Storm Elemental

Storm elementals are pretty much perky air elementals. They may be slower, but they pack quite a bit of zap, especially when you get to the bigger ones of the bunch. The little fellas can be pretty useful as a summoned ally, since their attacks actually deal sonic and electric damage at the same time. If one bit of hurt can't get through, the other one probably will.

They may well be the reason why airplanes and such never quite took off in fantasy worlds. Magical airships maybe have some kinda magical protection against storm elementals coming along and puncturing their balloons.

I like to think of these guys hanging around blue dragons, thunderbirds and the other big electric beasties of the sky, just hanging around them like remora on a shark.

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Earth Whisper

The town has an old man with a story. When he was young, he was part of a group of miners going to explore a nearby cave. No bears or wolves entered there; no drow appeared on night-time raids; there wasn't the sound of dwarf, kobold or goblin pickaxes.

He describes going in with a dozen other young men, seeing the green and blue copper veins in the walls, the faint light of quartz reflecting lantern light. He describes a feeling that overcame him , the rushing ice-water and sinking guts of fear. All of them starting running, not to the mouth of the cave, but deeper, deeper into the darkness. He doesn't know how it happened, but they got separated. It must have been the panic that disoriented him, that made him forget where cavern openings were, what made him miss the pits that seemed to suddenly appear beneath his feet.

He remembers hearing voices in the dark, the voices of his friends shouting on the other side of walls, angry, afraid. He heard whispers in his ears that tell him it's their fault he was trapped here, that they're getting rid of him.

He doesn't know how he escaped. But don't go in the old cave, the cave with no animal prints, the cave that houses no bats. There's something evil in that cave and it can't be seen.

--

The earth whisper in an earth elemental that uses mind-altering effects to drive people into caverns, which it reshapes using the stone shape spell, trapping intruders in tiny pockets until they either starve, suffocate or kill themselves. If more than one person is there, after trapping them it gives them a sudden rush of gold lust which makes them fight each other over whatever meager riches the other holds. The earth whisper is incorporeal (though not invisible) and hides inside the stone walls of its cave while it drives others mad.

This kind of monster has really great potential for a more psychological campaign, I think.

It has a really great concept, but boy is it difficult to come up with a visual design for. It's an incorporeal earth elemental sooooo... a ghostly lump of dirt? Ghost are easy to draw since it's easy to identify a translucent human, skeleton, animal, whatever. But here you have to communicate that it's this weird type of creature and also by the way you can't touch it.

I'm fairly pleased with the result which I think does the whole intangible thing okay. I wanted to make an earth elemental that looked different from my earlier attempt. Though I kinda pat myself on the back for making it not a lump of grey-brown stuff and basing it on malachite, I find that it looks a bit more watery than earthy (the foam-like dust mane doesn't help either). With this one I took inspiration for pyrite and bismuth minerals. Not terribly spooky, but I like colours.

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Orglash

Most elementals come from other planes, the Plane of Air, Earth, etc. Even your typical ice elemental hails from the borders between the Plane of Air and Plane of Water. However, the orglash is not an extraplanar being, but an elemental which has naturally evolved on the Material Plane. While this may seem like not that big a deal, keep in mind that one of the most straight-forward ways to rid yourself of an elemental is to banish it to its home plane. This won't work with orglashes.

The orglash is a very territorial cold-based elemental found in the mountains and forests of Rashemen. They mostly attack outsiders, which is good for a nation which frequently suffers invasions from jerk wizards on one side (the Red Wizards of Thay) and barbarians on the other. Bad if you want to trade or are a travelling adventurers. Maybe stick to the slightly warmer roads where the orglashes don't lurk.

We're gonna be at TCAF next week. Yay! If any of you out there are Canadians or Americans whats lives close to the border, come on up and buy our stuff. We've got the Dungeons & Drawings books and new postcards. Joe also has his non-Dungeons & Drawings related but still really good comics, including The Hunter, published by Nobrow. Neato!

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Ahp, Undine Waterdancer

Flagella is no more. Driven into a blood frenzy by a cursed sword, Flagella was surrounded by endless waves of undead. Her companions were unable to break her from the sword's enchantment, and the necropolis' fail-safe engulfed everything outside the safety zone in cleansing flame. Flagella's corpse was left in such a crispy state that only potent divine magic would be able to ressurect her. Divine magic beyond the party's reach. After some traumatizing attempts to communicate with her soul, the party decides that the best thing would be to let her rest. They placed her remains on a pyre at dawn, and her ashes were scattered by the desert wind.

Meanwhile, Ahp has entered the city of Ninazu. She's been sent by her masters from Plane of Water to see into the deathly magic that's seeping through the portals that feed water into the desert city's aqueducts. If the source of contamination isn't stopped, the portals may be closed as a defense. Ahp was eager to volunteer to explore the other side, but she hadn't expected the Material Plane to so dry. So very, very dry.

Flagella is my first character to die in a very long time. Normally I'm the DM that kills other people's characters, so it's nice to be on the other side of things for a change. Flagella died a glorious, amazing death, so it ain't so bad. The cursed sword was a Berserking Sword, a sword that gives you rage and won't let you stop fighting until everything around you (enemy or ally) is dead. It wasn't that noticeable on Flagella, honestly, since she was already pretty keen to destroy all enemies and would often end up getting knocked out. After her death, the party kicked the sword down a bottomless pit. Randomly generated loot for the next unfortunate souls that explore the necropolis!

Ahp is actually the original character I wanted to play for this campaign (The Cerulean Throne) before deciding to go with Flagella. Going with fighter / bard for her. Originally she was inspired by Morphling of DOTA 2, and I wanted to make a water elemental character that whooshed about a lot. Her appearance is perhaps a bit too close to a certain Homeworld Gem from a certain cartoon a completely original design original character do not steal plz.

Harginn (Fire Grue)

So while Fire Elementals are already a pretty dangerous and unpredictable bunch, as pure elementals, their attitude towards others is generally fairly neutral. Sure, they'll feel the compulsion to burn things, but it's not because they're especially mean or whatever.

Harginns are especially mean or whatever. They like burning living things. It's fun, you know.

Grues are elementals born out of sections of their Planes which have been touched by evil magic. Because of this, they're especially nasty, territorial, sadistic, though fortunately they're on the weaker side of the spectrum. However, grues are especially sought after by wizards because the combination of elemental and evil magic crystallizes as a small magical object in the core of each elemental, which remains even after the grue is slain. This object can then be studied to gain new spell knowledge.

So as far as I know, grues originate from Zork, a 70s text-based videogame. I played it once. It's quite difficult. Grues are creatures that lived in the darkness and it was inadvisable to wander out there. It is pitch black. You may be eaten by a grue. There was no physical description attached to the grue, since no one has ever survived an encounter. But I always pictured them looking like cranes (grue sounds like grúa which is Spanish for crane, both the bird and the machine), which isn't very scary. Somehow it made it more intimidating, the idea of this gangly beaky thing being able to devour you though.

Ice Weird

The Ice Weird is the more solid version of the Snow Weird, water-influencing rather than air-influencing. Like other Weirds, she's an especially powerful elemental tied to the mortal world by an elemental pool, a roiling mass of ice, which she cannot leave except to return to the Elemental Plane of Water, closing the pool behind her. Unlike the Snow Weird, she is unable to control the weather, her powers being more directed towards physical and mental handicapping.

Trying to make the Ice Weird sufficiently similar from the Snow Weird was a pretty tricky challenge, especially since there were aspects with the first drawing that I was happy with, but didn't want to repeat too much in the second one. Also there were a couple of visual tropes related to snow women that I wanted to avoid, namely the icicle / snowflake crown and white hair. Also, despite the fact that she and all weirds are supposed to resemble human women, I wanted there to be something somewhat inhuman about her. Whether I was successful or not is up to the viewer, but I'm fairly pleased with the results.

Belker

 

The Belker is yet another monster that I never paid very much attention to, just kinda going 'ehhh' whenever I came to it's entry and moving on to fire horses and other more traditionally cool monsters. I finally got around to actually reading its entry and I realized, holy canoli, this fella is hella horrifying. You know Scratchtasia? That Itchy and Scratchy version of Fantasia where Scratchy chops up Itchy into powder, then accidentally breathes him in, and then a million microscopic Itchies hack him to pieces from the inside? That's essentially what a Belker can do to you.

These creatures are air elementals assossiated with the more smokey aspects of air. They appear as vaporous devils, though they can turn into actual clouds of smog that can either casually float away or do the earlier mentioned shenanigans to your respiratory system. 

Large Earth Elemental

Though perhaps the more adequate term for this particular example would be the large malachite elemental.

Though it's understandable why an earth elemental is normally drawn by making them either made out of soil or grey stone, it's a bit of a shame to ignore all the beautiful different kinds of 'earth' there are in the world.  Malachite is probably my favourite stone just because of it's amazing natural floral green patterns. There are a number of other stones in the world that come in really stunning colours and shapes, before even being touched by man. I have to admit that this looks maybe a bit too much like a water elemental in its colours to properly communicate the earthiness of it, though. Though it would be nice to see a caste system with earth elementals. Maybe especially powerful or ancient elementals are made out of pure diamond?

Earth elementals are probably another creature where you can be quite cruel to your players with. How? Because as an earth elemental it can burrow effortlessly --and sightlessly-- though earth and stone. Bam! The ground you're standing on suddenly has arms.

This is the final of the pure elemental four. Perhaps in the future we'll tackle the paraelementals (lava, lightning, etc)? Probably.

Large Water Elemental

Even moreso than other elementals, the Water Elemental's effectiveness is greatly enhanced by proximity to bodies of water. Whilst a Water Elemental can move its body about across the ground it takes a penalty on its attacks - yet, when it moves through water or even across large puddles, its command over the substance allows it to attack much more effectively. Especially for a non-aquatic race such as humans, encountering an elemental underwater is a near death sentence - roughly equivalent to trying to fight an incredibly quick and strong ooze from the inside. Prepare to be exploded.

More elementals! Me and Blanca thought it would be fun to just do all four of the classic types this week. Again the design is less abstract than is usual - I wanted to focus on the idea that if you're a sentient body of water you're essentially a shapeshifter, so you'd probably be taking forms of various creatures as you move about. The little head/core thing is part Morpha (from Ocarina of Time again, the water temple boss) and part the river spirit from Spirited Away. The body is modeled off various deep-sea creatures, most notably the fantastic Vampire Squid.

Stay tuned for the final element tomorrow!

- Joe

Large Air Elemental

Air Elementals are the fastest of the elementals, faster than their more fiery counterparts, along with not being bound by gravity. While they're the physically weakest of the bunch, they can turn themselves into whirlwinds able to check or fling away smaller creatures. Not so good when you're standing next to, say, a spike-filled pit.

Like Joe said, we're trying to do something a little bit more interesting with our elementals other than 'creature made out of X element' (not that I'm not guilty of that). So I thought of something that was more representatives of currents of air, something that looks like its voice would be high-pitched and whose touch would be cutting. So here's a papery-feathery squid thing. I also really dig the ideas of spirits or deities being visualized with an object that symbolizes them.

Large Fire Elemental

Broadly speaking, "Elemental" is a description that encompasses a range of monsters that are not so much living creatures as manifested forces of nature. These creatures are often almost mindless, or motivated by thoughts so primordial that their actions seem as such. While elementals are as diverse in type as the wide range of forces that give rise to them, perhaps the "classic" four elementals are the best known - Fire, Water, Earth and Air.

Fire Elementals are fearsome creatures of great speed and power, though flighty and erratic by nature. Their bodies burn with perpetual fire, giving their attacks extra damage and punishing adventurers that attack them with natural weapons. Your party monk is probably gonna have a bad time unless he has asbestos hands.

I really want to get back into using lines more! I enjoy actually drawing as opposed to just filling in blocks of colour sometimes. This guy might look a little unlike what you have in your head when you think of an Elemental, but I'm not that big a fan of the usual illustrations of big walking blobs of fire you usually get. I actually really like the elemental type works in MtG, where they appear a bit more like normal (yet weird) creatures, especially in the Lorwyn sets (like this guy, or this guy). You still get the impression they represent primal elemental forces but it's a bit more interesting than "a big buy made of fire/rock/air/water". Plus, you get colours in flame other than red and yellow!

The inspiration for the design is kind of a mix of Flare Dancers from Ocarina of Time and the Susanoo giant-ghost-mecha-things from Naruto. Yes, I still read Naruto. Don't judge me.

- Joe

Immoth

Immoths are large elementals of ice, making their home in the coldest parts of the material plane. Their dense flesh makes them difficult to damage and their bodies are encrusted with magic runes, whose powers they are able to unleash at will. It is said that Immoths inscribe these runes themselves as they travel from place to place. They are famously curious, possessing a deep hunger for information of all kinds, and barter (and some times fight) to obtain it. There is a legend that Immoths are recipients of some ancient information-gathering curse, forcing them to compulsively travel and learn. If this is true, it is thought the magic runes on their bodies started as a way to remember things.

This week's monsters are a kind of new idea - Blanca and I both chose monsters for each other to illustrate, and we didn't look at any existing images of our creatures. I think it helped me think outside the box a little more, so we're thinking of trying it again. Anyway, enjoy!

- Joe

Fire Bat

The only thing worse that getting a bat stuck in your hair is when said bat is on fire. If you're familiar with the Zelda series, you know how annoying a fire bat can get.

Like the Salamander, Rast and Efreet, the Fire Bat is a creature native to the Elemental Plane of Fire. They normally appear as winged bitey fireballs and reveal their more bat-like nature when their fire is extinguished (normally on death). At first you might think that the Fire Bat is your pretty standard fire-based creature. If it touches you, it burns, capable of setting things on fire, etc... But it also has a pretty interesting ability.

These fellas are voracious flesh eaters. Their strategy is to bite someone, keep their teeth in until they've eaten their fill and then fly away. However, where a fire bat gets full, it has a change to split into two fire bats. Both of which are hungry.

Just carry a bucket of water with you. They don't like water.

Ice Serpent

Beyond the normal dangers of Faerûn's freezing North, a winding invisible predator is found. What seems at first to be the work of some twisting unnatural wind working itself over the snow and rocks is something else. Soon you find yourself trapped in the cold coils of a cruel unseen something, squeezing your bones and soaking up your life-heat. Something thin, quick and frigid tickles your cheek.

It's difficult to find a creature to go under the elemental tag that'll be interesting. Most of them are X Elemental or Y Elemental, while the more interesting ones get filed under the outsider type. The Ice Serpent is something that managed to slip through the gaps of that classification hoo-ha.

This creature has an interesting way of dealing damage. It's pretty simple in its attacks, being mostly a creature that grabs and squeezes, lacking even a bite or slam attack. It's constrict deals a combination of lethal damage (the constriction itself) and nonlethal damage (cold damage as it drains the heat from you). Potentially, it can just suck the heat out of you until you're unconscious then slither off. And then a blizzard kills you. Them's the breaks.

Also a little bit strange that despite the fact that this creature subsits on the body heat of living things, it still takes double damage from fire sources (it has the cold subtype). I guess something has to balance out the absurd DR it has.

Primal Air Elemental

These are the kings of air elementals and one of the more powerful monsters. Their amorphous soft bodies make them largely immune to many spells and damage from all but the most powerful weapons. As neutral creatures, they have no destructive urges, but their low intelligence means that they can easily be tricked.

Oh elementals. You're so difficult to make interesting because you're literally piles of stuff.


Edit: Modelling a goblin in three-dee, y'all.

Snow Weird

The Snow Weird is a diviner hailing form the Elemental Plane of Air. Her face is so bright it can't be looked at, and her whirling lower body tapers to pool of rumbling snow. She's is able to predict fortune and destruction, much like an Earth Weird. However, she's more powerful and fickle than her stony counterpart. She sometimes decides to surround her territory in snowstorms and whirlwinds for the sake of it, regardless of who may get trapped in them.

Enjoy your winter-related festivities, y'all.

Earth Weird

Weirds are elemental beings, pure manifestations of elemental matter and energy. They are divining spirits, whose close relationship to the material of the universe allows a degree of foresight concerning events to come - most Weirds being of the four primary elements, fire, water, air and earth.

Earth Weirds are in some ways the most cryptic of these creatures, foretelling success or failure in regards to material posessions. Each Weird is bound to a specific location of its own element - a "pool" - from which is may not leave (except to return to its plane of origin). The pool of an Earth Weird is as startling as it is deadly - a constantly churning, roiling mass of rock and dirt.

This week's theme is female creatures! This is mostly for my benefit, as I need a lot more practice drawing women (read: I am terrible at it). This little number was cooked up with a lot of help from various reference sources (cough) and inspiring artists (Ross Campbell to name one). I know talking about it is kind of perverted but I have a deep physical admiration for a wide variety of female body types, and I want that to come across in my depictions of them without just being all T&A.