What Are All the Elementals and Paraelementals?

[X-Calator]

I like the fact that 3e allows people to be more versatile. Especially Planescape. Everything was kind of limiting before. Felt like the whole world was already drawn out for you.

I am also glad 3e disposed of the real world gods. That was a good move on their part. Names like Loki and Odin and Zeus hit too close to home in my book. I'm glad they renamed them to things like "The Trickster" because then who the powers are is implied but not outright said. I like the D&D pantheon the way it is. We don't need real world baggage to clutter it up.

Whenever (if ever) there is a 4th edition, I think they should continue the same tradition. Flexibility. That way we can do all kinds of threads like this and not have to worry about being dead wrong. This is fantasy, after all.

 

[Krishnath]

Filby: Way ahead of you.

X-calator: I'm not that big of a planescape fan anyways, there are some useful stuff of course, most gameworlds have, heck, I've even stolen stuff from FR to use in my own homebrew.

 

[X-Calator]

Remember, I'm relatively new to the D&D scene and I have NONE of the books, but I'm learning quickly. I just wondered what a half-elemental is.

 

[Krishnath]

A half-elemental is a creature that is descendant of mortal creature such as an elf, and an elementally aligned outsider such as a genie.

Basically, if an outsider with an elemental subtype produces offspring with a creature of another species the resulting crossbreed would be a half-elemental.

Much like a celestial breeding with a non-celestial produces a half-celestial, or a fiend reproducing with a non-fiend to produce a half-fiend.

 

[X-Calator]

Thanks, I gotcha.

 

[Filby]

I like the fact that 3e allows people to be more versatile. Especially Planescape. Everything was kind of limiting before. Felt like the whole world was already drawn out for you.

Well, having everything spelled out for you is pretty much the idea of a campaign setting. Some DMs are less creative than others, and having a world made up for you can be pretty helpful. Planescape wasn't necessarily a definitive guide to the Outer Planes for every DM, but more of a pregenerated setting for those who were interested in making it the base of their campaigns: sort of Forgotten Realms on a cosmic scale. Likewise, accessories like the 'Planes of' boxed sets weren't all that much different from a guide to Thay or Cormyr in the Realms. And of course there's Rule #0: if you don't like something that's in the book, change it.

I am also glad 3e disposed of the real world gods. That was a good move on their part. Names like Loki and Odin and Zeus hit too close to home in my book. I'm glad they renamed them to things like "The Trickster" because then who the powers are is implied but not outright said. I like the D&D pantheon the way it is. We don't need real world baggage to clutter it up.

As for the real-world gods, well, that goes back to basic D&D and 1st-ed. AD&D when there were a few books ('Gods, Demi-Gods, & Heroes', 'Deities & Demigods', 'Legends & Lore') that presented a number of real-world gods that DMs could use if their campaigns were set elsewhere than the World of Greyhawk or the Known World campaign settings. I suppose Planescape included them in their products in case a DM's normal campaign featured them so their players could go and visit the gods on their home turf.

 

[Krishnath]

Also, no less than three real world pantheons are shown in the 3E Deities and Demigods, the Olympian, the Pharaonic, and the Norse. There where a few minor factual errors (Seth, for example should be LE, not CE, also, they got his head wrong).

There is a semi-attempt over on the WotC boards to convince WotC to make a Deities and Demigods 2, that would include other real world pantheons, some of the suggested where: Babylonian/Sumerian, Celtic, Incan, Indian, and the Native American. As well as more Greyhawk deities/Monstrous Deities.

Later,

 

[X-Calator]

That's a good idea for those who like that kind of stuff, but I think fantasy should be separated somewhere along the line from real world icons. If they are well-known proper nouns, they should be excised from the default cosmology, if only to preserve the canon.

 

[Krishnath]

Well, in that case we should remove Bahamut, Tiamat and Obad-hai from the standard pantheon. The two first are from the middle east, and Obad-hai is celtic in origin.

Not to mention the two dozen or so Faerûnian deities that originate in real world mythology, such as for example Ilmater.

 

[Filby]

Indeedy. Silvanus, Oghma (both Celtic), Mielikki, Loviatar, the dead goddess Kiputytto (all Finnish), Tyr (Norse), and the entire pantheons of Mulhorand, Unther, and Shou Lung (Egyptian, Babylonian, and Chinese, respectively) in the Realms; the Oltec pantheon on Oerth (Aztec), and the Northern Reaches pantheon on Mystara (Norse) are all taken directly from real-world mythology. It's nothing new. Like I said before, if it's not to your liking, you can ust take it out for your campaign.

Something about D&Dg that bugged me is that they assumed that you wouldn't use more than one pantheon in a campaign and gave each pantheon its own cosmology. I wish it had at least listed alternate home planes for those who wanted to place them on the Great Ring. I mean, with only the pantheon of Oerth out there, it's awfully empty.

As for D&Dg2, I say bring it on. It'd be great if they could detail some older pantheons... especially the Celts and some of the nonhuman gods, and other Oerth gods (like Tharizdun).