Revising the elemental fauna to be interesting

Let's face it, elementals are boring. When Paracelsus first devised the idea of elementals, he considered them to be analogous to humans and other animals except with elemental affinity and no souls. When Hans Christian Anderson wrote The Little Mermaid, he was referencing Paracelsus when he wrote that mermaids had no souls unless they married a human. This was expanded by later philosophers and fantasy writers, as The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters attests in its entry on elementals. That book states that "Purely amorphous and non-animate representations of elementals are, however, fairly rare" (206), D&D notwithstanding...

Fire elementals that are not boring

The SRD 5.0 says that:

Elementals are creatures native to the elemental planes. Some creatures of this type are little more than animate masses of their respective elements, including the creatures simply called elementals. Others have biological forms infused with elemental energy. The races of genies, including djinn and efreet, form the most important civilizations on the elemental planes. Other elemental creatures include azers and invisible stalkers.

Firstly, "animate masses of their respective elements" are boring. Secondly, having a subgroup of monsters called "elementals" within a type also called "elementals" is a stupid taxonomy.

Animate masses of elements are an invention of D&D. When Paracelsus invented the concept, he viewed elementals (or Sagani as he named them) to be synonymous with fairies and have anatomy comparable to humans and other animals. Furthermore, humans were considered to be composed of the four elements as well (manifesting in the interplay of the four humors). So the "biological forms infused with elemental energy" are also a nonsensical invention of D&D.

I decided to drop all mention of animated masses in favor of describing elementals as having whatever form imaginable. Additionally, all monsters are composed of the four elements and not just elementals, because fantasy physics. Elementals are distinct because they favor one element over the others, their humors are flavors of a single element, or something.

Instead of maintaining the absurd and confusing taxonomy of elementals as both a type and a family within that type, I am treating the elemental family as generic elementals rather than a race of their own. For example, an air elemental is now any elemental from the Plane of Air rather than its own thing. The air elemental monster entry in the MM is a stand-in for air elementals which lack unique names and statistics to set them apart.

Water elementals that are not boring

Elemental animals

Here are some examples of genuinely interesting elemental animals with actual ecologies that exist independently of being summoned. All come courtesy of various supplements listed at the end of this post.

• Aethon swimmer. A predatory eel that swims through magma with the aid of ribbon-like tentacles.
• Isolin. A giant spider which spins webs anchored in mid-air.
• Vein slider. A docile worm which consumes raw ore and excretes refined minerals.
• Oil shark. A blind shark that hunts with sonar, native to the molten seas of the plane of fire.
• Crysmal. A psychic scorpion which consumes gemstones.
• Fire crab. Otherwise normal crabs that live in the molten seas of the plane of fire, feeding on small animals and seaweed.
• Fire fish. Fish which live in the seas of the plane of fire, little different than fish on the plane of water.
• Fire whale. Heat-loving whales which consume fire krill and melt ore with internal furnaces.
• Smoke-ghost. A smoke elemental which may possess and reanimate corpses.

By SandChigger

Links:

• http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta25.htm
• http://vaultsofnagoh.blogspot.com/2010/05/elemehntals-amirite.html
• http://wampuscountry.blogspot.com/2012/02/elementals-are-not-boring.html
• http://monstermanualsewnfrompants.blogspot.com/2013/01/elementals.html
• http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2013/03/on-ecology-of-elementals.html
• http://middenmurk.blogspot.com/2013/05/alchemy.html
• http://matt-landofnod.blogspot.com/2014/02/what-heck-elementals.html
• http://stasisengine.blogspot.com/2016/08/with-body-starred-all-over.html
• http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2016/10/temple-of-elemental-bickering.html
• http://aeonsnaugauries.blogspot.com/2016/10/elementals-are-boring.html
• https://lackhand.wordpress.com/2017/01/01/elementals/
• http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?358941-Monster-conversions-for-The-Ghost-Tower-of-Inverness
• http://blogofholding.com/?p=3933

Source books:

• Slayers Guide to Elementals
• Tome of Horrors Complete
• Tome of Horrors 4
• Legends & Lairs: Elemental Lore
• SRD 3.x

Earth elementals that are not boring