Salamander II [Fire Kin]

Salamanders are better known than most elemental beings, and they wander off the plane of fire more often than people expect, yet few understand their complicated life cycle. Every salamander begins as a larva, the creature long ago dubbed a fire snake by some visitor from the material world, a name that has stuck. Some fire snakes mature into lesser salamanders; others remain snakes until death, for reasons nobody knows.

Lesser salamanders rarely leave home, but seasoned planar travelers know the plane of fire swarms with them. Some grow into normal salamanders. Only one normal salamander in a hundred thousand can advance further, and if such a rare individual survives a thousand years it becomes a salamander noble, a title that reflects both its rank as a ruler and its formidable personal power. Fire snakes and normal salamanders are covered under the fire kin entry.

Also called flamebrothers, lesser salamanders are largely savage, with only the order their superiors force on them. They fight with weapons made entirely of glowing iron, usually spears but also swords, axes, maces and daggers, and their body heat adds 2 points of damage to every weapon hit. Fire-based attacks, sleep, hold and charm do not affect them, but cold-based attacks deal 1 extra point per die.

They live in fire-filled caves, usually in great numbers and often under a normal salamander. Efreet, intelligent elementals and other strong fire beings sometimes employ them as bodyguards or army troops. Huge flamebrother nations may be governed by many normal salamanders beneath a single noble.

They rank near the very bottom of the plane's pecking order, serving as front-line skirmishers and expendable fodder in its armies. Many spend their lives tending the deep fire pits where fire snakes grow up.

Nobles command vast salamander armies and kingdoms, along with most other heat-loving creatures. Sometimes, though, one roams alone, even across planes. Some say these wanderers are exiles punished for crimes; others think they are hunting new routes to power and could go home whenever they like. Either story could be true.

A noble usually fights with a metal spear, often +2 or +3, adding 4 points of damage for its great strength and another 1d6 of fire damage from its blazing body. Without a weapon it can seize a foe in its tail and crush him, dealing 2d8+4 damage each round with 1d6 more from heat. Only weapons of +2 or better can hit it. It is immune to heat and to sleep, charm and hold, and unlike lesser kin it has mastered the cold it loathes, taking only normal damage from it.

Three times a day each, a noble casts burning hands, flame arrow, flaming sphere, fireball, wall of fire and affect normal fires as a 10th-level wizard. Once daily it may also conjure fire elemental, and it knows a unique dispel magic that strips fire protection from a creature for 2d4 rounds. The effect cancels protection from fire spells, rings of fire resistance, and the innate resistance of beings not native to the plane, such as fiends and red dragons, though not that of fire elementals and other natives. Used on a traveler relying on magic to survive the plane of fire, it is almost surely fatal.

Nobles acknowledge no higher authority, ignoring beings such as Vulkareth and Ashkar Vel as best they can and avoiding the powers of the plane. Hell hounds, mephits, azer, grue, fire minions and certain elementals look to them as masters. Efreet generally hate them while grudgingly respecting their might.

For all their servants, nobles are utterly alone. They are not a separate race, so they neither mate nor raise young, and lesser salamanders are too terrified to offer anything but blind obedience. Their one drawback is that they have no friends, companions or true allies, only subjects. Most live in splendid fortresses or palaces on the plane of fire, each as distinctive as its owner, but every one is a harsh master who pours effort into forcing order on its unruly underlings. Among the mightiest beings of their plane, nobles have practically unlimited life spans.