domain, regain his strength, and form new alliances. He extends his hand in friendship to allies and worshippers who can help bring balance to the elemental planes.
Air Spells
As varied as the sky itself, air magic is versatile and flexible.- Airlift: a massive rush of wind lifts and briefly carries you and everything around you in a 10-foot emanation to a nearby destination up to 60 feet away.
- Cleanse Air: you purify the air in a 30-foot burst, removing inhaled poisons, pollution, and similar contaminants.
- Gentle Breeze: A soothing breeze flows through the area, making it easier to rest and recover. Medicine checks and saving throws against afflictions get bonuses, while living creatures who spend the spells duration inside the area gain 10 Hit Points.
- Shock to the System: A dense lightning cloud fires a jolt of revitalizing lightning into the target. If the target is a corpse that died within the last round, they come back to life with 0 Hit Points. Regardless of if the creature came back to life or was already alive, it gains 8d8 Hit Points and is supercharged. It can also cast 5th-rank thunderstrike as an innate spell at will.
- Air Ritual: Sky Signs: You emblazon a simple message across the sky itself with a set of symbols of your choosing. If you wish to conceal a message from onlookers, you need to choose symbols that will only makes sense for your chosen audience.
Air Items
- Extra Lung: A waterproof bladder that holds 5 rounds' worth of breathable air.
- Fan of Soothing Winds: The fan casts a 3-action heal spell with an area of a 30-foot cone. The rank of the spell depends on which of the six air shaped beads you use. The spells reset overnight.
- Frost Breath: This bottle of frozen vapors, once inhaled, gives you resistance 5 to cold. You can exhale the frost breath as a single action to release a 15-foot cone of cold damage. Creatures take 4d6 cold damage and surfaces in the area are covered in ice for 10 minutes.
- Wisp Chain: This chain shirt is made of small, interlocking currents of wind. The links don't jingle like chain links, but howl like the center of a storm. Any creature that ends its turn adjacent to you much make a DC 23 Fortitude Save or become deafened. You can also unbind the currents to slice into creatures in a 60-foot cone, but you lose the AC bonus of your armor until the end of your turn.
Air Creatures
- Anemoi can take several forms and shift between them. They wear humanoid guises to walk among mortals and can transform into great thunderous horses made of storm clouds and rain. Each of the cardinal winds are created and directed by a cardinal anemoi: Boreal for the north, Austral for the south, Eural for the east, and Zeohyr for the west. While the cardinal anemoi try to keep some separation from mortal affairs, the lesser anemoi take a closer interest, protecting or destroying as their interest dicates.
- Blustering Gales sometimes serve as herald or enforcers for other creatures. They rankle at subservience and do not keep such arrangements for long.
- Air Elementals are often flighty and are more concerned with bringing about change than with the specific change they enact. Despairing Palls are small, dark clouds that cast literal and emotional shadows. Veiled Currents are loose veils of wind who catch prey within their invisible folds. Picture-in-Clouds represent the pure possibility of air and transform into anything. Depending on their form in combat, picture-in-clouds has different abilities.
- Jaathoom Genies are the ostentatious purveyors of dreams and nightmares. They can give you prophetic dreams or even grant wishes.
