Energon, Xac-Yel

Bestiary > Energons > Xac-Yel

Energon, Xac-Yel

DESCRIPTION: The xac-yel is a manifestation of thermal energy, appearing as a globe of roiling light with trailing tentacle-streamers like solar prominences. Looking like a fireball perpetually stuck mid-explosion, its surface flickers from orange to gold-white and even to pale blue, as tongues of heat peel away. Up close, the superheated air around the xac-yel shimmers, and the scent of hot metal and cinnamon ash is apparent. Dry fibres singe and will spontaneously ignite when they get close enough. Encountering a xac-yel feels like standing before a open forge: a cutter’s vision wavers in heat-haze, breath tastes sweet and acrid, their skin reddened and tightens, and the energon’s fiery halo casts shadows that dance as if they are alive. The incorporeal body of a xac-yel passes through solid objects like a feverish wind, causing metal to buckle and wood to smoulder.

PREFERRED HABITAT: Natives of the Elemental Plane of Fire, xac-yels favour the Crematorium’s driest, hottest reaches. They frolic in fields of cinder, and pools of liquid flame, where they ride the thermal currents. They glide along tongues of elemental fire and across heat-shimmering plains, basking in places that would carbonize mortal lungs in a heartbeat. The hotter and drier the locus, the more vivid their movements become.

Away from their scorching home plane, xac-yel gravitate towards blast furnaces, azer forges, and the hearts of volcanoes—any place that sings with heat. They are occasionally observed near planar gates that vent into the fiery planes, although they prefer not to linger in cold places. Xac-yel can be found enjoying the fiery climes of Gehenna, particularly Chamada and Khalas, Pyriphlegethon the River of Flame in the Outlands, or Baator’s ever-burning pit of Phlegethos.

PHILOSOPHY / SOCIETY: Among energons, xac-yel are noted as unusually social, clustering around spectacular burning phenomena—firefalls, volcanic eruptions, or meteor strikes. While they never speak, it is possible that they communicate in body modulation: their brightness, colour and temperatures can shift rapidly, although Guvner linguists have not decided a meaning in the strange cadences. Some cutters reckon the xac-yel “sing” in this manner. Such that their philosophy can be surmised, the xac-yel seem to believe that heat exists to transform, not merely destroy. Wanton conflagration is seen as crude—an opinion that puts them at odds with some sects of fire elementals, while pleasing azer artisans.

ECOLOGY: Planewalkers rarely encounter xac-yel even in the hottest parts of the Crematorium. It’s unknown whether they are simply rare, just good at hiding, or have been hunted—or enslaved—to near-extinction by efreeti. Azer smith-clans trade favours for assistance in their forge workshops. Efreeti legions alternately court and corral them—xac-yel are useful as scouts, but often too independent-minded to fully command; instead they are enslaved and put to work in efreeti mines.

COMBAT: As incorporeal outsiders composed of pure heat, xac-yel ignore most mundane blows, skimming through walls and floors while their corona superheats nearby solid objects. They are unsurprisingly immune to any kind of fire, while being vulnerable to cold. While not harmed by water, they apparently find it unpleasant, and will become agitated if they find themselves in a wet locale.

The attack of a xac-yel is a scorching touch or a flaming ray, depending upon range. They can dazzle or blind a berk by intensifying their corona momentarily, spiking the ambient heat and leaving imprints on the retinae of opponents. They seem to have a peculiar hatred for hairy or large creatures, and typically attack them first before targeting others. As with many energons, xac-yel will explode upon their deaths, in a roiling fireball of intense heat.

Sources

Full Statistics: [ D&D3e / PF1e ]

Canonical Source: Planar Handbook [3e] p119

Source: Margarita and Jon Winter-Holt