Thursday, February 27, 2020

OSE Encounter Activities - Elemental

Four for the price of one (well, technically twelve if you count all the types), this entry provides statistics for the different power levels of Elemental (Lesser, Intermediate, Grater) as well as differences based on their composition.

I’ve always preferred a more “anthropomorphized” or vaguely humanoid miens for my Elementals, but as creatures from other Planes, I tend to give them somewhat inscrutable behaviors and personalities. They are truly alien to this world, and certain situations we’d construe as prosaic are simply frustrating, confusing, or just plain terrifying for them. Imagine for a moment how things would work if you visited a world aflame or with radically different fundamental laws and physics, wouldn’t really be much of a picnic, would it?

Most of them are compelled to perform tasks through powerful magical forces, so give some thought to who/what summoned them and what their underlying duties may be if it’s not specified in an entry. I’m sure that they do occasionally “go rogue” or slay their summoners without securing a return-trip home, so this probably makes them even more aggravated and unpredictable.

Another thing I often import from later versions are even “Smaller” Elementals. I love the idea of a Wizard lighting her pipe with a living wisp of fire, a roiling potion bottle of crystal-clear water that remains cool at any temperature, a surprisingly smooth boulder dutifully rolling behind them, or an orbiting orb-like breeze to flare or billow the occasional robe. OSE Statistic-wise, I’d be tempted to just use Sprites.

Had to do a little font-size shrinking to get them all to play nice on a single page. When I get into less casual “layout” territory for a compiled resource, these might end up on separate spreads.

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