Paraelemental

Four Paraelemental Planes sit where the Elemental Planes meet and their elements mingle. Just as elementals arise from the pure planes, these blended realms give rise to paraelementals: Smoke, Ice, Ooze and Magma. They are usually ranked a little below elementals and above quasielementals, though planar scholars argue the point. Born of two elements, they are often said to have a double nature, expressed differently in each kind.

Most sustain themselves by converting their opposites: ice drains warmth, smoke takes in air, and so on. They will not starve without it, being spirits that build bodies from their home plane's substance, and those planes hold little of their opposites anyway. What nourishes them is the act of conversion itself, not the thing converted. Many are dim, but brighter ones prefer their own language. Every type is immune to weapons below +1 enchantment.

Native to the paraplane of utter cold, this is a tall humanoid of translucent white ice crystals patched with frost, piercing blue eyes deep in its sockets; some call it a cold or frost paraelemental. Its touch deals 3d8, and its body radiates cold the way a bonfire radiates heat, inflicting 1d4 per round on everyone within 10 feet. A touch turns water or similar fluid solid, up to 100 square feet of surface frozen 6 inches deep. While touching natural snow, sleet or ice it regains 1d8 hit points each round, never above its maximum, making it brutal to fight on its home plane. It is immune to cold-based magic and takes double damage from heat-based attacks.

Many ice paraelementals have abandoned neutrality to serve Hrimvald, one of the evil archomentals, but numerous minor lords ignore him and stay devoted purely to cold, holding power through strength and respect and facing frequent challenges. Travelers more often meet small, leaderless, peaceable groups hunting or patrolling. Ice drains warmth from any source, even slowly snuffing nearby fires, perhaps partly so the flames cannot be turned against it.

Magma is often mistaken for the plane of Fire, but it is as much earth as flame, a realm of molten rock. Its paraelemental is a huge, stocky humanoid above the waist, black rock glowing red from within, especially at the eyes and mouth, and a shapeless mass of molten stone below. Its touch deals 3d6 and ignites combustibles. Anyone within 20 feet is affected as by an enhanced heat metal: first round, metal grows hot; second round, metal in contact deals 1d4; third round onward, contact deals 2d4 and even those without metal take 1d4 from the heat. Leaving the area lowers the effect one step per round, so armor that dealt 2d4 deals 1d4, then nothing, then cools. Its touch is weaker than a fire elemental's because it constantly sheds heat rather than holding it in, which is also why it has the aura.

It is immune to heat and fire and takes normal damage from cold, but cold damage equal to its Hit Dice (8 points for an 8 HD specimen) slows it as the slow spell. Magma paraelementals roam in packs and live in large, leaderless, harmonious communities wary of strangers. Clashes with the plane's mephits are frequent, who nearly always lose. They feed by melting solids into liquid.

Sometimes ignorantly called a mud elemental, this is a fluid heap of dark, squirming tendrils that can squeeze through tiny gaps and under doors. A hit means a tendril wraps a victim and constricts for 2d8 each round until one of them dies or it lets go. It can grab any number of additional victims, though only one new attack per round. Captives act at -2 and cannot flee without a successful bend bars roll. Fire and cold deal half damage, and transmute mud to rock (reversed transmute rock to mud) turns it to stone if it fails a saving throw.

Several powerful, intelligent ooze paraelementals compete for their plane, while an ooze mephit usually claims to rule it all and is roundly ignored. They loathe ooze mephits and ooze sprites, and some say themselves too. They feed by slowly crushing and liquefying solid objects over many hours.

A smoke paraelemental resembles a steam quasielemental, a large drifting cloud, but is far darker where the steam creature is nearly clear. It flies, often riding strong winds, or hugs the ground as a sooty black cloud. Each round it can engulf every creature within 10 feet; on a hit it partly enters their bodies, choking each for 2d8, though creatures that do not breathe are immune. Everyone in the area, hit or not, must save vs. poison or suffer -2 to attack rolls from the blinding smoke. Heat- and air-based attacks, including those of fire and air elementals, deal 1 less point per die, minimum 1.

Its plane is split into tiny kingdoms under powerful smoke kings, while a smoke mephit claims the whole realm and is ignored. Smoke paraelementals do not truly eat; they breathe, consuming air and exhaling smoke, and they cluster around pockets of air seeping in from the Elemental Plane of Air, as animals crowd around a desert oasis.