Aerial Servant [Air Kin]

Native to the plane of air and to the astral and ethereal planes, this air elemental has only partial intelligence. Most meetings on the material world come about because a cleric conjured one. Here it is invisible. On its home planes it can be faintly seen as a legless humanoid of glittering blue smoke, with hollow eye sockets, a narrow slit of a mouth, and two long arms ending in big hands with four thick fingers.

On its own planes an aerial servant tries to steer clear of fights, but when threatened it seizes and strangles. Its first successful hit means it has its victim in its grip; every round after that it may choose to deal an automatic 8-32 hp of damage. It is enormously strong, easily hauling more than 10,000 gp of weight.

Breaking its hold requires at least 18 Strength. A character with exceptional Strength has a percentage chance of escape equal to that score, so 18/50 gives 50%, while 18/00 or a Strength of 19 always succeeds. For creatures without a Strength score, roll the creature's Hit Dice against 16 HD for the servant; a higher total for the captive means it escapes.

Victims attacked by one on the material world suffer a -5 surprise penalty. A summoned servant will not fight for its cleric, but it performs any other job, most often finding and bringing back an object or a person, whom it grabs as above. If the cleric fails to guard himself with protection from evil or a protective symbol, the servant tries to crush him to death. Should it be blocked from finishing its mission, it goes insane, returns to the cleric, and tries to kill him.

Aerial servants form no families or communities and gather no treasure. They spend their time riding the elemental, astral and ethereal winds and probing the endless mysteries of their planes. Having no lairs, they have effectively unlimited range and no territory. Violent weather draws them: the snaking columns of force called ether cyclones, the hurricane-like black zones of astral psychic storms, and the ring-shaped tornadoes of the plane of air. Usually they avoid harm, but a careless one caught in such a storm has a 50% chance of being torn apart, each half becoming a new servant. This is their only means of reproduction, an agonizing experience they work hard to avoid.

They never leave home willingly and care nothing for the material world, so they resent being called there and rush to finish their errands and go back.

Aerial servants eat nothing; buffeting planar winds sustain them, and long calm spells leave them weak and listless. One that goes 30 consecutive days without a planar wind of more than 30 miles per hour has, from day 31 onward, a 10% daily chance of losing 1d8 hp. Each hour in such winds restores 1d8 hit points. Winds of the material world do them no good.

They have no natural enemies and keep mostly to themselves, though they like air elementals and sometimes trail after them. The elementals, regarding them as lesser beings, avoid and rebuff them.