There is an area in the far north of the Anauroch desert where the Bedine tribe's people very rarely venture; its also shunned by all but one or two young and adventurous Blue Dragons, the occasional Lamia or Sphinx and packs of very fast and aggressive Axe beaks, at least, I've seen them on the outskirts, but there is a wide area featuring some rather spectacular landscapes left behind by the mighty excavations of the fallen Netherese Empire, one or two such locations are unmistakable even from some great, and safe distance, and that is where I advise you to stay.
When the Netherese performed some of the most epic feats of magic, the fabled spell, in this case, being known as Proctiv's move mountain, the amount of magical energy channeled into a very small area was extremely large, to put it in perspective, the magical energy suffusing the air, rocks and many unfortunate living plants and animals was higher than you would find carefully contained and confined within the swords, shields, amulets and such which are considered high powered magical items by today's standards, the weave is not able to sustain this sort of concentration without causing other areas to become dangerously devoid of natural magical energy, which is why there are many areas, still, quite blank and devoid of its normal flow, the ley lines and such fade away. The lands become barren, robbed of their spark and vitality. Where the concentration was most severe, what often remains are areas so disrupted that normal magical flow has become permanently chaotic; we call these areas of Wild Magic, but, in some cases, it is a lot more complicated than that, and I don't think Proctiv fully understood the long term consequence of his Move Mountain spell.
Then again, I suspect this epic spell may have been slightly different every time he cast it due to the extremely rare nature of the components required. You are familiar with Proctiv, perhaps not by name anymore. Still, you will have heard of his spell called Stone Shape, which he created 3606 years ago, followed by Move Earth, Glassteel, Transmute Rock to Mud, then Transmute Water to Dust, which I have not seen cast for quite some time, I think it may be out of fashion or not currently being taught to anyone. Still, that spell always did bother me, and then the very useful spell called Dig which he first demonstrated 3547 years ago. Proctiv is also credited with some spells involving more cosmic concerns, but, as you can see, he was very focused on Elemental Earth in his magical experiments; he was of the class of wizards called Variators, those whose magic is used to transform things, energies and states of being, as well as interdimensional conjurations.
This includes the summoning of elementals.
As I have talked about this before, I will try to be brief and recap what elemental energy is.
It is alive; very simply, elemental creatures do not have a set and fixed portion of energy called a soul; they are made of as much energy as they have consumed and are currently composed of. We refer to elemental spirits because this energy is not as reliant on very specialized matter in which to contain it, they don't need a nervous system, muscles and all that organic stuff that we do; in their home dimension, these spirits flow freely through raw elemental substance, such as solid rock, as though they were luminous fish swimming an endless ocean, to us, they are nearly impossible to detect and their spirit ecology within all that solid matter is largely a mystery.
Why are some elemental creatures so organic looking, with such regular and identifiable physical forms, and others are much more crystalline and just rocks and minerals animated into motion by some internal force? Well, their ecology is just as diverse as those of organic beings from the prime material plane, even though it is so poorly understood, the evidence speaks for itself in what we can observe, though its highly likely we are only witnessing the tip of the iceberg and many more types of elemental spirit don't have the ability to animate and move around in raw physical matter, so we never get to see them.
The elemental spirits consume each other largely by a test of willpower, as far as we know, with the dominant spirit entity consuming and combining with the other into a larger spirit form, so within every elemental lord are millions of lesser elemental spirits it has consumed over time. The Strong willforce required to maintain this cohesion is also what gives rise to the emergent intelligence and ego of the elemental lords, the less elemental spirit energy there is within what we would call an individual entity, the less intelligent it is, and it can't maintain control over large amounts of raw matter to create physical forms, so they tend to be smaller, or very unstable, they use this matter like a vehicle to contain and move around it's energy outside of it's home dimension.
When Proctiv summoned that much elemental power in such a confined region, the result was the creation of an elemental Locus; in later castings of the spell that creates the floating enclaves, the elemental energy was more carefully handled, but initially, he forced it into coherent forms that levitated the sheered off mountain tops and flipped them over to levitate up into the sky, but in a few cases, things did not go according to plan. It's even worse these days; after Mytra banned the casting of such high-level magic, every first attempt at casting Proctiv's Move Mountain will automatically fail and most likely create another Elemental Locus, hence why nobody is foolish enough to try it, and as I said, those components for the spell are ridiculously rare and difficult to get your hands on, so, it may be impossible to cast it the same way nowadays.
According to the Tome of Beasts from Kobold Press, Elemental loci are living spirits inhabiting or embodying tracts of land and geographical features. They are the ultimate personification of nature—the land itself comes to life, and they are fiercely protective of any ecological networks contained and supported within their gargantuan formt, tolerating no interference in the natural order and violently destroying anything putting it at risk. This is slightly strange behavior for an elemental, but, unlike most other elementals this powerful, they are bound to an area of land or ocean no larger than 100 square miles. If they leave this region, they lose the ability to invest a fraction of their elemental power into spawning new elementals. If it remains outside the region, it automatically teleports back to the center of this area after 24 hours, regardless of distance.
While within that location, the Loci can magically create up to 2-12 mephits or 1 Elemental with a challenge rating of 5 or lower. The Elementals arrive at the start of the locus’s next turn, acting as allies of the locus and obeying its spoken commands. Actually I have seen this happen and the Mephits seem to start out as some sort of internal disturbance and then pour out through the sounds the monster utters.
The locus can create elementals that match the terrain they are currently inhabiting, so in the desert they create mephits best suited to hot, dry, sandy or rocky conditions such as steam or dust Mephits, but there are other options, as long as they fit the restrictions the Locus has on raw materials surrounding it and comprising its own massive form.
The created Elementals remain for 1 hour, until the locus dies, or until the locus dismisses them as a bonus action. The locus can have any number of Elementals under its control at one time, provided the combined total Challenge Rating of the Elementals is no higher than 8.
If the elemental locus dies, it returns to life in 1 to 12 months, regaining all its hit points and becoming active again. The new body appears in a space of the locus’s choice within its bound land. Only a wish spell can prevent this trait from functioning.
Killing one is much easier said than done however.
An elemental Locus has an armor class of 16 and at least 290 Hit Points with immunity to acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks and resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage, they can't be charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned or knocked unconscious and the have Magical Resistance with Advantage on all saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Given the size and power of them, all Elemental Loci are able to move freely through difficult terrain at their normal speed of 25 feet per round, they also have a trait called Seige Monster because the Elemental Locus always deal double damage to objects and structures in it's path.
Thankfully, it can't maintain an excursion from the territory it inhabits and will always be forced to teleport back there after 24 hours, no matter how far it has ventured or been somehow transported... a fact some evil wizard is going to exploit at some point, what a perfect safeguard, summon a massive elemental that safely removes itself after a set time? Yes, that is something which could devastate an entire city and leave behind nothing but horror and confusion. In combat, the rampaging Loci will perform three slam attacks each round, or exchange any of those attacks to instead spawn more mephits or elementals, the slams have a reach of 15 feet are +15 to hit and inflict 31 points of damage on organic, living targets who need to make DC 18 strength saving throws each time they are hit or be knocked prone. It can just as easily bring down a whole building on top of a crowd of people however, its not a stupid creature and will make full use of their abilities. About the only weakness they have is their lumbering speed of 25 feet per round and their dismal dexterity, which is compensated somewhat by their ability to use Tremorsense, and their high passive perception of 16, making them very hard to sneak up on, but much easier to attack from the air.
Thus far I have only seen the Elemental Loci who dwell in the sheered off mountain areas, but I suppose any dominant elemental type is possible. I shudder to think what a titanic living mass of water or air could do, and a fire elemental of that size is best not thought about at all.
On the world of Midgard, the Sorcerers of Kush have been trying to capture and enslave Elemental Loci located there, thankfully they have had no luck even after decades of research and repeated failed attempts, yet despite the inevitable distastrous results, they keep trying and are even growing bolder in their attempts, despite all evidence to the contrary, they seem to believe they are getting better at it each time. I certainly hope not.
My name is AJ Pickett, thanks for listening, and as always, I will be back with more for you, very soon.
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