Water Elementals

Water Elementals

The Elemental Plane of Water teems with life of all shapes and sizes, all temperatures and temperaments—beings as varied as the currents that shape them. At the humblest end drift the elusive dewdrop jellies, little more than luminous clusters of gelatinous bubbles that float through the endless seas in playful anonymity, dissolving into mist when threatened. More dangerous are the sinuous water weirds, serpentine braids of living liquid whose pale eyes betray a cold intelligence; solitary and territorial, they patrol the currents. Larger and more formidable are the classic water elementals themselves — churning, sometimes-humanoid vortices of wave and foam ranging from man-sized swirls to colossal surges. Their most destructive kin are the elemental tsunami, little more than mindless walls of annihilation that knows neither mercy nor purpose beyond obliteration. Governing these multitudes are figures of immense authority. Ben-Hadar, Prince of Elemental Good, rules domains of pure, nurturing water, while his faithful blessed lifegivers glide in triads through coral-crowned halls. His dark counterpart, Olhydra, Princess of Evil Water, plumbs the corrosive depths of corruption. Between both, the immortal water elemasters—vast, vain, and ancient—administer the unaligned water elementals across the plane, prowling the depths incognito, ensuring no rival ever ascends to challenge their exalted station.

Here we will explore the full spectrum of creatures formed from elemental water that spend at least some of their lives on the plane.

Animental, Water

N Elemental | Water; CR varies

Animentals are the lingering spirits of Prime-world animals unlucky enough to be dragged through elemental vortices, reborn as fluid incarnations of their former selves that now prowl the Bottomless Deep as native elemental fauna. They echo the shapes they knew in life—fish, whales, seabirds, and other swimming or gliding forms—but rendered in living water, foam, mist, or bioluminescent currents, their bodies flowing and reshaping with the surrounding tides. Water animentals fill the niche of ordinary animals within the plane’s ecology: they school, hunt, and migrate through currents and para-elemental borders, serving as prey, companions, or hazards to travellers. All the while they embody the distant memory of the mortal seas that birthed them, reminders that even in a purely elemental realm, echoes of the Prime’s lifeforms still swim in spectral, half-familiar shapes.

Stats: [ D&D 2e ] Planescape Monstrous Compendium Vol. III [2e]

Blessed Lifegiver

NG Elemental | Water | Holy; CR 7

Blessed lifegivers manifest as radiant, vaguely humanoid or serpentine water elementals, composed of shimmering turquoise or sea-green liquid that glows with an inner pearly luminescence. Tiny fish-shapes and shell-patterns swirl within their translucent bodies like living tattoos, and they exude the scent of salt breezes and fresh rain. Their voices rumble like distant waves or cascading waterfalls. As devout followers of Ben-Hadar who have been sanctified by the archomental prince, lifegivers embody the nurturing essence of water. They also see it as their role to patrol the plane’s reefs, atolls, and corals of Ssesurgas to protect defenceless creatures, cleanse pollution, and create pockets of pure water amid fouled depths, havens of coral which bloom and teem with life. Chant goes that when they are encountered in a pod of three, they can even heal the injured and the sick with their sanctified waters. Though they prefer to act as placid stewards, they will unleash holy vortices against irredeemable evils like the cultists of Olhydra.

Stats: [ PF 2e ] Homebrew

Brine Shark

N Elemental | Water; CR 3

Brine sharks are deadly water elementals shaped like powerful, translucent sharks. They tirelessly prowl the Endless Ocean, but favour the salty waters of the Darkened Depths. Their semi-fluid bodies churn with dense, saline currents rather than flesh, and this means they can merge imperceptibly with the surrounding water and then strike with sudden, surging force. A brine shark’s favoured tactic is to seize a victim in its jaws and dive straight down into the depths, trusting pressure, cold, and lack of air to finish what its bite began. They do not hate mortals so much as treat them as mere flotsam in their path. If they find a vortex they can also slip through into Prime Material Plane seas to hunt alongside, or in competition with, natural predators.

Stats: [ PF 2e ] Monster Core [PF2e] p148

Caller from the Deeps

NE Elemental | Water; CR 9

The caller from the deeps is a horrifying elemental mass of inky, frigid saltwater. It appears as a rippling blot of icy black fluid with writhing tentacles that slither out from its shadowy heart. Born in the lightless trenches where corpses, foul magics, and detritus of the oceans collect to rot, it shapes a body from the black water and rises from its abyss.

Callers are driven by a ravenous longing to locate and drag living warmth and light down to be consumed. Their hunting method is to lure victims overboard with a supernatural siren’s call, then seize and constrict, dragging them under. Their mere touch is enervating, drowning victims as their life-force ebbs. In battle, they will typically summon elementals or fiendish sharks to harry their enemies, turning their own might only upon foes who defeat their minions. Philosophically, callers embody unfathomable resentment—a dark consciousness formed from the unwanted things of the ocean floor. Their only goal seems to be that everything bright and breathing must eventually be pulled down into the devouring dark that birthed them. Parallelists try to link them to mihstu, hearth fiends and earth whispers.

Stats: [ D&D 3e ] Stormwrack [3e] p140-141

Coldmire Pond

N Elemental | Water; CR 8

Coldmire ponds masquerade as innocuous shallow pools on the Prime or cold slow-flowing currents on the plane of Water. They slowly creep across seabeds or float through deep currents like predatory amoebas, luring the unwary with their deceptive calm waters. They are actually large bodies of clammy, living fluid, perhaps 20 feet across. Their ambush tactics are simple but deadly—they stealthily sneak up on their prey, appearing to be slow-flowing water, then thicken their consistency to make escape more difficult. Then they suddenly launch surprise attacks with pseudopods to bludgeon and chill the blood of their prey, before finally surging up as a flash flood to try and knock their prey prone.

Stats: [ PF 2e ] Rage of Elements [PF2e] p180

Dewdrop Jelly

N Elemental | Water; CR 1

Dewdrop jellies are diminutive water elementals that resemble schools of jellyfish that hover among the Islands of Water, at the boundary between the planes of Water and Steam. They are formed from clusters of translucent gelatinous bubbles that quiver and iridesce in blues and aquas, trailing delicate tendrils that pulse with inner light. Graceful when swimming in liquid or floating in air, they propel themselves by flattening and stretching their bell-like domes. They can also use this tactic in combat, stretching their forms over the mouth of their opponent, attempting to suffocate cutters who can’t breathe water. Some graybeards reckon dewdrops embody the process of evaporation. Indeed, when they are threatened, they have a habit of discorporating into a thin mist, reforming hopefully when the danger has passed by. Because they are so elusive, some planewalkers dismiss them as mere myths.

Stats: [ PF 2e ] Rage of Elements [PF2e] p180

Elemaster, Water

N Elemental | Water | Demipower; CR 20+

Water elemasters are exceptionally rare elementals who have ascended to something like the status of a demipower, and now jealously guard the secret path to such power from other would-be divine elementals. Ironically, no elemaster has yet ascended to true godhood, so it’s possible they themselves are being held down by jealous true powers and primordials. The term ‘elemaster’ is rarely used in practise however, for each of the known beings of this rank all have names that are known across the plane: Zssypharon, the self-important lord of syphons and vortexes. Ssesinarch Thal’ssira, the vain queen of froth. Sssar’veth the arrogant regent of riptides. These immortal elementals wield the ability to summon tidal cataclysms, drown entire armies, or reshape transplanar currents with precision.

Chant goes elemasters can appear as any size they wish, from an inch to hundreds of feet tall. Tales describe them as immense, sculpted cascades of churning azure water, rippling with controlled fury and crowned by a helm-like crest of foaming bubbles that hints at their vast authority. While encounters with these bloods are vanishingly rare, they’re most likely to be met while patrolling the infinite seas, in the guise of humble young elementals. They do this, it seems, to keep tabs on the rank-and-file populations of elementals of Water, to keep an ear to the undercurrents of the plane, and perhaps to keep an eye on potential rivals—reporting back to archomental lords or aquatic powers. Their true nature is betrayed only by an aura of stifled power, and eyes of infinite depth.

Stats: [ BECMI D&D ] D&D DM’s Guide to Immortals [BECMI D&D] p40

Elemental, Blood

NE Elemental | Water | Unholy; CR 6

Blood elementals ooze around the dark fringes of the Elemental Plane of Water as (fortunately) rare, aberrant horrors. Their forms are amorphous puddles of deep crimson fluid, but recognisable shapes like faces, claws, shark heads or fins can writhe in and out of the blood cloud. Their presence makes the surrounding air and water reek of iron and taste of salt. On dry land, they leave a trail of dried blood behind them. It should be noted that blood elementals are unable to enter or cross open water, for its purity slowly destroys them—but they do not suffer from that restriction in areas of less-than-pure water like the Bile Sea or Darkened Depths.

Blood elementals can be summoned from pools of blood, or large quantities of water drawn from the lungs of drowned sods, using wicked necromantic and summoning magics. The twisted energies of the Shadowfell mingle and merge with these awful fluids, drawing forth a corrupt elemental from Water to inhabit them. Once summoned, blood elementals are surprisingly loyal to their creators, particularly if their summoners let them slay and feed upon enemies. In combat, they lash out with tentacles of clotted blood, seeking to drain fresh fluid from their targets, causing persistent blood drain.

Stats: [ D&D 2e | 3e | 5e ] Monstrous Compendium [2e] Ravenloft Appendix I; Ravenloft: Denizens of Darkness [3e]; Creature Codex [5e]

Elemental, Water

N Elemental | Water; CR varies

Embodying the unpredictable, fickle, yet relentless nature of water, the water elemental is a living manifestation of both serene tides and devastating storms. These transparent entities will rarely hold a single shape for long—they constantly shift between spinning columns of liquid, crashing waves with vaguely humanoid features, or the shapes of aquatic predators like prowling sharks, sculpted entirely from living brine. As the fundamental animating forces of their deep domain, their ranks encompass everything from creeping dewdrop jellies to towering, catastrophic elemental tsunamis that roam the Bottomless Deep. Though rarely malicious without reason, water elementals are notoriously patient, and possess an instinctive capacity for destruction. They are also easily distracted. The easiest way to get their attention, and the best kind of gift, is to give them something new to dissolve, which seems to fascinate and delight them in equal measure. They are capable of extinguishing raging fires with a mere touch or summoning inescapable, crushing whirlpools. An intruder’s greatest peril lies in the water itself, as these elementals are unparalleled masters of the liquid realm and prefer to drag their foes beneath the surface—where their strength is absolute—rather than face the staggering disadvantage of fighting upon dry earth.

Stats: [ D&D 2e | 3e | 5e | PF 1e | 2e ] Monstrous Manual [2e]; Monster Manual I [3e] p84-85; Monster Manual [5e]; Bestiary 1 [PF1e]

Elemental Beast, Water

Pelash’ta; N Elemental | Water; CR 1 (individual), 6 (swarm)

Native to the Deep Water region, water elemental beasts are terrifying, hive-minded predators often employed by powerful marids as relentless aquatic hunting dogs—in Aquan these creatures are called pelash’ta, or ‘hounds of the deep’. Resembling foot-long, four-eyed, translucent piranhas sculpted from living water, they boast oversized, razor-sharp teeth and membranous fan-like wings that allow them to launch themselves effortlessly through water or air with equal ease. When hunting in water, the entire school moves with a singular, silent intelligence, the water rendering them virtually invisible—until they dart forward as one to shred intruders to ribbons. When flying, or attacking air-breathing prey, they burst from the water’s surface to swarm their targets’ faces, with the most vicious among them forcing themselves down a victim’s throat attempting to suffocate them from the inside out. Despite this horrifying ferocity, they are strictly bound to pure water; they cannot stray far from the shore without evaporating in agony, and they are highly vulnerable to fire. This is of little comfort to planewalkers encountering them in Deep Water, where they are at their most dangerous.

Stats: [ D&D 2e ] Monstrous Compendium [2e] Dark Sun Appendix II

Elemental Tsunami

N Elemental | Water; CR 11

Elemental tsunamis [soo-NAR-me] rampage across the plane of Water as callous harbingers of annihilation. They appear as towering, vaguely humanoid surges of frothing blue fury that embody the destructive rage of storms, floods and waterfalls. They appear as vast walls of liquid muscle reaching fifty feet, capped with churning white water. Liquid crustacean claws snap around their bodies, and a pair of glowering eyes can be seen deep within the water. Surrounding them is an aura which churns up water into a treacherous maelstrom, but their connection to water is also a weakness. When detached from an aquatic environment, they become sluggish—but conversely when immersed they can propel themselves through the water at terrifying speed. Their preferred attack is to slam into foes with twenty-foot waves that hurl their targets tumbling. Virtually impossible to calm, elemental tsunamis can really only be defeated or banished, and unchecked, they can wash away entire towns in their bottomless fury.

Stats: [ PF 2e ] Monster Core [PF2e] p149

Fundamental, Water

N Elemental | Water; CR -1 (individual), 3 (swarm)

Skimming ceaselessly through the endless oceans of their home plane, water fundamentals are among the simplest and most delicate expressions of elemental life. Resembling nothing more than a pair of disembodied, translucent bat wings spanning barely two feet, almost like an origami paper manta ray, these tireless entities never cease their motion. In an ocean, they flutter just above the waves, their glistening wings constantly shedding a fine spray of mist; underwater, their translucence renders them virtually invisible. But when caught in bright light, they transform into breathtaking, rainbow-hued phenomena that cast brilliant, colourful reflections in all directions. Despite their mesmerising beauty, fundamentals are fiercely defensive, swarming interlopers through unified, swooping dives and relentless mobbing charges. Intrinsically bound to the depths, they must regularly plunge into deep water to sustain their moisture. So fragile is their physical existence that upon death, their bodies immediately begin to evaporate back into the planar ether, leaving only a brief, precious window for alchemists to harvest their liquid residue for water-breathing enchantments before they boil away completely.

Stats: [ D&D 2e ] Planescape Monstrous Compendium Vol. III [2e]

Grue, Varrdig

Water Grue, Fluid Brute; NE Elemental | Water; CR 2 (individual), 6 (triad)

Lurking in the shadowy deep of Water, the varrdig grue [var-dig GROO] is a treacherous scavenger that can easily camouflage itself as a harmless puddle or an innocuous eddy. In its true form, a varrdig is a translucent, gelatinous globe with a fringe of small, scuttling claws and radiating flexible, pipe-like mouth protrusions. When underwater, it squirts water from these orifices for bone-crushing ramming attacks. When on dry land, it weaponises them to blast foes with blinding, high-pressure streams, then attempts to drowning incapacitated victims by clamping down directly and flood their airways. These voracious predators possess a strange disruptive planar physiology that unravels and dispels any water-based magic that is cast within their immediate vicinity. Be particularly careful casting spells like water breathing in their presence! Varrdigs rarely hunt alone—they usually travel in triads. When threatened, three varrdigs are capable of rapidly fusing their bodies together into a towering, three-lobed monstrosity that bristles with sensory cilia and water jet orifices. Varrdigs are actively hunted by marids, who seem to view grues as vermin to be exterminated. Perhaps because of this, varrdig grues find easy alliances with malicious aquatic races like the sahuagin and ixitxachitl.

Stats: [ D&D 2e | 3e ] Inner Planes [2e] p54; Planescape Monstrous Compendium Vol. I [2e] p52-53; Vol. III p9,103; Planescape Campaign Setting [2e] DM’s Guide p32; Secrets of the Lamp [2e]; Complete Arcane [3e] p155; Dragon Magazine #285 [3e] p49

Hydrax

Elemental of Law; LN(E) Elemental | Water | Cold; CR 8

Preferring the freezing, almost motionless currents of the Sea of Frozen Lives, the hydrax is a malevolent architect and sculptor composed entirely of jagged, deep blue ice. Resembling a massive, eight-foot-wide crustacean have six scuttling legs and three crushing pincers—one growing from its rear like a tail. These lawful but cruelly cold water elementals are the solitary builders of breathtakingly complex, frozen cities. Despite their love for structure and order, hydraxes despise direct cooperation with each other—instead, they operate in a silent isolation, with each individual emerging from hibernation in turn to carve and add to their crystalline metropolises, before retreating back into isolation. Hydrax create their structures in tripartite geometry—they consider three to be a sacred number and its multiples to be lucky. Armed with innate magic to weave traps, summon perfectly smooth glacial walls, and scry through still waters—mainly watching the work of other hydraxes in silent critique—they fiercely defend their artistic territories from interlopers. Of the fellow creatures of Water, hydraxes hate the marids the most, for they see the genie society as chaotically corrupt. Hydraxes harbour a deep-seated paranoia toward earthen beings—particularly the burrowing erdeens—and go out of their way to create traps to defend their territories from solid beings.

Stats: [ 2e | 3e | 5e | PF 1e ] Monstrous Manual [2e] Mystara Appendix; Creature Codex; Homebrew conversions

Necromental, Water

NE Elemental | Water | Undead; CR as elemental +1

When negative energy infuses the corpse of an elemental, it corrupts it into an undead-like state. Water necromentals, for example, are formed from horrifying amalgamations of death-tainted liquids. They are often summoned by dark druids or necromancers who seek to pollute the deeps. Their amorphous, shifting bodies are bound together from the foulest of fluids: brackish cemetery runoff, toxic embalming chemicals, and the stagnant, putrescent mortuary water drained from rotting corpses. Some of the most sinister variations are sculpted entirely from the magically extracted lung-water of drowned sailors, or thick, coagulated blood and vampiric vitae left behind from gruesome sacrificial rituals. Visually, these undead elementals resemble churning, black slicks of necrotic sludge, often swirling with the bones, gravestones, and sunken wreckage of their past victims. Driven by an inescapable, unnatural thirst, water necromentals exist solely to defile pure aquatic domains and aggressively drain the vital moisture from living beings, leaving behind nothing but withered, desiccated husks. They hunt elementals and mortals alike to satisfy their endless hunger. These beings are especially common near the Plane of Salt and around Negative Energy pockets.

Stats: [ D&D 3e; CR +1 ] Libris Mortis [3e] p112-114

Omnimental

N Elemental | Air | Earth | Fire | Water; CR 15–22

Originally natives of the mysterious Elemental Chaos, omnimentals are terrible chaotic monsters, made of all of the base elements that strangely do not mix. Perhaps this contradictory nature is what drives them to commit acts of mass destruction. The largest omnimentals are quite literally called elemental cataclysms. Fortunately, they are rare in the Plane of Water, since the seem to find the purity of the single element uncomfortable. They only seek destruction as an escape from their accursed existence—unfortunately that makes them aggressive and violent as they provoke cutters they see as worthy challenges.

Stats: [ D&D 3e; CR 15 ] Monster Manual III [3e] p118. Variants: [ Elemental Cataclysm 5e; CR22] Monster Manual 2025 [5e] p111. Canonwatch: Elemental Cataclysms aren’t omnimentals, but their basic concept is similar enough to merge them together.

Para-Elemental, Ice

N Para-Elemental | Water | Ice | Cold; CR 1-11

Rarely encountered in Core Water, ice para-elementals tend to stick to the Sea of Frozen Lives where they are able to exist without danger of thawing out. Like icebergs, these elementals can grow to enormous sizes, and they usually appear as if they were once humanoids who became entombed in ever-thicker crusts of ice. It seems the larger they become the more abstract their shapes are, although ice elementals almost always have piercing blue eyes. Their bodies are angular, sharp even, covered in jagged crystals and icicles. Sages reckon that the more often an ice elemental leaves the Deep Freeze and ventures to other planes, the more complex its shape becomes, as their very bodies melt and refreeze in different ways depending on their environment. It’s said that no two ice elementals are the same shape, and canny planewalkers might learn to recognise individuals from their form.

Ice elementals exude an aura of numbing chill that freeze-burns fleshy creatures who come too close to them. They are also able to freeze water in vast sheets, turn weather to snow, and herd icebergs like they were sheep. They can pass through solid ice as they can through liquid, but they can also harden their fists to slam foes with powerful blows. On the Para-Elemental Plane of Ice, these cutters tend to form small bands without defined leaders. Perhaps that’s because they have a naturally anarchic mentality, but more likely is that Cryonax, the wicked archomental who claims dominion over the plane, is a jealous lord who cuts down any he thinks might one day become rivals. Chant goes the ice elementals who inhabit the Sea of Frozen Lives do so in an attempt avoid the frigid grasp of Cryonax…

Stats: [ D&D 2e | 5e | PF 1e ] Planescape Monstrous Compendium Vol. III [2e]; Bestiary 2 [PF1e] p114-115

Para-Elemental, Ooze

Mud Elemental; N Elemental | Earth | Water | Ooze; CR varies

Dwelling in the stagnant borderlands of the Silt Flats and the Bile Sea where the Swamp of Oblivion slowly dissolves into the Plane of Water—ooze elementals are loathsome, shifting masses of thick clay, silty sludge, and writhing dark tendrils. Though they often adopt a lethargic, towering vaguely humanoid guise, their bodies are entirely fluid. This allows them to ooze slowly under doors or burrow through solid earth without leaving a trace. They are scorned by both water and earth elementals as impure, and consequently filled with a miserable self-loathing, however ooze para-elementals possess a surprisingly vicious intellect. The most ancient mud elementals wage slow, seeping wars against one another for absolute dominion over the para-plane’s endlessly undesirable bogs. Despite their internal rivalries, ooze elementals maintain a unified and bitter disdain for the self-important ooze mephits who falsely claim to rule their rotting empires, treating such lesser beings as little more than annoying refuse to be swallowed. In combat, ooze elementals use their sticky appendages to grapple, spew blinding cones of muck, smother, and slowly liquefy their prey over several agonising hours. As the silent, suffocating scavengers of the para-plane, they engulf anything foolish enough to wander into their bogs, often accumulating a hoard of accidental treasures suspended deep within their murky forms.

Stats: [ D&D 2e | 3e | 5e | PF 1e ] Planescape Monstrous Compendium Vol. III [2e] p68; Bestiary 2 [PF1e] p120-121

Pneuma, Water

N Elemental | Water; CR 1

Pneumas [NOO-muz] are petitioners that find their place in the Inner Planes, and on the Plane of Water, they unsurprisingly assume aqueous forms—usually, but not always the same ancestry and gender they possessed while they were alive, except made entirely from water. Most water pneuma are short-lived, as they seek to transform into marids and find their way to their kin. Those, who serve Powers, can linger for a bit longer as a fluid echo of their previous life. However, most Powers prefer to transform their petitioners into other, more convenient forms.

Stats: [ Pathfinder 1e | 2e ] Bestiary 2 [PF1e]; Bestiary 2 [PF2e] p198

Portunus

N Elemental | Water | Mythic; CR 16, MR 6

Primarily dwelling in sheltered bays and natural harbours of the Prime, the portunus [pore-TUNE-us] is a huge but subtle water elemental that embodies the meeting of sea, shore, and fortune. Usually invisible, when a portunus manifests, it adopts the form of a huge four-armed humanoid with two faces. A portunus is tied to the rhythms that define coastal life: the steady rise and fall of the tide, the sudden turn of ocean weather, and the uneasy hope of sailors as their ships finally spy land on the horizon. Communities that live beside waters claimed by these beings often revere them as local guardian spirits, leaving gifts and whispered prayers at docks, sea-caves, and on tidal stones in hopes of being granted calm waters, prosperous trade, and the safe return of loved ones at sea. A portunus can grant minor boons to cutters who please it, but just as easily capsize a ship if their mood changes. Yet like the sea itself, a portunus is never wholly predictable; it can be welcoming one day and ominously changeable the next, reminding sailors and merchants alike that every the lives of every seafarer rest in the fickle hands of the powers of the sea.

Stats: [ PF 1e ] Pathfinder Adventure Path #125: Tower of the Drowned Dead [PF1e]

Rainrunner

N Elemental | Water; CR ⅓

Darting through the endless seas of Deep Water, rainrunners are swift, pack-minded elementals that resemble dense, three-foot-long blobs of water. Rather than flowing amorphously like other liquid beings, they rapidly extrudes temporary limbs from its fluid mass, allowing it to propel itself through the planar currents in powerful swimming strokes, or on land, to drag itself across solid surfaces with startling speed in leaps and bounds. Congregating in coordinated schools, these dog-sized elementals drift through the boundless aquatic expanse, drawing the sustenance directly from the raw planar energies. When threatened or commanded to attack, they act as cunning pack fighters that swiftly surround and flank their prey, attempting to overwhelming foes with a flurry of watery slams. On land, their dense, elemental makeup inherently snuffs out open flames and dispels fiery magic upon contact, making them highly favoured—and easily summoned—hunting hounds for water clerics. They are also popular summons for mages who want to deliver a message quickly, for rainrunners are far more swift and far less obnoxious than mephits. Chant goes is it even easy to summon these creatures to the Prime desert world of Athas, provided you have sufficient liquid for them to form their bodies. On Athas, of course, their watery bodies are usually as much silt as water.

Stats: [ D&D 3e ] Dungeon Magazine #111 [3e] p95-96

Spirit of the Land

N Elemental | Fey | Air | Earth | Water; CR 23

Normally content to slumber in the solitude of the Deep Water, once a millennium, where a river, lake, spring, or lagoon becomes a place of true natural wonder, a Spirit of the Land may awaken as an unseen genius loci on the Prime. They manifest as an ancient, watchful intelligence that is less a creature than the living will of the landscape itself. They are neither truly elemental, nor quite a genie, nor fully fey, nor wholly of the Prime. They seem to stand somewhere between all four, acting as wardens of sacred places, avengers of desecrated wilds, and as the implacable soul of the waters themselves. In their natural state they are invisible and incorporeal, and diffused through water, stone, wind, and weather. They perceive everything around themselves at once, and are capable of speaking mind-to-mind across vast distances. Generally indifferent, only when driven to direct violence does they gather themselves into towering elemental bodies of rushing water. Rather than righting as a combatant, they manifest as a living catastrophe, shrouding the land in storm, flood, fog, and lightning while themselves remaining maddeningly elusive.

Stats: [ D&D 3e ] Monster Manual II [3e] p189-190

Tempest

CN Elemental; CR 16+

A tempest is a living storm of roiling dark clouds infused with terrible consciousness and purpose. Unlike most elementals, tempests embody a composite nature: four elements coexist within their form, with wind and lightning, swirling sand and debris, searing gouts of flame, and relentless rain. Silver veins extend throughout their cloudy bodies like circulatory systems, conducting the electrical impulses that fuel them. These creatures are territorial, domineering and aggressive by nature, seldom encountering non-tempests without immediate conflict ensuing. They are volatile and uncommunicative, rarely capable of more than a handful of Common words, speaking instead in the ancient languages of elementals. Tempests sustain themselves on moisture drawn from corpses, scavenging after battles to drain water from the dead. Genies and elementals count them as enemies, though some ambitious djinn and marids have successfully subjugated individual tempests as elite guards.

Stats: [ D&D 3e ] Monster Manual II [3e] p193-194

Undine

CG Elemental | Water; CR 4

The undine [un-DEEN] is a mysterious and surprisingly benevolent entity that typically takes the form of a featureless, transparent serpent. Perfectly camouflaged and entirely invisible while submerged, its highly malleable body allows it to freely extrude grasping tentacles to manipulate objects, form solid, fist-like pods to batter threats, or twist into a rapidly spinning coil to dart through the planar currents at great speeds. Though capable of crushing even giant-sized foes in a tight constricting grip, undines frequently rely on their innate magic to subdue enemies, weaving webs of freezing ice strands or summoning localised icy squalls. Because their very essence is tied to the water, they regenerate swiftly when submerged but wither rapidly if forced into dry air, and they are highly vulnerable to fire attacks. These solitary creatures are guided by a noble philosophy; though their ultimate goals remain an enigma, they act as quiet observers of the deep, offering their aid only to planewalkers they judge to be truly worthy.

Stats: [ D&D 2e ] Monstrous Manual [2e]; not to be confused with the undine water genasi from Pathfinder lore, or indeed the wizard Undine from Netheril

Waterveiled Assassin

NE Elemental | Water | Unholy; CR 15

Forged from the purest malice by the evil Archomental Lords of Water, the waterveiled assassin is a towering, vaguely serpentine horror of living liquid that exists solely to execute the enemies of its dark masters. Standing over twelve feet tall, its shifting face bears a permanent, wicked sneer and hateful eyes that constantly scan the horizon for its next victim. As a supreme ambush predator, it exercises complete control over its own physical structure, allowing it to flatten itself against the ground, seep effortlessly through porous stone and tiny cracks to bypass walls, or become completely invisible within the deep currents of its home plane. Rather than engaging in honourable combat, these deeply arrogant killers strike from ambush, surging from their hiding place in the water, or bursting from the very walls of a seemingly secure room—to completely engulf their targets. They seek to isolate and swallow physically weaker prey, especially spellcasters, trapping them within its watery gullet. Once trapped inside, victims are subjected to violent, churning internal currents trying to crush and drown them simultaneously. Whether they serve as assassins to take out the enemies of apocalyptic elemental cults, or hunt down rivals of jealous marid padishas, waterveiled assassin embody the swift coldness of dangerous currents.

Stats: [ D&D 3e | PF1 ] Monster Manual IV [3e] p13-14

Wavearcher

N Elemental | Water; CR 1

Wavearchers are sleek, predatory hunters who glide through the currents of Water seeking their quarry. Their upper bodies are shaped from translucent azure water into lithe humanoid torsos, with sinewy arms and heads crowned with foam-crested waves. Their lower forms dissolve into churning, foamy sea swells. These militaristic elementals are known for preferring ranged combat to melee, and for wielding elegant coral longbows and iron arrows which they seem to pluck from within their own bodies. Chant goes they’re bound to these weapons in some way, for if they should leave the hands of the wavereacher, they soon melt away to nothingness. These relentless hunters pursue anything from lesser water spirits to intruding elementals of any composition whom they deem slay-able, maintaining balance by culling the weak and challenging the overbold. They are sometimes summoned to the Prime by elemental clerics to serve as elite archers who’ll fight on their behalf.

Stats: [ D&D 3e ] Dungeon Magazine #110 p98

Weird, Lesser — Water

LG, N or CE Elemental | Water; CR 5

Lesser water weirds are elusive, snake-like sentinels of the plane. Their five-foot bodies are tight-braided jets of shimmering blue or green liquid that twist, ripple and scatter the light. Pale, glowing eyes peer from aqueous heads, giving them the air of restless spirits. Their presence carries the clean scent of rain mingled with minerals.

They act as solitary wardens of fluidic domains, territories which they mark by subtle chemical shifts and rhythmic waves—easily detected by other elementals but invisible to most planewalkers. Weirds hunt by dissolving and them absorbing vitality from carrion or prey, and they can be dangerous ambush attackers as they blend invisible into currents, only to lash out to try and drown foes in undertows. A group of several water weirds is called a Confluence, as they briefly gather to share knowledge before their inevitable rivalries dissolve them apart. On the Prime, trapped in wells or cisterns, weirds can grow aggressive, especially amid pollution, yet may befriend allies who promise to help them return to their home plane. It’s thought the lesser weird may be a larval form maturing into one of the enigmatic true weirds.

Stats: [ D&D 2e | 3e ] Monstrous Compendium Volume III [2e] p4,9,17; Dragon Magazine #347 [3e] p66-69;70-71; Planescape Campaign Setting [2e] DM’s Guide p31-32

Weird, True — Water

Oracular weird; N(G) Elemental | Water; CR 12

True weirds are highly intelligent elementals that can speak all the languages of the Primes, and most importantly for the aforementioned mortals, the so-called oracular weirds can foretell the future. They are protectors of their elements and keepers of purity. Water true weirds typically take fluid forms of ever-moving transparent liquid, where their upper half is a female humanoid, and their lower half is a snake. Weirds themselves don’t seem to have a concept of gender. Their eyes gleam like moonlight reflecting on a lake, and their voices lap and drip, into lucid speech that carries clearly to a chosen listener while remaining a murmur to others. They have the clean scent of rain and salt water. When they prophesy, ripples on their surface resolve into mirrored glyphs and scenes that refract across the pool. Each time a creature touches water, bathes, swims, looks at their reflection, or drinks, that’s an event the water weird can see reflected in her pool. They can also speak with the spirits of the drowned dead. Pirates, who are superstitious berks at the best of times, are particularly fearful of water weirds, seeing them as terrible omens.

Stats: [ D&D 3e ] Dragon Magazine #347 p66-69 (the ecology of the elemental weird); Monster Manual II [3e] p90-93 (elemental weird)

Well Spirit

N Elemental | Water; CR 7–10

A well spirit resembles a vast, slow-churning mass of living water. Its surface ripples with translucent pseudopods that rise and fall like waves given thought and intent. These ancient and cunning beings drift between currents in the Deep Water for centuries before migrating to the Prime in their adolescence, where they prefer to dwell in deep stone wells. A well blessed with one of these spirits becomes a Wishing Well, for these strange entities are known to grant wishes to mortals who offer them suitable treasures. A well spirit embodies generosity, but also peril—it may reward offerings that please it with miraculous boons, but its alien sensibilities are easily offended. Well spirits punish greed or disrespect, even as far as dragging offenders down into their suffocating grasp. Once they have amassed sufficient treasures, they return to the Deep Water, where they revel in their freedom, gathering in eddies where the currents converge. Elder well spirits trade in treasures, secrets, and stories of the wishes they have granted. Where the treasure they have collected ends up is something of a mystery, but might go some way to explaining the fabulous wealth of the City of Glass. And why do the well spirits seek riches in the first place? Some graybeards mutter about an ancient debt owed by ancestral well spirits to the marids—so perhaps the genies are the real granters of those wishes…

Stats: [ D&D 1e ] Dragon #42 [1e] p46

Wysp, Water

Water Wisp; N Elemental | Water; CR 0

Born from the playful, restless energy of the tides, water wysps represent the lightest, most gentle aspect of the Plane of Water. They are tiny and curious musical elemental spirits, who are able to empower other creatures of the same element. Wysps trace their origins to the creation of the Elemental Planes, when the first wysps roamed the Inner Sphere in great symphonies. These little creatures created hauntingly beautiful music from their combined resonances, a sound so powerful and invigorating that it drew the attention of the Archomental Lords. Seeing the potential of these beings, the Lords enslaved entire symphonies for use as servants. Today, most water wysps live in servitude to these masters, but small numbers of free wysps still roam the Inner Planes and even the Material Plane. Because of their symbiotic tendencies, they are rarely found alone; they frequently school around towering elemental behemoths like pilot fish, or serve as devoted familiars or nimble scouts for marid nobles and planar spellcasters, darting through the oceans as swift messengers of the deep. These free spirits are shy around strangers but will eagerly offer their services to those who show them kindness. They are especially drawn to spellcasters who practice elemental magic, often becoming loyal familiars or companions. Particularly devoted wysps may even sacrifice themselves to protect their companions.

Stats: [ PF 1e | 2e ] Bestiary 5 [PF1e] p 283; Bestiary 3 [PF2e] p90

Xocothian

N Elemental | Air | Water; CR 4

Most commonly found in the turbulent Bubble Fields where the boundless ocean meets the endless gales of the Plane of Air, the xocothian [zo-KO-thee-an] is a living manifestation of the storm itself. They are harbingers of the power Gozreh, embodying the sea and the sky like their patron. They resemble an eight-foot-long, aquatic-serpentine-avian chimera that blends the sleek, scaled form of a giant flying fish with the sweeping wings of a majestic seabird, and the sinuous torso of a snake. These enigmatic outsiders are graceful fliers, and love to skim the surface of the ocean like massive skipping stones. before they burst into the sky in a spray of brine. Personality-wise, they are blunt, impatient, and remarkably straightforward. Xocothians have little tolerance for mortal deceit, preferring to spend their days playfully sculpting clouds with their wingbeats or racing alongside cresting tidal waves. Their most unusual feature is their ability to literally bifurcate their form, splitting into two distinct, hive-minded elemental entities—one of roaring wind and one of crashing water—before seamlessly merging back together. Acting as self-appointed wardens of the open skies and deep currents, they converse with the beasts of the sea and sky, and fiercely strike down any berks who dare poison the pure waters or choke the air with smoke.

Stats: [ PF 1e ] Inner Sea Gods [PF1e] p291