Dharum Suhn

Above the ordinary earth elementals, and apart from the feuding earth archomentals Krolgath and Talmara, stand the dharum suhn, called Rockfathers and Rockmothers, Lords of Stone, Old Men of the Mountains or Hearts of Steadfast Stone. An earth elemental is simply earth given spirit; a dharum suhn embodies what stone means: stability, strength, endurance, patience, wisdom and immovability.

Normally it is an unseen presence. When it must act, it animates a roughly humanoid heap of rock some 20 feet tall that cannot be told from the surrounding stone until it moves. Its speech is the tongue of elemental earth, which only the most learned earth genasi share with galeb duhr and the earth elementals themselves.

Its stone body has cloud giant strength (23), and each mattock-like fist deals 3d8. Once per round, at will, it can use one of these spell-like powers: wall of stone, transmute water to dust, transmute rock to mud, stone shape, spike stones, plane shift, move earth, stony grasp, hold person, hold monster, flesh to stone, disintegrate (affecting rock only), conjure earth elemental and animate rock. Once a day it may also invoke an earthquake or time stop.

On itself or another it can likewise use, once per round at will, strength, stone to flesh, stone tell, stoneskin, statue, passwall, meld into stone and cure critical wounds. It can also lend these spells to a mortal by handing over an ordinary-looking pebble or chip holding one or more of them. The bearer releases each by will alone, one time only, and the stone then crumbles to dust.

Blunt weapons and impacts of every sort, from hurled boulders to falling ceilings, do nothing to it. Only magical blades of +1 or better can hurt it at all, and they deal half damage. Magic that harms or reshapes earth and stone (transmute rock to mud and disintegrate, for example) has no effect on it and cannot even be cast within 100 feet against its will. Shattering its rock body does not kill the spirit. To end it for good, someone must cast slay living, power word: kill or destruction on the spirit once its stone form has fallen.

Natives of the plane of elemental earth, they turn up on many planes, always within great mountains or high plateaus. They are usually met singly, but each belongs to a small, fiercely loyal clan whose members tend to share one opinion, so offending one means offending many.

Their power exceeds even that of the earth's prince and princess, yet they stay out of those rulers' quarrels and out of nearly everything else. Slow to anger and slower to act, they observe all that happens on or near stone, though they know little of airy or ethereal places. That long contemplation makes them very wise. Pilgrims who honor earth sometimes travel far to question them, and a petitioner who truly respects what they stand for may get an answer. Epic tales tell of heroes who won their active help. Doubters scoff, but a persistent, persuasive and honest hero might convince one that some cause deserves a pause in its watching, though building that argument would be a legend in itself.

Some claim the dharum suhn fathered the earth elementals and every native creature of the plane, which would make them the original and purest of all elementals; if that is true, the principle of planar parallels suggests matching beings exist, or once existed, on the planes of Air, Fire and Water. Close to demipower status, they neither eat, sleep nor breed, and they live forever unless slain. No one knows whether their numbers are fixed or the fallen are somehow renewed. Galeb duhr supposedly share their blood, but likely only as a lowly ape resembles a great wizard. Legends name them Those Who Wait without saying what for. Perhaps some special event will finally move them, or perhaps they simply wait for its own sake, since to them patience is the greatest virtue.