I looked through a bunch of my 2nd edition ad&d DS books and could not find paraelementals. You know, sun, magma, silt, and rain. Where can I find them?
Dark Sun never fully detailed them fully out as far as I can tell. They have the paraelemental beasts, but that’s not what you are looking for.
Try poking around here. Some stuff from planescape can be ported over. But it is not Dark Sun.
I was afraid of that. It’s rather bizarre to include a new creature without including it.
I added a lesser paraelemental of silt. https://darksunadventures.blogspot.com/2018/10/lesser-paraelemental-of-silt.html
I took a look at your link with the silt elemental. It looks good. It looks like it is largely in line with the stats of the lesser athasian earth elemental with a few changes as expected.
I was curious to see if you would pattern it more after earth or water. I was surprised to see that the original lesser water elemental had significantly higher damage than the other elementals. Especially for a creature on a world with little water. I also think getting smacked with an earth shaped fist would hurt more than some water shaped tentacle… but what do I know.
I looked at earth mostly, but I tried to get a feel for the various lesser elementals and make something that would be in line with them.
Unfortunately there are no stats for Rain, Sun, or Silt paraelementals. I actually statted all of them out by comparing them with AD&D stats for standard elementals and planescape elementals. Any AD&D players are free to use em.
Rain Paraelemental
| Climate/Terrain: | Any Outside |
|---|---|
| Frequency: | Very Rare |
| Organization: | Solitary |
| Activity Cycle: | Any |
| Diet: | Sunlight |
| Intelligence: | Low (5-7) |
| Treasure: | Nil |
| Alignment: | Neutral |
| No. Appearing: | 1 |
| Armor Class: | 2 |
| Movement: | Flight 32 (A) |
| Hit Dice: | 8, 12, or 16 |
| THAC0: | 13, 9, or 5 |
| No. of Attacks: | 1 |
| Damage/Attack: | 4d8 |
| Special Attacks: | Arc lightning |
| Special Defenses: | +2 or better to hit |
| Magic Resistance: | Nil |
| Size: | L-8 (8-16 feet tall) |
| Morale: | 8-12 Hit Dice: Champion (15-16) |
16 Hit Dice: Fanatic (17)|
|XP Value:|8 Hit Dice: 3,000
12 Hit Dice: 7,000
16 Hit Dice: 11,000|
Rain paraelementals are the rarest of all paraelementals on Athas, as they seldom last long once exposed to the unforgiving climate of the desert. Their forms are cold, born from the icy mingling of lashing winds and freezing waters. Mobile and aggressive, they are at odds with both their environment and their own dual natures. Rain paraelementals are accorded a degree of respect not enjoyed by other paraelementals. Unfortunately, the creatures have little concept of such things, and pay no heed to those who seek to appease them through veneration.
Combat: Rain paraelementals enjoy a high degree of mobility, making them powerful on large battlefields. They often attempt to lure foes to within range of their arc lightning. Rain elementals attack with limbs of concentrated wind charged with lightning, half of its damage is considered lightning damage.
If someone with metal armor or a two handed metal weapon is within five feet of a person attacked by a rain elemental, the lightning bolt jumps to them for 1d8 damage. This can potentially affect multiple people.
Silt Paraelemental
| Climate/Terrain: | Any Outside |
|---|---|
| Frequency: | Very Rare |
| Organization: | Solitary |
| Activity Cycle: | Any |
| Diet: | Sunlight |
| Intelligence: | Low (5-7) |
| Treasure: | Nil |
| Alignment: | Neutral |
| No. Appearing: | 1 |
| Armor Class: | 2 |
| Movement: | Flight 32 (A) |
| Hit Dice: | 8, 12, or 16 |
| THAC0: | 13, 9, or 5 |
| No. of Attacks: | 1 |
| Damage/Attack: | 5d6 |
| Special Attacks: | Whirlpool |
| Special Defenses: | +2 or better to hit |
| Magic Resistance: | Nil |
| Size: | L-8 (8-16 feet tall) |
| Morale: | 8-12 Hit Dice: Champion (15-16) |
16 Hit Dice: Fanatic (17)|
|XP Value:|8 Hit Dice: 3,000
12 Hit Dice: 7,000
16 Hit Dice: 11,000|
Silt paraelementals swim the gloomy seas of their home plane but are mobile above ground if summoned to such a location. They take on a loosely snakelike shape and use this form to either swim through silt or crawl across solid ground. When summoned to the Material Plane, a silt paraelemental forms itself from whatever amount of silt it was conjured from.
Combat: Silt paraelementals are virtually invisible until they attack because they usually slink about in the same silt from which they are made. Only when they rise above the silt are their shapes visible.
Silt paraelementals can create whirlpools by swirling about within bodies silt, creating a funnelling effect. The effect draws everything within a 1-foot radius per hit point it has straight down into the funnel. Once it stops spinning, the silt above closes in, trapping any creature drawn in below the surface. Victims must make eight successful Constitution rolls in a row to reach the surface before breathing in silt. Victims who breath in silt must make a successful save vs. death magic at -3 or they die. If the save is successful, they receive 2-20 (2dl0) points of damage and must continue toward the surface, attempting their remaining Constitution rolls.
Sun Paraelemental
| Climate/Terrain: | Any Air |
|---|---|
| Frequency: | Very Rare |
| Organization: | Solitary |
| Activity Cycle: | Any |
| Diet: | Sunlight |
| Intelligence: | Low (5-7) |
| Treasure: | Nil |
| Alignment: | Neutral |
| No. Appearing: | 1 |
| Armor Class: | 2 |
| Movement: | Flight 32 (A) |
| Hit Dice: | 8, 12, or 16 |
| THAC0: | 13, 9, or 5 |
| No. of Attacks: | 1 |
| Damage/Attack: | 4d4 |
| Special Attacks: | Burn |
| Special Defenses: | +2 or better to hit, Radiant Aura |
| Magic Resistance: | Nil |
| Size: | L-8 (8-16 feet tall) |
| Morale: | 8-12 Hit Dice: Champion (15-16) |
16 Hit Dice: Fanatic (17)|
|XP Value:|8 Hit Dice: 3,000
12 Hit Dice: 7,000
16 Hit Dice: 11,000|
Sun paraelementals typically drift through the blazing skies of their home plane but are equally at home in the sunburned heavens of Athas. They move with smooth speed and fear little, secure in their incendiary natures.
A sun paraelemental manifests as an incandescent creature of sunlight almost too painful to look at. Everything they touch runs the risk of catching fire. Thankfully, the sun paraelemental is an airborne creature and accidental encounters are extremely rare.
Combat: A sun paraelemental is a confident opponent that does not flinch from a frontal assault when pressed to battle. It utilizes its ability to burn its targets to the maximum, attempting to set fires wherever it can when in danger. Sun paraelementals also inflict an additional 1d8 damage on undead.
Flammable objects that touch a sun paraelemental ignite and burn until extinguished or totally consumed unless they successfully save vs. magical fire at a -2. All attackers that rely on sight suffer -2 to hitting a sun paraelemental due to the blinding light it emits
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Nice. I’ll check them out and make an intelligent response later.
Hopefully an intelligent response:
Rain Paraelementals. First, I like and agree with most of what you have set down. Suggested changes are below.
Diet: Sunlight should be change to cool breezes and liquids. Or something similar.
I would lower their movement to 28. I don’t feel rain would be nearly as fast as air. I know you reduced it by 4, I just feel it should be slower.
Damage: Lower to 3d8. 4d8 is greater than both the water and the air elementals. That would be as much as an earth elemental, which is supposed to hit very hard.
Combat: I would make any metal weapon a potential target, not just two handed. In addition, I would give have them take half damage from wind and water attacks. I would give them a weakness related to being out in the unprotected sun for too long.
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I probably missed something, as I’m brain fried right now (long day), but aren’t there paraelementals in the revised ds monstrous compendium? I don’t have it on me.
From what i can tell the 2nd ed revised DS boxed set had a section on monsters that was very short and referenced the two previous DS monster books. Terror of the Desert and Terrors beyond Tyr. It then detailed some domestic animals, Dregoth, and giants. No paraelementals. No supplemental monsters.
I can find no references or specufic stats to any paraelementals as monsters in any of the official DS printed materials or D and D magazines.
They may have reference a paramental in a list in a magazine that refered to non dark sun books however, but i can not find an example of one. Unless I am missing something. I have looked through over 40 printed Dark Sun products and not found them.
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@Rajaat99 Truth be told I’ve not yet tested out Rain Paraelementals in my game yet, only Sun Paraelementals. I’d have to do some speed comparisons with other critters to give a decent response about where their speed should be at. However as the stats implied I effectively depict them as “storm” elementals, with that being how I viewed the Paraelement of Rain (or at least storms involving rain). As for damage they were meant to be as deadly as they were due to the fact they were meant to attack with lightning, but I will look around at some point
@Duke5150 They had paraelemental beasts as official critters in ADnD Dark Sun but no “pure” paraelementals. Otherwise the only official paraelementals we got were of planescape fame. Sadly the only one that translates over to Dark Sun well is the magma elemental, the rest don’t really fit very well. I remember there were some others such as “radiance” and “dust” as well as “lightning” that were either para or quasi elementals from planescape. Unfortunately they didn’t really feel like the equivalent of the themes of Sun, Silt, and Rain. That said they are certainly worth a look for GMs seeking to mine ideas.
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Thinking on things part of me wonders if this oversight is intentional. Maybe Athas’s paraelemental planes can’t produce true elementals.
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That is an interesting theory, however the paraelemental clerics spell list does give them summon elemental of their particular type.
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It is interesting to note that in EAF&W the spells for “conjure lesser magma/rain/silt/sun elemental” are all in the lists at the end of the book. Each is located under its respective paraelemental sphere and is italicized, like all other new spells to the book are. Yet the authors failed to provide any description of what each of those spells does.
Maybe they got removed for space constraints and they forgot to also remove them from the tables at the end.
On the very last page of the book, at the bottom is a note that says “The spells in italics are found in chapter 8 of this book”.
But no description or rules exist for these few spell in chapter 8.
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Thanks for the find, I’ll have to check that out.
I am going to revise what I previously said. They do have a spell in chapter 8 called summon lesser elemental. But it says nothing specific about paraelementals.
I take it that it is a new spell to make use of the lesser elementals (eart, air, fire, water) that were introduced in the Terrors of the Desert (1992). But this spell also exists in that book as well, along with the conjure greater elemental spell. It gives more detail than what is found in EAFW but no paraelemental references.
There are the other elemental conjuring spells under their respective elemental/paraelemental sphere that are not italicized, indicating the spell comes from a different book. But no actual book ever detailed out “elementals” for magma, rain, silt, or sun.
I think it may have been an oversight. the concept of paraelemental planes for dark sun was first introduced in dragon Kings (1992) then again in EAFW (1995). But they contadict each other. Perhaps in 1992 DS it would have been ok to use the planescape paraelementals. But there is the note in the Dragon magazine that lists the monsters that says “no monster from the planescape monster compedium exist on Athas” 
I did find this off of the Freedom Dark Sun web page at twinmooncircus.net the dark sun net handbook 3e from 1997. Though not officially sanctioned this is 2nd edition info that has a few monsters including paraelementals.
http://www.twinmooncircus.net/Dark_Sun_Netbook.pdf
It may be a resource to spur ideas or compare to.
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They are all located in the Monstrous Compendium Supplements for Dark Sun - particularly in the second one, which is in the form of a spine-bound book with colour Artwork, mainly, if not totally, by, I believe, the great Tom Baxa.
Additionally, the Elemental Priests [hereafter Elementalists] of the Para-Elements are dealt with in the Supplement concerning the Elementalists of Athas. See Earth Air Fire and Water.
Published by TSR on 1993-09-03
Trivia note: I back-worked the hp values of the Elemntalissts in this book, and two of them had somehow managed to roll a NEGATIVE value of hit points on the 9d8 allowed for a Cleric of 9th Level or higher in the 1st / 2nd Edition rules!!!
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Christopher Simpson.
See Monstrous Compendium II: Terrors Beyond Tyr
Published by TSR on 1995-09-03
for Dark Sun Monstrous Compendium II, which includes the Para-Elementals and Elemental Drakes of all sorts, as well as other beasties.
Also,
Defilers and Preservers: The Wizards of Athas
Published by TSR on 1996-08-16
has added material concernign Wizards [called Mages or Magic-Users at that time], and includes a discussion concerning the nature of the layout of the Planes around Athas.
Regards,
Christopher Simpson.
Thank you for your responses, but none of the official books had paraelementals, only paraelemental beasts and information for paraelemental priests.