Weird, True — Earth

[ Bestiary | Elemental-Kin | Weirds ]
[ True Weirds ] [ Air | Earth | Fire | Metal | Water | Wood ] [ Lesser Weirds ]

Weird, True — Earth

Oracular weird

DESCRIPTION: What came first, the vortex or the weird? No cutter, it’s not the start of a joke—the elemental weirds are no laughing matter, despite their strange-sounding name. The true weirds are paragons of their species, in whom the inherent energy of the elemental plane reaches higher potential. These intelligent elementals can assume a humanoid form, speak all the languages of the Primes, and most importantly for the aforementioned mortals, the so-called oracular weirds can foretell the future. Earth true weirds typically take the form of statues, 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.

Like others, earth weirds loosely align themselves with the forces of Elemental Good. However, earth true weirds have somewhat unusual perception of reality, which is best reflected by their foresight ability. These creatures think in terms of millenia, not years, and they only foretell (or perhaps, only consider important) especially grand and impactful events—terrible catastrophes or great victories. They seem to be especially fond of symbols of death and might trade information for them. Chant goes they can commune with the deep earth of the Prime and speak to the dead who lie there decomposing. Perhaps that’s why these cutters can seem a little on the morose side.

PREFERRED HABITAT: Each true weird is intrinsically tied to an elemental pool, and they are unable to venture more than a few steps from it. Fortunately for the weird, they really don’t want to. The pool of the earth weird is an area of unspoiled terrain, perhaps virgin forest, untouched prairie, barren cavern, mountain peak, desert waste, or lightless chasm. Whatever it is, you can bet it’s probably inconvenient to get to. In these remote locations, where the Plane of Earth impinges upon the Prime, an elemental vortex forms and, more often than not, a true weird manifests to watch over it. The weirds guard or seal the portal, repel incursions—in either direction—and oppose any plane-breaching magic.

PHILOSOPHY / SOCIETY: Elemental weirds are essentially guardians of the Elemental Planes. They try to prevent foreign elements contaminating their home too much, fearing that it may cause the imbalance among the Inner Planes.

Weirds move in mysterious ways

—Planewalker saying

ECOLOGY: Earth true weirds have a deep understanding of the entropy that will bring an end to all things, but it seems they aren’t troubled by this realisation. Past, present and future are almost the same for these strange creatures, and they await their inevitable end like a reader awaits the final chapter of a book. That’s why so many berks assume earth weirds are immoral, but in fact they are merely sombre and detached. This doesn’t mean weirds are passive, mind—they weave complex plans that might take thousands of years to come to fruition. Sometimes their machinations might seem to go against the interests every faction, including their own. It was an earth weird, in fact, who foretold the extinction of xiomorn and informed Ogrémoch of it. No one knows why a weird would assist the Prince of Elemental Evil, since they surely would not wish him to gain power in the Anvil, but graybeards suspect the revelation was part of some as-yet unrevealed Grander Plan.

COMBAT: True weirds prefer not to fight in the first place, if they can avoid it. If conflict is inescapable however, they are able to summon elementals through the weird pool to assist them. Weirds are also able to gain control of any elemental in their sight, no matter the type of element. During combat, a true weird typically retreats to the centre of its pool, using its divination magics to foretell the ebb and flow of the battle and change plans accordingly. Powers like contact other plane, detect thoughts, foresight, greater scrying, legend lore, locate object, true seeing, and vision are all options a weird can draw upon.

A warning to planewalkers going up against a weird. If a berk enters a weird’s pool without their permission, they risk being transformed into an elemental themselves! Finally, an earth true weird has the option of retreating back to the Plane of Earth through the vortex at the centre of its pool. This is a one-way trip, however, shutting the vortex down. It’s thought the weird then merges back with their home plane to share what it has learned—so this is very much an option of last resort.

VARIANTS: Immature members of this species are called lesser earth weirds, and they have a very different outlook on life. It seems as they mature, the weird becomes much more serious, and if anything, more out of touch with reality.

Sources

Full Statistics For: [ D&D 3e ]

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

Source: Margarita and Jon Winter-Holt. Canonwatch: These creatures are based on the elemental weirds from D&D 3e. They were called “true weirds” briefly in the text there, while the ambushing weird of 2e was renamed the “lesser weird”, and also changed from CE to N alignment. However, since in other editions and in fandom as a whole elemental weirds are associated with a sneaky elemental rather than with a prophetic lady, we chose to swap some terms around.