Quasi-Archomental

[ Archomentals ] [ Air | Earth | Fire | Metal | Para-Elemental | Quasi-Elemental | Water | Wood ]

Archomentals of the Quasi-Elemental Planes

The archomentals of the quasi-elemental planes come in two flavours: the truly ancient primordials and the recently risen, and significantly less mighty, quasi-archomentals. Most of the primordials found themselves on the wrong side of the Dawn War—the losing side. Back then of course, the quasi-elemental planes did not yet exist. In fact, graybeards reckon some the quasi-planes may have formed around the prisons that those primordials were cast into following their defeat.

The younger archomentals are a more varied sort—some powerful elementals, others mere mephit pretenders. These berks have taken advantage of power vacuums in the quasi-elemental planes to grab power and territory where they’re able, and hold onto it for as long as they can. Also worth noting is the current lack of a clear ruler on the plane of Steam. The place is in the throes of a quiet civil war, and the swirling steam has yet to coalesce around a single archomental leader.

Name	Status	Alignment	Portfolio	Realm
Alu Kahn Sang	Primordial archomental (bound)	CE	Erosion	Dust / Wandering
Brilostyr ‡	Archomental (mephit)	N	Colour	Radiance
Castanamir	Primordial archomental (bound)	CE	Storm giants	Elemental Chaos / Castanamir Island ‡
Crystalle	Archomental	NG / N	Mineral riches	Mineral / Scintillating Star
Dvelrei ‡	Archomental (mephit)	NE	Avarice	Mineral
Epshion ‡	Archomental (mephit)	N	Salt mephits	Salt / Saline Sea
Gazra	Archomental (mephit)	NE	Extinguishing	Ash / Citadel of Former Flame
Heur-Ket	Primordial archomental (bound)	CE	Storms	Astral / Hestavar / Prison of the Four Winds
Iktha-Lau	Primordial archomental	CN	Nonexistence	Vacuum or Wildspace
Jeriayn ‡	Archomental (mephit)	CN	Disintegration	Dust
Mual-Tar	Primordial archomental (bound)	CN	Thunder	Elemental Chaos / Thunder Temple
Sairazul †	Primordial archomental (freed)	NG	Bounty of the earth	Mineral / Emergent Facet †
Seiyhock ‡	Archomental (mephit)	CN	Polarity	Lightning / Tower of Diviš ‡
Shangar	Primordial archomental (bound)	NE	Colour	Radiance / Oubliette of Unmade Colours ‡
Sun Sing	Archomental	NE	Emptiness	Vacuum
Ty-h’kadi	Archomental	NG	Storms	Lightning / Riven Silence ‡
Unguliustûk	Primordial archomental	NE	Dehydration	Salt / Desolate Labyrinth ‡
Vapiax ‡	Former archomental (mephit)	N	Scalding	Steam
Venies ‡	Would-be archomental (mephit)	N	Mist	Steam

Alu Kahn Sang

The Wind of Destruction. CE Primordial archomental of Dust [it/its]

Prison: Dust (bound to remain on the plane)

Alu Kahn Sang [aloo-KARN-sang] is a primordial embodiment of dust and ruin—a vast, chaotic maelstrom that moves without direction or mercy through the Plane of Dust. Known as the High General or the Wind of Destruction, this entity remains largely unconcerned with the affairs of powers or mortals. Its philosophy centres on entropy itself: the slow erosion of order through abrading winds and choking dust. Fortunately for the rest of the multiverse, Alu Kahn Sang seems to have been confined to the plane of Dust, although within that vast expanse, it is free to cause havoc and destruction.

Get the chant on Alu Kahn Sang here…

Source: Inner Planes [2e] p117; Dragon Magazine #347 p39 (mention in sidebar); #353 p49 (as an enemy of Sunnis); Heroes of Elemental Chaos [4e] p30

Castanamir

The Shattered Khan. CE Primordial archomental of Lightning [he/him]. Bound

Prison: Elemental Chaos / Castanamir Island ‡

Castanamir [cass-TAN-uh-meer] is a half‑forgotten primordial known as the Shattered Khan, a storm‑crowned tyrant and patron of cloud and storm giants. His body was broken and entombed beneath the sea in the early ages of the Elemental Chaos. Once, he ruled a roving empire of storm‑castles and thunderhead fortresses, and drove his giant legions across the skies like an all-conquering hurricane. His philosophy was simple and brutal: those who cannot endure the storm deserve to be swept away. He posed such a threat in the Dawn War that the aloof dragon power Io deigned to join the fighting, and ultimately defeated Castanamir. In the present day, Castanamir lies dormant—thought it’s thought not quite dead—in a shattered, half‑drowned, fully ruined and grounded sky‑palace called Castanamir Island, lost in an endlessly storm‑wracked sea of the Elemental Chaos. Its broken towers jut out, lashed by black waves, while ominous thunder rolls ceaselessly overhead.

Source: Manual of the Planes [4e] p72; Player’s Option: Heroes of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p29-30

Crystalle

King of Minerals, the One of Many Facets. NG / N Archomental of Mineral [he/him]

Realm: Mineral / Scintillating Star

Crystalle [kriss-TAL] calls himself the King of Minerals, and claims to be the archomental of the quasi-elemental plane. It’s thought that he’s a mighty quasi-elemental rather than a primordial or power. In any case, he’s a territorial cutter, claiming ownership of all the riches of the plane, and treats the entire priceless expanse as his demesne. His actual realm is a colossal castle formed from what’s likely the largest diamond in the multiverse, the Scintillating Star. But Crystalle wasn’t always a pompous crystal‑king on a gem-encrusted throne, cutter. He began as a single, flawless seed of prima materia—a clear crystal that bathed in every colour of the Positive Energy Plane and refracted it back as ordered patterns instead of wild radiance.

When that seed drifted into the nascent quasi‑elemental Mineral, it lodged deep in the pressure‑crushed heart of the plane and slowly began to grow, accreting layers of diamond, ruby, opal and even rarer substances with every passing aeon. As mortals tell stories of gems that hold souls, memories, or virtues, so did Mineral itself pour all its “better” impulses into that crystalline mass: the endurance of jade, the truthfulness of clear quartz, the mystic protection of turquoise, and the sense of justice of garnet.

And finally, one day, the lattice awoke. Crystalle has a perfectly clear mind that resonates with the idea that treasures should be earned, and not looted. To him, the plane’s jewels are the hearts and bones of countless mineral spirits and slow‑growing crystal ecologies. Cutters who tunnel respectfully, trade fairly, and honour their oaths may be guided to veins of fortunate stones that amplify one’s courage or wisdom. But those who come to plunder find their avarice mirrored back at them, or even become trapped in cursed gems that weigh down their souls like lead. Crystalle defends his precious minerals like a glittering dragon, turning aside planewalkers, elementals, even fiends who’d plunder it bare. He’s always surrounded by a veritable swarm of ioun stones, common, rare and unique, collected from the Ioun Fields of Mineral.

Source: Dragon Magazine #174 p92-100 (AD&D 2e stats for Crystalle and mineral guardians); #347 p39 (mention in sidebar); #353 p49; Inner Planes [2e] p98-99; Planescape Monstrous Compendium Vol. III [2e] p11

Gazra

The Shifting Emperor. NE Archomental of Ash [he/him]

Realm: Ash / Citadel of Former Flame

Gazra (GAZZ-ra), also called the Shifting Emperor, is the archomental ruler of the quasi‑elemental plane of Ash (and is not to be confused with the pit fiend of the same name). His crumbling seat of power is the Citadel of Former Flame, a vast fortress of fused cinders that constantly and slowly changes shape. Motes of ash fall, settle and continuously grow the spires, before they inevitably collapse under their own weight. This chilling palace is utterly devoid of heat or light—both mundane and magical illumination fail within its disintegrating walls, for fire holds no power here. This doesn’t bother the residents of the citadel though, for those who are not also made from ashes are too dead to care about cold or darkness. The chant goes that Gazra, a cruel and diminutive creature said to be shaped from the ashes of the first creature to have been cremated, seeks to cause an event called the Great Quench. This is a prophecy that the elemental plane of Fire will be snuffed out and extinguished, erasing all flames from existence and leaving only a realm of cinders. Exactly how he plans to achieve this is as dark as his realm, but planewalkers report an ever-growing army of necromentals, a horrible fusion of burned flesh, undead energies and elemental spirit. These awful creatures utterly lack compassion or morality, and view all kinds of life as more fuel to be converted into ashes.

Source: Dragon Magazine #353 p50 (hatred of Zaaman Rul); Inner Planes [2e] p112-113 (Citadel of Former Flame)

Heur-Ket

The Storm Unabated. CE Primordial archomental of Lightning [he/him]. Bound

Prison: Astral / Hestavar / Prison of the Four Winds

Heur‑Ket [her-KETT], the so-called Storm Unabated, was a violent and dangerous storm primordial of wind, thunder and lightning. He manifested as an immense titan of churning cloud and raw sky‑fire, and was a thorn in the side of the gods during the Dawn War. Blustering and overconfident, Heur-Ket had designs far beyond the Inner Planes. He dreamed of conquering the Astral Plane and stamping his mark on the Outer Planes. He swept across the Astral as a seemingly unstoppable storm front, putting many powers in the dead-book as he went. Embodying his philosophy of using explosive and overwhelming shows of force as a kind of ‘shock and awe’ to cow his enemies into submission, chant goes Heur-Ket made it as far as the Silver Sea of Mount Celestia before he finally met an opponent able to stand up to him—three, in fact.

The powers Pelor, Erathis and Ioun set aside their differences and even went so far as to irrevocably merge their realms together, forming the bright metropolis of Hestavar. With this shining bastion of brilliance as a base, they were able to mount a defence which ended badly for the primordial: Heur‑Ket was defeated and is now thought to be alive but imprisoned within or beneath Hestavar itself. Some say he is trapped in an enormous ioun stone called the Prison of the Four Winds, others that he is buried beneath the streets of the burg, which would explain the aggressive weather that some districts seem to suffer still to this day. His title “the Storm Unabated” is these days used more with irony than seriousness, although occasional rumours surface of some barmy archmage or cult trying to free him or harness his power.

Source: Hestavar: the Bright City, Dragon Magazine [4e] #371 p18

Iktha-Lau

The Ever Empty. CN Primordial of Nothing [she/her]

Realm: Wanders Vacuum or Wildspace

Iktha-Lau [ik-thuh-LAHW] is a very different kind of cutter compared with her noisy elemental cousins—she is the primordial of the space between things. Called the Ever Empty, she’s the embodiment of nothingness—the void itself rather than any one discrete element. She’s described as utterly uncaring and incomprehensibly remote, much more an impassive observer of the multiverse rather than an active primordial being. Some legends credit her, alone or alongside Mual‑Tar, with the creation of the first storm that walks, one of those living thunderheads given a malevolent purpose.

No two cutters have ever agreed on her appearance. Perhaps she doesn’t even have an appearance. The few sparse descriptions mention a being of darkness blacker than shadow, tentacles which are everywhere and nowhere simultaneously—or perhaps they are entrails. Thing is, any berk who’s claim to have laid eyes on her has ended up in the Criminally and Irretrievably Insane Wing of the Bleakers’ Gatehouse.

Philosophically, Iktha-Lau is said to embody absence and indifference. Where other primordials reshape the Elemental Chaos, Iktha‑Lau represents the vast, uncaring void in which such changes barely register. She is not recorded as taking sides in the Dawn War or in any of the later squabbles between gods and primordials. In fact, were it not for the barmies, we may not even know she exists in the first place. And some graybeards argue that she probably does not exist either. Which of course means she embodies her nature perfectly. It’s enough to make your brain-box itch.

Of course, a being that does not exist also probably does not have a realm, and indeed nobody has ever found one. She’s associated instead with the coldest, darkest, farthest reaches of Wildspace—the Dark Tapestry at the edges of the known multiverse—and beyond. While she’s collected a cult or two across the planes, often in the quasi-elemental plane of Vacuum, she’s never sponsored one directly, or even spoken to cultists. For them though, the longer that she doesn’t speak, the stronger their faith is that they’re doing their job right…

Source: The Plane Below [4e] p65

Mual-Tar

The Chained Serpent, the Thunder Serpent. CN Primordial archomental of Lightning [he/him] (bound)

Prison: Elemental Chaos / Thunder Temple

Mual‑Tar [moo-AL-tar], originally called the Thunder Serpent, but more recently the Chained Serpent, is a colossal, snake‑like primordial made from booming thunder and flickering lightning. His body is a massive, serpentine storm, barely contained within his metallic scales. He’s one of the great primordials of the Dawn War era, and is associated with apocalyptic tempests, and raw destructive nature of thunderstorms.

Personality‑wise, he is a raging archomental beast—a destructive titanic monster who had to be brought down by a coalition of powers. Bahamut, Moradin, and Pelor took to battle together, finally overpowering Mual-Tar after 101 years of fighting. They bound the beast to an earthmote with five enormous adamantine chains that had been forged by Moradin specifically to hold him.

Today, Mual‑Tar has no free‑roaming realm of his own; his ‘domain’ is effectively the place of his imprisonment. Drifting on a rock in a hidden and deadly region of the Elemental Chaos is the Thunder Temple, where the primordial still thrashes in bondage, driven mad from millennia of confinement. Various cults and storm‑chasing fanatics revere him as a would-be apocalypse and actively seek to break the remaining divine chains, hoping to unleash his fury on gods and mortals alike. As well as being an extremely unwise task, it is also incredibly dangerous, for in his barminess Mual-Tar attacks any who approach him, be they ally or not.

Source: Dragon Magazine #370 [4e] p35 (including stats for Mual-Tar, details on his prison and cultists)

Sairazul

The Crystalline Queen. NG Archomental of Bountiful Gems [she/her] †

Realm: Mineral / Emergent Facet †

Sairazul [sare-az-OOL] is a kindly and beautiful archomental of lord of caves, gems, and fertility. She’s one of the benevolent elemental lords overthrown and entrapped back in ancient times, and only recently freed from her prison the Moaning Diamond. She’s a radiant insect of living crystal, her abdomen an enormous, dazzling faceted gemstone that refracts light into dancing rainbows.

She’s a nurturing and protective, for an elemental, but has a fierce territorial streak. She lavishes bounty and beauty on those who respect the earth and its buried treasures, but shows no mercy to despoilers who would strip-mine her caves for personal profit. Philosophically, she teaches reverence for the slow, patient gifts of the earth—cherishing the crystals which grow over aeons, exploring the unique ecosystems and creatures from the deep, appraising the intrinsic value of unworked stone and gems. Above all, she condemns greed, haste, and wastefulness. She encourages sustainable mining, elevating gem‑cutting and crystal healing to art forms, and the protection of natural caverns as sacred spaces.

Sairazul’s realm in Mineral, the Emergent Facet, is an enormous, glittering emerald veined with gold. The gemstone is slowly growing too, expanding as more tunnels and vaults appear, filled with phosphorescent crystal forests and submerged lakes where her many crystalline children can thrive. Chant goes Sairazul is working on creating a vortex to the plane of Metal, where her ally Laudinmio is currently struggling with a strange sickness.

Source: Rage of Elements [PF2e] p93; Divine Mysteries p191,306; Archives of Nethys

Seiyhock

His Galvanic Majesty; the Sovereign of Static. CN Mephit archomental of Lightning [he/him]

Realm: Lightning / Tower of Diviš

While the greatest of the lightning mephits, Seiyhock is still just a minor archomental—who admittedly has a relatively large influence on the quasi-elemental plane of Lightning. He rules all of the lightning mephits, and many quasi-elementals. Chant goes he created the twin poles of Lightning and set the two sides fighting. Seiyhock is a capricious cutter who demands total and complete loyalty, from everybody but himself. He’ll often make deals and then renege, doing things just because he wants to—he’s the ruler of the plane, right? Who’s going to stop him?

Seiyhock appears as a five foot tall humanoid who seems to be created from pure electricity. When he speaks, his voice pops and cracks with the unmistakable sounds of an electrical birth. He draws a huge magnetic charge all to himself, so he’s usually struck two of three times a round by lightning—which helps to regenerate any damage done to him. He rather enjoys the effect that this has on those he talks to, and cackles like a barmy quite often. He’s every bit as hyperactive as lightning mephits usually come, often changing the subject of his conversation mid-sentence, much to the frustration of berks talking with him. Seiyhock treats nobody seriously unless they pose a serious threat, and then his mood changes rapidly as he seriously orders his four quasi-elemental bodyguards to seriously dispose of the threat.

It’s tough to locate Seiyhock, for he constantly wanders Lightning, cavorting amongst the storm clouds and generally having a good time at everyone else’s expense. He’s never been seen within the ‘eye’ of the quasi-elemental plane. Apparently he hates the place, and wishes he could eradicate it from the face of ‘his’ realm.

Source: Elemental Netbook [2e] p74

Shangar

The Uncrowned. NE Primordial archomental of Radiance [they/them]. Bound

Prison: Radiance / Oubliette of Unmade Colours ‡

Shangar [shan-GAR] was once the Crown of Daybreak, a butterfly‑shaped primordial of Radiance who drifted at the border of the Light and the Void. Their reason for being was to arrange newborn suns into beautiful patterns. They served as a herald and an arbiter for the Radiant Ones, and decided which stars should burn and which be smothered. But they cared more for cosmic aesthetics than making liveable places. During the Dawn War they championed a plan to weaponise the suns, collapsing young stars into radiant lances that would be able to shatter divine realms—which earned them the focused wrath of Pelor, Corellon, and Ioun.

Those powers defeated but did not destroy Shangar, because a multiverse without light would be a terrible place indeed. Instead they bound Shangar in the Oubliette of Unmade Colours and hid it in the Elemental Chaos. Chant goes that over millennia the Oubliette seeded the quasi-elemental plane of Radiance itself. Somewhere hidden in Deep Radiance, Shangar hangs as a half‑formed chrysalis of blinding glass. Their wings are trapped in a shaft of static white light, in a place where all colours are bleached out, sound dies, and time itself stutters. Any attempt by Shangar to complete their metamorphosis and re-emerge as a butterfly is shattered by the Oubliette, condemning them to endless, frustrated transformation.

The Lustrous Crown, a cult run by Hyperion, a titan of light, once favoured by Shangar, now schemes to re-crown their fallen patron. While Hyperion himself is imprisoned in Carceri, his minions are not. They steal divine light from powers and focus it into the Oubliette, and run horrific “hospices” that strip souls of colours. Some graybeards even whisper they’re behind the bleaching effect of the Gray Waste. Their ultimate aim is to purge enough colour into Shangar’s chrysalis, that the primordial is able to complete their eclosion and re-emerge into the multiverse, and presumably free Hyperion as well.

Source: Manual of the Planes [4e] p72 (brief mention); the backstory and link to Hyperion is homebrew.

Sun Sing

Viceroy of the Void. NE Archomental of the Void [he/him]

Realm: Vacuum

Sun Sing, the archomental of darkness and emptiness, dwells in a nameless negative-energy pocket at the edge of the quasi-elemental plane of Vacuum, where by rights, life should be impossible. Sun Sing endures by embodying absence itself, appearing as a shadow darker than black—a knot of perfect nothing that exerts a subtle, erasing influence.

His true nature is debated: some say he’s the last void mephit bloated after consuming his kin, others claim he’s a lich seeking total isolation from the living. The darkest chant of all claims his origins tie to the obyriths, ancient demons who encountered him in the pre-Abyssal void. At that point he was a small piece of Nothing, but as he watched them invisibly, the obyriths taught him about gates into vacuums and the existence of other dimensions and planes.

These days, Sun Sing maintains a network of undead agents—wraiths, spectres, shadowy liches—who are said to gather data on all of the empty places across the multiverse. They chart the locations cutters have forgotten, the burgs that have been abandoned, and the castles that have been left to fall into ruin. All of the darks they bring back feeds an incomprehensible map of how the multiverse is stitched together. What Sun Sing plans to do with this, though—now that’s another dark.

Source: Dragon Magazine #347 p39 (mention in sidebar); Fiendish Codex I [3e] p113; Inner Planes [2e] p124

Ty-h’kadi

Prince of Thunder and Lightning, NG Archomental of Storms [he/him]

Realm: Lightning / Riven Silence ‡

Ty‑h’kadi [tie-huh-CAR-dee] is an archomental of thunder and lightning, a storm shaped like a black cloud with four slender arms and an intense pair of eyes that emit crackling electricity. He’s quick‑tempered and explosively violent, but not inherently malicious. Ty‑h’kadi believes in sudden, surgical cataclysms as a way to prevent worse evils. Chan, an archomental of Air, seems to be the only one who can reliably calm him, passing literally inside his thunderhead and steadying his temper—hence the widespread suspicion that they are lovers as well as allies.

His realm, the Riven Silence, lies at the heart of the plane of Lightning. It’s a dark and starless expanse filled with colossal, frozen lightning bolts hanging in mid‑strike, with rarefied, highly charged air drifting between them. Here, thunder is stored and shaped rather than following the lightning; Ty‑h’kadi can hold back countless thunderclaps or unleash them all at once. He has sculpted caverns and bridges of “solid” sound called the Thunder Hollows. At the centre of the realm floats the Eye‑Within‑Storm, a hollow sphere of still air ringed by chained lightning, where storm‑spirits, echo‑wraiths of those slain by lightning, and sentient thunderclaps attend him.

Ty‑h’kadi’s philosophy is to strike first and strike fastest, a short sharp shock as a pre-emptive attack. It is better to snuff out a candle early than let it burn down your house If you’ve ever seen a storm roll in the a burg and take out an evildoer with a surgical strike that leaves innocents around them unharmed, that might have been Ty‑h’kadi in action.

Source: Dragon Magazine #347 p39; #353 p47 (brief mentions in both); realm and philosophy are homebrew

Unguliustûk

Lash of the Leeching Mire, the Scale of Scoured Flesh. NE Primordial archomental of Halite [she/her]

Realm: Salt / Desolate Labyrinth ‡

Unguliustûk [un-GULLY-uh-stook] is an ancient primordial of desiccation. Her body is that of a huge serpentine lizard, segmented with white crystalline scales that grind like millstones when she moves. She hold court as the Lash of the Leeching Mire, seeing herself as an enforcer and inquisitor among the primordials. Where her lover Ogrémoch crushes with raw stone might, Unguliustûk specialises in the slower, more subtle forms of attack: she infiltrates aquifers and saturates them with saline, drawing out moisture and destroying ecosystems. She leaves behind barren salt flats and poisoned brine lakes. Mortals who offended her might find their blood crystallising in their veins until only a brittle husk is left to blow away in the wind. Her rivalry with water‑lords is legendary—she despises their fluidity as weakness. Even though Salt is tied to Water, Unguliustûk sees herself as a primordial of Earth—rock salt—and in this way has betrayed even her own element.

During the Dawn War, the gods cornered her in a churning maelstrom of the Elemental Chaos, where an unlikely coalition led by dour Moradin and vengeful sea‑goddess Umberlee battered her into submission. They bound her in a vast cocoon woven from desiccated leviathan hides and clay, sinking it into Elemental Chaos. But Unguliustûk was no addle-covce; she endured eons by accelerating her own philosophy. She willed her body into a state of hyper‑desiccation, crystallising herself so completely that the cocoon became part of her. A millennia ago she finally burst from the larval sheath like a nightmare grub.

Unguliustûk’s domain, the Desolate Labyrinth, sprawls across the plane of Salt, a shifting maze of razor canyons where every surface—from sheer walls to needle‑floors—is made from flawless salt crystals that grow in impossible geometries. No wind stirs here, and salt‑dust hangs eternally in veils. Water brought from elsewhere evaporates instantly. At the realm’s heart coils her Thirsting Nest, a colossal basin of fused salt‑glass where she lounges atop a throne of petrified tongues—trophies from the greatest braggarts she’s leeched dry. Salt‑spawn patrol here: thirst wraiths who exhale desiccating breath, and wizened undead merfolk preserved as mummies by the dehydration.

Source: Dungeon Magazine 28 p26 (mentioned in passing); homebrew (connection to Salt, philosophy, backstory)

Source: Jon Winter-Holt. The longlist of Primordials was inspired by the work of Mentat55 (on enworld) and Medivh (on the RPGnet forum) † From Pathfinder lore; ‡ homebrew.