D&D 5E Wandering Monsters: Other Elementals

[Plaguescarred]

Wandering Monsters
Other Elementals
By James Wyatt

James talked about elementals and genies back in December, but he did not discuss their other kin. This week, we take a look at a couple of the other kinds of elementals: salamanders and xorn.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Plaguescarred]

I think the Salamnder and the Xorn's descriptions were good enought. Wouldn't the Xorn better worshipping Grumbar more than Ogremoch, being the neutral god of the elemental plane of earth?

 

[steeldragons]

Yeah. Not much to say about this. It covers all of the basics...gives them a bit more substance/place in their home planes without destroying their respective canons. All in all a good article without any surprises or unnecessary [or outright destructive] additions/changes. Yay!

Why he didn't just include the sylph and triton (or some other air/water relevant elemental beings) to round out this article, I'm not sure. Just rushed this week, I guess...or, why get into one column what you can use for material for two or more weeks? hahaha. I can appreciate that.

EDIT: I did like the distinction under xorn as being intelligent but not "civilized". finally breaking the "everything has a culture" a.k.a. "should there be cities of umber hulks?" nonsense.

I generally play xorns (which has not been often) as something akin to rock-otyughs. Just enough intelligence to not be automatically hostile...could potentially be informative of the immediate area if some mode of communication is available...but will show up, hold out one [or three] of its hands and insist/ask adventurers "Has Gems?", "You Gold?", "Bearded man smell like Silver. Food for me? Me hungry."
/EDIT

 

[MarkB]

I like it. I wouldn't have minded seeing a bit more on Salamanders' own culture, as opposed to their roles in relation to others, but I guess that as chaotic beings they're not going to have a particularly complex society.

I agree that we don't need much in that way for Xorns, and the descriptions of their carved and decorated home caverns is a nice touch.

I wonder if the brevity of the poll simply reflects the shortness of the article, or if they've actually reached the point where they're not looking to get too much more feedback.

 

[the Jester]

Ehhh, this article was okay, but where did we get "salamanders hate elemental cultists" and "xorn do sculpture" from? Neither of those make sense to me- we don't build elaborate sculptures out of our food unless we are about to eat it.

 

[MarkB]

Ehhh, this article was okay, but where did we get "salamanders hate elemental cultists" and "xorn do sculpture" from? Neither of those make sense to me- we don't build elaborate sculptures out of our food unless we are about to eat it.

I think you may need a more thorough read of the article. It was the Efreet who hate evil elemental cultists, so whilst they enslave young salamanders as a rule, they'll kill salamanders who are cultists of Imix.

And it was clearly stated that the Xorn only use minerals they don't like to eat for their sculptures. Just like humans eat some plants, but will make carvings out of wood rather than eating it.

 

[steeldragons]

Yeah. I don't see anything disagreeable with these additions...as opposed to what we're usually fed in this column with outright changes to existing canon. Gives 'em a lil' extra color...easily ignorable if I don't want my efreet enslaving salamanders or my xorn sculpting stuff. I don't recall a stone shape ability for xorn (from 1 or 2e) though it makes tons of sense since they can move through rock without a care in the world.

If it had been something like "Xorn are semi-intelligent animals of the Earth plane, kept as cattle and hunting 'hounds' [for ore and gems] by the Dao" or "Salamanders construct huge iron obelisks in which to worship their Evil Fire Prince God" then I'd be all up in [my usual] arms.

But this stuff...it's just some added color without being unduly intrusive to my understanding/vision of the creatures.

 

[I'm A Banana]

There's a few subtle changes there (Xorn don't always phase-burrow?), but none of 'em are too objectionable and they even seem to add quite a bit.

What raised my eyebrow the most is that the evil Archoelementals now seem to be in control. What about the Neutral and Good ones? It reminds me of 4e's "everything with a statblock is an antagonist" vibe a bit...but I'm probably being paranoid.

 

[Stalker0]

All i have to say is... Imix, the prince of Evil Fire Elementals. Now that is a very specific kingdom

 

[the Jester]

All i have to say is... Imix, the prince of Evil Fire Elementals. Now that is a very specific kingdom

Yeah, but he goes back to the 1e Fiend Folio. He's earned his place far more than a lot of names we get dropped in D&D lore.