Water Elemental

How long has it been since we covered one of the four classic elementals?  Long enough ago that this blog wasn’t even on Tumblr yet.

I joked in the Earth Elemental entry about where you can find water elementals—“any pool in any adventure on any world ever”—and two years later I’m still not wrong.  So let’s try some adventure seeds that don’t involve a fountain, pool, or the Plane of Water.

The Lady’s Luck is attacked by saltwater elementals while at sea.  The manta ray-like water creatures douse lanterns and bull rush deckhands as they arc past.  The captain refuses to alter course, but the sailors take the incident as an omen, beginning to mutter darkly about old pacts with tritons and that they are “waking the brine dragon.”

In magic-rich, water-poor places, water sometimes acts in its own defense.  After the Broken World shattered, many of the floating earthbergs lost their water to the airy void.  The pools that remained preserved in isolated tarns and caves slowly grew sentient, and now animate as water elementals to resist exploitation.

In places where springs and oases are sacred, young men and women sometimes pledge themselves in service to the water—and the water pledges itself in return.  Those who come across a young ranger or dervish tending a spring should speak courteously and not foul the water, or else the ranger and the elemental spirit of the water will attack.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 126–127

The third adventure seed is inspired by an old Dragon Magazine story (whose title escapes me) about the friendship between a river spirit and a young bogatyr.

Mythic Adventures has a mythic (and very Cthulhu-esque) water elemental for those who like their elementals extra vortex-y.

Speaking of Cthulhu—squeeeee!  I got something cool in the mail today.  I’ll take pictures and post soon.

Looking for the wasp swarm?  Try all the way back here.