Fire Minion

A fire minion's body is pure living flame that shifts and flickers in every fiery color. It can take any shape it pleases, but it most often appears as a big humanoid with horns and fangs.

These are formidable fighters whose one weakness is that they cannot easily leave the fire they live in. A minion attacks by rising out of a blaze, which takes a round to form its body; that delay usually warns the target, so it gains no special surprise. It can also sink back into the flames in one round, move elsewhere and surface the next. That trick grants no real combat bonus, but it can rattle green opponents.

Most carry a large sword, and any weapon in their hands deals 2d6. Their constant aura of heat burns everyone within five feet for 1d6 points each round, with no attack roll and no saving throw, unless the victim has some protection from fire.

Fire of any kind cannot hurt them. Magical flame such as a fireball or dragon breath actually heals them by the amount of damage it would have dealt. Their great heat partly shields them from water, so water-based attacks deal only 1 extra point per die. Cold is their true bane: cold attacks do double damage, though saves still apply. Any water or cold attack also cuts in half the time the minion can remain outside its fiery home.

Fire minions seem to be free-willed fire elementals native to the elemental plane of Fire, a home is too hostile for outsiders to study them, so almost nothing is known of their lives there.

Lava, flame and fire are their natural element; they live in it comfortably and move through it as easily as walking. They have a limited power to gate to the Prime Material plane, but only through places of intense heat, usually volcanic calderas. Ordinary fires are not enough, so they tend to appear only in strange, remote spots.

Leaving the flames is risky. For 1d6 hours a minion feels no ill effects. After that it loses its flame aura, and after another 1d6 hours it starts losing 1-2 hit points per turn, a decline that ends only when it returns to flame to rest or when it dies. Magical fire can repair this damage but will not extend its time away from the fire.

Their place in the scheme of things is a mystery. They are thought to feed on lava or fire, but nobody has confirmed it. A slain minion vanishes in a puff of ash, leaving almost nothing to examine.