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Archomentals of Earth
You can tell a lot about the Plane of Earth by its lords, cutter. Down there, the archomentals of earth are built from weight, consequence, and long, slow grinding of grudges. They have more in common than they’d ever admit: Yet every one of them thinks their version of “rock” is the only one that truly deserves to last.
| Name | Status | Alignment | Portfolio | Realm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ayrzul † | Archomental | NE | Buried secrets, radiation | Earth / Furnaces / Blistering Labyrinth |
| Grumbar | Primordial greater power | N | Unchanging stability | Earth / Protolith / The Great Mountain |
| Ogrémoch | Primordial archomental (freed) | NE | Crushing earthquakes | Earth / Furnaces / Stonemire |
| Sunnis | Archomental | NG | Underdark | Earth / Protolith / Sandfall |
| Tziphal | Primordial archomental (bound) | NE | Petrification | Elemental Chaos / Mountain Builder’s Barrow |
All of them embody one rocky face of earth’s endurance. Grumbar is the solid idea of unmoving stone—the Living Mountain that would rather let the dust of the ages pile up than see anything important change. Sunnis is the trustworthy foundation, the earth as shelter and nurturer, the Lode Mother who teaches that stone supports the weak and hides treasures from the greedy. Ogrémoch takes the same bedrock and turns it into a fist: Earth as smothering power, the Stone Tyrant who believes anything buried under his weight becomes his by right. Ayrzul dives deeper, into the bones and the poison beneath—secret rare earth ores which promise sickness, the Fossilized King lurks in his abysium maze, content to let the world rot quietly while his toxic influence radiates out. And then there’s Tziphal, the Mountain Builder, who decided the only proper end state for anything that moves is to stop: Life just waiting for his touch to freeze it into permanent stone. Between them you get the full philosophy of Earth: support, shelter, crushing, decay, and final, permanent stillness.
As for how they feel about each other? Picture a family of titans sharing what feels like a cramped cavern and a great deal of awkward history between them. Sunnis and Ogrémoch are locked in open war—pure stone versus black earth, both so evenly matched that the graybeards assumes Grumbar is nudging the balance from behind. Ayrzul keeps mostly out of that brawl, burrowed into his Blistering Labyrinth, but works to quietly assassinate his rivals across the Inner Planes. And none of them really give a thought to Tziphal, who lies frozen in his prison somewhere out in the Chaos, and probably a good thing—he was a dangerous berk.
Ayrzul
The Fossilized King. NE Archomental of Bones, Buried Secrets and Radiation [he/him] †
Realm: Earth / Furnaces / Blistering Labyrinth
Ayrzul [ire-ZOOL] is a malicious elemental lord of bones, buried secrets, and radiation. He rules a dangerously radioactive stronghold called the Blistering Labyrinth hidden deep within the plane of Earth. Be warned, cutter—this place is truly deadly, being built from abysium, that foulest of metals. Any berk who dares enter this glowing maze is doomed to sicken and die. They say that no planewalker has ever seen Ayrzul’s true form and survived it—turns out he’s something of a mystery even to other elementals, and is known mainly through the effects of his powers and the actions of his minions.
The Fossilized King is secretive, patient, and deeply paranoid. He’s obsessed with growing and securing power and hiding himself and his schemes. Chant goes he’s responsible for all manner of poisonings, assassinations and petrification of his rivals in the Plane of Earth. He commands his followers to obscure their motives too, and target sods he decides are enemies—be they either real or perceived. Ayrzul particularly enjoys it when sods use abysium weapons, and it’s thought his minions sell the noxious things in Lower Planar markets.
Over the ages he’s methodically eliminated or neutralised rivals: he imprisoned Sairazul, seized the portfolio of quicksilver from Laudinmio. He even turned back an invasion by the wood lord Verilorn, infecting the Custodian’s retreating armies with a wasting radiation sickness that ravaged the Plane of Wood—exactly as he’d planned. Ayrzul now seeks uncontested dominion over Earth and its surrounding quasi and para‑planes, and is content to let the inhabitants of those planes slowly sicken and crumble while his grip tightens.
Source: Rage of Elements [PF2e] p92; Divine Mysteries [PF2e] p190,306; Archives of Nethys
Grumbar
Lord of the Earth, Earth Father, the Living Mountain. N Primordial greater power of Immovable Rock [He/Him]
Realm: Earth / Protolith / Great Mountain
One of the ancient primordials, Grumbar [grumm-BAR] is the elemental embodiment of Earth, and one of the four great elemental lords who are worshipped as powers on prime worlds like Toril. Descriptions of the cutter vary from telling to telling—he might manifest as anything from a perfect stone statue to a literal mountain—but the most artistic depictions picture him as an enormous humanoid figure with arms as thick as the largest of tree trunks, and eyes that glimmer like rubies. When he’s feeling fancy he might be inlaid with gemstones, sardonyx or jasper.
When he’s not a literal raging earthquake, Grumbar is generally quiet, resolute, and more resistant to change than almost any other power. He is after all the very embodiment of stability, solidity, and the uncomplaining bearer of burdens. Philosophically, he represents changelessness and maintaining the status quo—his priests preach resistance to change, and the value of following the Old Ways. Grumbar protects the mineral riches and ore lodes hidden within the earth. He cares only slightly for his followers, it seems, accepting offerings of rare stones and gems without much comment. He grants oracular knowledge, usually of hidden caverns and ore veins, seemingly at random.
Grumbar maintains two domains in the Inner Planes. His ancient realm of Great Mountain is planted in the deep heart of the plane of Earth, a truly colossal structure of the hardest granite completely buried in soil. More recently, the rocky seams of the mountain have extended further, crossing into the Elemental Chaos where they manifest as the Root Hold. Whether Grumbar seeks to stabilise the chaos by creating a solid foundation, or is just exerting his influence further afield, remains to be seen. It could also be part of his never-ending plots to keep his rival earth archomentals, Sunnis and Ogrémoch, on their toes. While Grumbar ostensibly remains strictly aloof from their conflict, its believed one of the reasons the two seem so evenly matched is because Grumbar secretly assists the underdog, thus ensuring the pair are too busy fighting each other to assail his dominion of Earth
Source: Dragon Magazine #347 p29; Inner Planes [2e] p36; Manual of the Plaves [5e] p154; On Hallowed Ground [2e] p53,181; Planescape Campaign Setting [2e] DM’s Guide p29
Ogrémoch
Prince of Elemental Earth, Master of Black Earth, Stone Tyrant. NE Primordial archomental of Crushing Earthquakes [he/him]
Realm: Earth / Furnaces / Stonemire
A towering primordial archomental of black earth and dark stone, Ogrémoch [ogg-RAY-mock] usually appears as a shambling vaguely-humanoid colossus of rock and crystal at least fifty feet tall. His eyes are like chips of obsidian his body glitters with flecks of mica. Other cutters have called him a walking boulder‑heap, or a living mountain, so it seems likely he changes his form when he pleases. He can even tear off chunks of his own body and animate them as gargoyles.
Ogrémoch is one of the least subtle of the archomentals. He’s callously practical, brutally violent, and utterly convinced that raw, crushing power meted out by his own fists is the only true law. He believes earth is the strongest element because it supports, buries, smothers, and outlasts all others, and his dogma exhorts followers to grind their foes to dust beneath the millstone of earth. Ogrémoch is wholly selfish and miserly, claiming all treasures within the earth as his personal property, not because he needs wealth but simply because he can. He can sense when precious metals or gems are taken from territory under his influence and despises mining, quarrying, and even building with stone. If he’s on the Prime he might destroy mines, quarries, towns, and or fortifications. His greatest ambition is to destroy Sunnis, and to see earth rule over all other elements. Chant goes that Grumbar is playing the two archomentals off against each other, in order to retain his own control on the plane.
Ogrémoch’s realm is Stonemire, a massive fortress on a great mesa deep in the Furnaces region of Earth, heading lavawards towards Magma. The surrounding cavern is described as oppressively hot by some planewalkers or bitterly cold by others. Stonemire itself is decorated with fountains of molten stone, smoke, and steam, and its very foundations said to be made from the entombed, still‑living bodies of Ogrémoch’s enemies.
Source: Dragon Magazine #347 p30,32,34-36,39,41; #353 p48; Inner Planes [2e] p30,34,36-37,74; Planescape Monstrous Compendium Vol. III [2e] p7-8,16-18,21,34; Monster Manual IV [3e] p7-9; On Hallowed Ground [2e] p53
Sunnis
The True Stone, Lode Mother. NG Archomental of the Underdark and Supporting Foundations [she/her]
Realm: Earth / Protolith / Sandfall
Sunnis [soo-NISS] is the patron of the Underdark on a dozen Prime worlds, the protector of those rare good creatures who dwell in the depths. She’s venerated by svirfneblin and stonechildren alike on the Prime—but her true home is the Deep Earth, where she maintains a realm called Sandfall It’s a curious place—a fortress being in the centre of a vast cavern, onto which a torrent of sand eternally falls. Planewalkers say it looks like a vast hourglass. Sandfall is home to countless earth elementals and pech.
She manifests with a tall, muscular female figure chiselled from granite, shot through with veins of gold, and eyes of scintillating sapphires. She’s protective of her chosen people, patient, and resolute. Of all the Princes of Elemental Good, she’s the mightiest, and probably the best known. Her philosophy exalts earth as the trustworthy foundation that supports and endures, teaching followers to nurture the land, protect buried treasures, and defy forces that would despoil or destabilise the ground. This puts her in direct opposition to Ogrémoch, her nemesis, in an elemental war for supremacy over the Plane of Earth. The struggle between the two of them seems evenly balanced, and chant goes that’s because Grumbar plays them off against each other, secretly helping out whoever is the underdog.
Source: Dragon Magazine #347 p36; #353 p43,46-49; Inner Planes [2e] p34,36-37; Planescape Monstrous Compendium Vol. III [2e]p7,17,21,34; Forgotten Realms wiki
Tziphal
The Mountain Builder. LE Primordial of Petrification [he/him]. Bound
Prison: Elemental Chaos / Mountain Builder’s Barrow
Tziphal [tiz-EE-fal], the Mountain Builder, is the archomental representing folding earth, volcanoes and petrification, a primordial whose stone-like flesh could change the substance of anything he touched. He could take many forms from a colossal humanoid to a centipede-like horror with multiple torsos and legs. He saw life as geology unfinished, granting his mercy through stillness by turning transient flesh, forests, and even gods to enduring eternal stone. Stone does not need to fear hunger, thirst, or change. Mauled and cursed by the powers during the Dawn War, his immense body was sealed in the Mountain Builder’s Barrow, a cursed cairn deep in the Elemental Chaos, where he slumbers still in a limbo somewhere between death and dormancy.
Chant goes that the Barrow defies spatial and temporal logic: a modest-sized tumulus outside, but inside its tunnels loop impossibly, walls bear half-finished reliefs, time slows to a crawl, yet ancient magics work to turn intruders into stone. They hear a deep rumbling voice urging them toward the source—perhaps Tziphal is stirring, or perhaps it’s an imposter exploiting his legend. The Barrow is protected by xorns, and worse.
There are two known cults of Tziphal scattered across the planes. The Restorers, led by a stone giant runecarver named Tholundru seek his revival through sacrifices and ritual, although every attempt to penetrate the Barrow and enact their plots has so far resulted in their permanent petrification. It seems Tziphal is simultaneously there and not there, somehow out of phase with normal time. Another group of fanatics—a coven of medusae calling themselves the Blessed Still seek to continue Tziphal’s work, collecting a veritable army of creatures they have turned to stone with their gaze. What they plan on doing with this cursed statuary beyond a gruesome art gallery is dark.
Source: The Plane Below [4e] p43 (Tziphal),100-105 (the Mountain Builder’s Barrow)
Source: Jon Winter-Holt. The longlist of Primordials was inspired by the work of Mentat55 (on enworld) and Medivh (on the RPGnet forum)