Smoke Elemental

A smoke elemental blends fire and earth into a whirling cloud of hot ash, soot and smoke, sometimes flecked with glowing red sparks. It is conjured from a large mass of ordinary smoke and can take any shape, though its outline is always blurry. If it chooses a form with eyes, it gathers knots of soot into spinning balls that look like eyes, but they are pure show; it actually perceives by sensing the cooler temperatures of the creatures and things around it.

Gravity does not bind it. Having no solid body, it can seep through narrow cracks and tiny holes, though it then needs a round to resume its chosen shape.

It attacks by enveloping a foe's head, dealing 2d4 points of heat damage and another 2d4 of suffocation each round as the victim's lungs fill with scalding smoke. It clings to one opponent until that victim dies or passes out, then drifts on to the next, and if a victim runs it follows, keeping the head inside the cloud.

Unusually, it can also split into four parts, each acting on its own initiative and each with 1 Hit Die. These little clouds try to get into a creature's lungs, where each deals 1d4 points of damage a round and stays until the host is unconscious or dead unless driven out by magic.

Fire-based attacks do not harm it, but cold-based attacks deal double damage. Strong gusts of wind cannot hurt it yet can push it away or hold it off, and since it is a magical construct, it can be dispelled.

Smoke elementals are magical constructs built from heat drawn from the plane of fire and soot or ash drawn from the plane of earth. Though sentient, they have form only on the material and ethereal planes. Since no home plane exists for them, banishment and dismissal cannot send them anywhere, but such spells will force them out of a victim's lungs.

Usually three priests create one together by casting combine, conjure earth elemental and conjure fire elemental all at once. Priests often post them as magical temple guardians, typically forming them from fragrant incense, though smoke from an ordinary fire will do.

There are tales of miniature smoke elementals of 1 HD rising from pipe smoke, but most sages dismiss these as tobacconists trying to blame magic for deaths caused by the tobacco itself.