Clerical Elemental [Dark Sun]

Only a human who is dual-classed as cleric and psionicist and has reached 20th level may begin this strange road, and once begun it cannot be halted; nothing but death keeps the character from ending as an elemental being. The form always matches the element the cleric serves, so an earth priest becomes an earth elemental, a fire priest a fire elemental, and so on. The discipline of mastering one element rules out ever taking another's shape.

Until the end, the cleric switches between human and elemental bodies. It does not age while elemental but keeps aging while human. At 30th level the change becomes permanent and the cleric can no longer return to human shape. A level-based progression sets which kind of elemental (standard or greater) it becomes, which Hit Die results it may reroll, how long it must stay elemental each day, and what it can summon.

In human form the cleric keeps everything it had before the change began: it casts spells and uses psionics as a 20th-level cleric and still benefits from its magical items. In elemental form it uses the statistics of a standard or greater elemental, as its level dictates, and keeps its spells and psionic powers, but magical items do it no good at all.

Its elemental Hit Dice are rolled fresh every time it changes, and higher levels let it reroll certain low results. Take a cleric with 10 HD who may reroll any 1, 2 or 3. If its d8s show 8, 8, 6, 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 2 and 1, it rerolls those last four until none is below 4; should they end as 7, 6, 5 and 4, the form has 58 hit points. Damage never carries across a change: a cleric down to 1 hit point as a human gets a whole new pool as an elemental and returns to human shape fully healed. Reaching 0 hit points in either form kills it.

As it grows in power the cleric gains conjure lesser elemental and, later, conjure elemental as innate abilities usable a set number of times per day. Elementals it calls this way need no controlling, obey its every thought on the Prime Material Plane, and cannot be stolen from it.

Summoning spells never bring a clerical elemental; a weaker, less willful elemental from that plane answers instead. A spell to summon a particular elemental, even a clerical one, could be researched under the normal rules, but none exists yet.

It can, however, be controlled, and control can be stolen, but only by magical items. Each of the four classic elemental devices, the stone that controls earth elementals, the censer that controls air ones, the brazier that commands fire ones and the bowl that commands water ones, works on a cleric of the matching element, which gets a saving throw to shrug off the effect; if it fails, it is controlled like any other elemental and once released it may turn on its former master or simply ignore him. A ring of elemental command keyed to its plane works at full strength, holding it 5 feet away or even charming it. A scroll of protection from elementals works on it normally.

The mightiest clerical elementals are notable figures on their own elemental planes, and now and then they are summoned home to handle affairs there, staying until the business is done.

This is not a gradual metamorphosis but an all-or-nothing transformation: at any moment the cleric is entirely human or entirely elemental. Even early on it can take full elemental form, though only briefly, and the time it spends that way, along with its power, grows as it anchors itself more firmly to its plane. Weak clerical elementals are human for all but a short stretch of the day, strong ones for no more than half of each day, and the strongest leave humanity behind.

It must become elemental exactly once per game day, which runs midnight to midnight, and it chooses when. If it never decides, the change happens at the latest possible moment; a cleric owing two hours changes at 10 pm. Changing takes one round, during which the cleric becomes ethereal, cannot act or defend, and can be harmed only by attacks that reach the Ethereal Plane; such hits use its human AC, hit points and other statistics.

The return to human form is not under its control and comes only once the full required time has passed. It also takes a round of ethereal helplessness, but hits during it use the elemental's Hit Dice, AC, magic resistance and so on. When the change completes, the cleric has its full human hit points.