Elemental [Ravenloft]

A pyre elemental is called out of a burning funeral pyre, or some other large blaze linked to rites for the dead. It is a thin pillar of blazing fire, with streamers of flame curling off it like the swaying arms of a dancer.

It fights with unequaled ferocity and revels in the ruin it causes, lashing foes with whips of fire that deal 3d8. Each time someone is hit, their armor, shield and magical protective items must each save vs. magical fire. Armor that fails drops one step in effectiveness, so brigandine at AC 6 becomes AC 7; a shield or a magical device that improves AC is destroyed if it fails.

These are the rarest of the dread realm's elementals, because forming one takes a vast amount of blood, or else water taken from the lungs of the drowned. A blood elemental is a rough human shape made entirely of blood, trailing a smear of drying gore and filling the air with the smell of salt and iron. Two liquid tentacles flail about it, serving as hands and weapons.

Usually it strikes with a tentacle for 3d6, and the victim must then save vs. spell or have blood pulled from its body into the elemental's. The drain equals the blow's damage, so a 12-point hit can be followed by 12 more, and the drained points are added to the elemental's own hit points, up to 8 per Hit Die. Against a bloodless target such as a golem it cannot drain and takes -2 per die on damage, minimum 1 per die.

In any round it forgoes attacking, it may instead fling itself over a foe with a normal attack roll. The target must then save vs. death or have its nose, mouth and lungs flooded with blood, very likely drowning under the normal drowning rules. Next round the elemental can leave that victim for dead and move on. While it smothers someone, attacks on it deal full damage to it and half to the victim, who cannot fight back.

Oddly, for a kind of water elemental, it cannot enter or cross open water. Forced into it, the creature starts coming apart, taking 1d10 per round until it gets clear.

Kin to the air elemental, a mist elemental is formed from the essence of the dread realm's mists. To the eye it is just a drifting bank of white fog, and in any foggy or misty area it is treated as invisible.

For all its lazy drifting, it moves with startling speed when it attacks, sweeping into and then through its target with a cold, malign touch. It can simply deal 2d20 from that chill, or instead try to infuse the victim with evil, passing harmlessly through its body. The victim must save vs. spell or become chaotic evil, suffering all the usual penalties for an involuntary alignment change, and is charmed by the elemental, refusing to act against it. It may not use this power on two consecutive attacks and must attempt a damaging attack, on the same or a different target, before trying again. Only remove curse cast by someone of the victim's true alignment restores the old alignment and ends the charm.

This variant earth elemental rises from graveyard soil or the earth of some other burial place. It is a towering mass of dirt in a man's shape, bristling with bones and splintered coffin boards.

It cannot go through water, but glides through earth and stone with ease and likes to lurk under the ground until prey stands right above it, then burst up to attack; foes take -4 on surprise rolls. Its huge fists deal 4d8 at 8 HD, 4d10 at 12 HD and 4d12 at 16 HD. Against flying or swimming targets it subtracts 2 per die, minimum 1 per die, and cannot use its sinking power on them.

Instead of punching, it can use an innate power equal to the sink spell cast by a wizard of its Hit Dice. It needs no casting time or components, but it can do nothing else that round, may use it only once per hour, and only against creatures or objects resting on earth or stone. Like other earth elementals it can batter any structure resting on stone or earth, and its kinship with those materials makes it far more destructive to them than other creatures of similar strength.