[ Archomentals ] [ Air | Earth | Fire | Metal | Para-Elemental | Quasi-Elemental | Water | Wood ]
Faces of Flame: Factions of the Fire Archomentals
“Of all the elements, glorious Fire is the most ambiguous and the most fickle. You mortals depend on the flames for so much; cooking your food, warming your bones, lighting your way, purifying sacrifices to your powers. Yet at the same time, you fear its wrath; burning your flesh, destroying your homes, blinding your eyes, damning your souls to eternal torment. You pin so many things, good and ill, upon a simple element. And then you come to the Fierce Inferno and you are surprised when your crude stereotype of a ‘fire elemental’ turns out to be just that.
“I am your incandescent servant, Tadj-al-Saltaneh Tiznaa bint-Saatadeh al-Mamaalek, and I will be your guide to the many Faces of Flame—the many ways that Fire Elementals are more subtle and varied than you think. Forget your crude ideas of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ because that Outer Planar nonsense won’t ignite here. Open your mind, close your mouth, and of course, open your purse, and let me tell you the story of the Flickering Empires.
— Tadj-al-Saltaneh Tiznaa bint-Saatadeh al-Mamaalek
| Name | Status | Alignment | Portfolio | Realm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atreia † | Primordial archomental (freed) | NG | Purification | Fire / Wandering |
| Bristia Pel | Dead-booked | — | Was: Purification | — |
| Imix | Primordial archomental | NE | Dominating fire | Fire / Burning Ridges / The Temple of Ultimate Consumption |
| Kossuth | Primordial greater power | N | Heat | Fire / Deep Fire / The Crimson Pillar |
| Vorsheen | Primordial (bound) | CE | Bluefire | Astral / Frostburn |
| Ymeri † | Archomental | CE | Destructive flame | Fire / Burning Ridges / Auroric Palace |
| Zaaman Rul | Archomental | NG | Creative fire | Fire / Plain of Burnt Dreams / The Hidden Heart |
Atreia
The Lambent King. NG Primordial archomental of the purifying power of Fire [he/him] †
Realm: Fire / Wandering
Atreia [uh-TRAY-uh], the Lambent King, is an archomental representing the purifying power of fire. He appears as a magnificent triple‑headed ibis with wings that burn like suns and eyes of pure flame, radiating warmth, protection and hope. He embodies fire as cleansing renewal—burning away corruption, cauterising wounds, purifying tainted ground and rekindling spent fires so new life can grow. He stands in opposition to both Imix’s tyrannical dominion and Ymeri’s mindless destruction.
In the ancient days his roaming realm on the Plane of Fire even contained oases where air‑breathers and water‑folk could safely rest, an unheard‑of mercy among fire lords. As mortal fear of fire grew, Ymeri and other malign powers turned more cruel, eventually betraying Atreia and imprisoning him within the Garnet Brand, a crimson gemstone shrouded in eternal steam that cut him off from his worshippers for ages. Recently and mysteriously freed—by unknown agents—Atreia has returned weakened but determined. He now wanders the Plane of Fire rather than holding a fixed realm, gathering a Radiant Host of sympathetic fire elementals, salamanders and sootsoldiers while he searches for a defensible stronghold. His current goal is nothing less than to reform the culture of the Great Furnace itself, challenging Ymeri’s dominance and trying to restore a moral, compassionate understanding of flame among both elementals and mortals.
Source: Rage of Elements [PF2e] p116; Gods & Magic [PF2e] p126; Divine Mysteries [PF2e] p190,306; Archives of Nethys
Bristia Pel
The Princess of Everlasting Fire. NG Archomental of Fire [she/her] (dead-booked)
Bristia Pel, the Princess of Everlasting Fire, was the patron of purifying, civilising fire rather than wanton burning. She appeared as a towering woman-shaped inferno, equal parts hearthfire and sunray, and fought beside Chan, Sunnis, and Ben-Hadar for Law and Good in the ancient war against the Queen of Chaos. She believed that fire should warm homes, forge tools, and cauterise rot, not be squandered on cruelty or terror. Her base of operations was a now-lost citadel deep in the Elemental Plane of Fire (some chant calls it the Everlasting Flame), a bastion where a single pure flame burned in a crucible, while rivers of lava followed precisely cut channels away from it. There she sheltered kind‑hearted fire elementals and rebellious salamanders who balked at the tyranny of Imix. Bristia Pel was ultimately betrayed and destroyed by the magma and smoke archomentals Chilimba and Ehkahk, leaving (her probable son) Zaaman Rul to inherit the thankless job of being the benevolent flame in a plane that prefers things burnt to cinders.
Source: Dragon Magazine #353 p43,47
Imix
Lord of Hellfire, the Eternal Flame. NE Primordial qrchomental of dominating fire [he/him]
Realm: Fire / Burning Ridges / The Temple of Ultimate Consumption
Imix [IMM-icks] the Lord of Hellfire, is a primordial archomental of all‑consuming fire. He usually manifests as a towering pillar of red flame, crowned in white‑hot fire, sometimes taking the shape of a giant flaming bull. His body is intensely hot but almost weightless, surrounded by a sulphurous stench, and lashing fiery tendrils. Imix is vain, cruel, and explosively temperamental, a creature of barely contained fury whose arrogance, jealousy, and impatience constantly sabotage his own grandiose schemes.
His philosophy is simple: fire exists to dominate and destroy. Imix seeks absolute rule over the plane of Fire and to twist the very purpose of fire across the multiverse—so that cooking flames always burn food, candles blind instead of illuminate, and hearths destroy homes rather than warm them. His realm is the Temple of Ultimate Consumption, a colossal inverted obsidian pyramid hanging over a lava lake in a volcanic caldera, serving as both palace and stronghold of the Cult of Eternal Flame, his gang of pyromancer zealots.
Source: Dragon Magazine #347 p30,32-32,39,41; #353 p45,47,50; Inner Planes [2e] p46,49,55-56; Planescape Monstrous Compendium Vol. III [2e] p8,16-18,21,93; Monster Manual IV [3e] p7,12; V p52-53,65; On Hallowed Ground [2e] p53; Manual of the Planes [4e] p73
Kossuth
Tyrant-King of Fire Elementals, Lord of Fire, the Leading Light. N Primordial greater power of Fire [He/Him]
Realm: Fire / Deep Fire / The Crimson Pillar
This old chunk of coal has been smouldering longer than Baator, they reckon. These days he’s cold and aloof—which is quite a trick for the highest-up of the fire elementals, let me tell you! Back in the day though they say Kossuth [koss-OOTH] was a real wildfire. There are myths about him disobeying the powers and giving the first flame to mortals—funnily enough Prometheus got blamed for that by the Greek pantheon too, and Loki by the Norse. Now I’m not one to start rumours, but have you ever seen Kossuth, Prometheus and Loki in the same place at the same time? I thought not. But over the millenia, Old Kossuth grew gradually more distant and aloof, withdrawing into his realm the Crimson Pillar in the Deep Fire. Followers of Kossuth are the most insular of the flame elementals, caring not a jot for morality, just for the warm embrace of the flames.
Get the chant on Kossuth here…
Source: Dragon Magazine #347 p29,34; Inner Planes [2e] p46-47,49; On Hallowed Ground [2e] p53,181; Planescape Campaign Setting [2e] DM’s Guide p31
Vorsheen
Queen of Api Biru. NE Primordial archomental of Bluefire [she/her]
Prison: Astral / Frostburn
Vorsheen [vore-SHEEN] is primordial of api biru, or bluefire—a type of purifying flame created when sulfur burns. She was once tasked with refining the creations of other primordials, and then of the powers. Her pure flames burned away flaws in bodies, souls, and even ideas. Over time she saw that her work made everything she touched “cleaner” but also emptier, and she came to embrace a darker creed—that true stability required purging whole spectra of emotion and dissent. When she began using api biru to erase parts of the Astral Plane, wiping out memories and threatening their domains, the powers finally turned on her and forged an astral prison.
Into this prison of glassteel they lured and then trapped the Vorsheen and the ice primordial Sisanthak, her arch-nemesis. Why build two prisons when one can do the job? Perhaps the powers expected one of the primordials to overcome the other, but millennia later, the two enemies are still at battle. Each one is so consumed with defeating the other that they have no idea how long they have been fighting, nor that the Dawn War is over. Vorsheen and Sisanthak have been locked in battle for so long that most cutters view them both as two halfs of a duality of opposites—light and dark, heat and cold. You can bet the would both hate that.
Outside the prison, the First Perfected—an api biru revenant champion Vorsheen “refined” millennia ago—tirelessly chips away at Frostburn’s glass edges trying to crack it. All this has achieved so far is to allow fragmentary motes of bluefire to leak into the Astral. Meanwhile, the Choir Phlegmatic, a Sigil-based sect of the traumatised and grief‑stricken, uses wisps of api biru they’ve harvested in rites to burn away memories of their own agonies. Which would be fine, but chant goes they’ve decided to up the ante and plan a much larger ritual that would would strip intense feeling from everyone in the Hive Ward “for their own good.”
Sources: Heroes of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p30,33 (brief mention, expanded here with homebrew)
Ymeri
The All-Consuming, the Bridge-Burner, the Queen of the Inferno. NE/CE archomental of the destructive power of fire, deserts, volcanoes (she/her) †
Realm: Fire / Burning Ridges / Auroric Palace
Ymeri [im-ERRY], the All-Consuming Queen of the Inferno, is the malevolent archomental of fire at its most sadistically destructive—a jealous flame that burns not just for fuel, but for the sheer pleasure of watching civilisations crumble and histories turn to ash. This many-armed reptilian with burning wings rules from her Auroric Palace at the border of Fire and Magma, where magma sublimates into vapour that creates aurora across her domain. Her philosophy centres on consumption and domination through fear, teaching that Fire should rule all planes while everything else burns. She has systematically destroyed all records of her own origins to remake herself through pure erasure. Ymeri commands the largest following among all elemental lords—from fire elementals and efreet to chaotic pyrophor and mortal cults of arsonist priests—all serving her vision of unpredictable, terrifying flames that leap and shift to consume not just matter, but hope itself. She represents fire at its most dangerous, she is the flame that grow beyond any attempt to control it, burning brighter until everything is ashes.
Sources: Rage of Elements [PF2e] p116; Gods & Magic [PF2e] p126; Planes of Power [PF1e] p54-55; Divine Mysteries p191,306; Archives of Nethys
Zaaman Rul
The Resilient Ember, the Flame of Purity. NG archomental of the creative power of fire (he/him)
Realm: Fire / Plain of Burnt Dreams / The Hidden Heart
Remember, cutter, Fire ain’t just destructive, it can also be useful. The embodiment of the benevolent aspects of the element—at least as far as mortals are concerned—is the archomental called Zaaman Rul [ZAH-mun-ROOL] He’s the being credited with helping humans tame flames for hearths, cooking fires, kilns, forges, and alchemical labs. He’s a thoughtful and diplomatic being, although he can be quick to anger. Hated by most of the other flame archomentals, Rul has necessarily found allies elsewhere, amongst the powers of the mortals, the celestials and planewalkers. His followers are called the Righteous Flames, and they’re most creative of the flame-dwellers, always crafting and cooking up new wonders.
Get the chant on Zaaman Rul here…
Sources: Dragon Magazine #347 p34; #353 p47,49-50; Inner Planes [2e] p46,49,55; Planescape Monstrous Compendium Vol. III [2e] p21; Manual of the Planes [5e] p161
Source: Jon Winter-Holt. The longlist of Primordials was inspired by the work of Mentat55 (on enworld) and Medivh (on the RPGnet forum)
I think you made a mistake in Atreia’s description. You say “He stands in opposition to Ymeri’s tyrannical dominion and Imix’s mindless destruction,” but you’ve identified Ymeri as the archomental of mindless destruction and Imix as the archomental of tyrannical domination.
Oops, yes — great catch! I’ve fixed that, thanks!