D&D 5E Spirit Guardians - Thematic Question

[FitzTheRuke]

Like Defcon and others, I think Tiamat Priest's guardians should be spectral dragon heads doing 1d6: 1) Acid; 2) Cold; 3) Fire; 4) Lightning; 5) Poison; 6) Reroll (or pick one to save time).

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

This is a good way to think about the types of damage. Thematically fire damage could come from steam and not just fire itself.

In the system I'm eternally working on based on 5e, I reduced damage types to

Shock: electricity, some psychic
Burn: fire, steam, some acids, light
Decay: covers acid, necrotic, entropy and poison (Poisoned is a condition, not a damage type)
Magic: some psychic, arcane, force damage
Frigid: ice damage, some necrotic

Pierce: spears, daggers, bolts, thorns and stone spikes etc
Bash: thunder, strong water rush and bludgeoning
Slash: swords, axes, flaying winds etc

 

[Hriston]

I like to lean in to stuff like this, so I'd go with the necrotic damage. Assuming the encounter is taking place on the Prime Material Plane, I'd imagine the fiendish-appearing flitting spirits are being called forth from the Shadowfell which lenses negative energy into the Prime. In my games, evil spirits are "touched" by the Negative Plane by which they have been corrupted in exchange for the power they wield. This would include Tiamat, and her priest, if mortal, would be tapping in to the same negative energy from which she draws her power by casting their cleric spell.