Para-Elemental Bestiary [Monster Thursday]

Flipping through the elementals in the Monster Manual, the para-elemental planes could use a bit lover as all they get are lousy mephits... -Stephen

With all this effort I've been doing looking through the old Planescape campaign setting, I'm realizing how much I like the Inner Planes. Before, I never really gave them much thought, and focused more on the Feywild and Shadowfell, like most people I assume. Those two planes are great ideas that came out of 4th edition, and it's nice they stuck around. 

Another good idea out of that edition is the Elemental Chaos, but it does mean that the elemental planes just get swallowed up with little to no attention to them... (side note, I LOVE that the giants were considered elementals in that edition, no idea why, but it feels so good.) With the last few months focusing on the Inner Planes, I've really enjoyed reading about the Quasi- & Para-elemental planes and I'm a bit sad to be at the end of it all. Sadly, they just didn't get a whole lot of love for them with even 2e not devoting a huge page count to them.

With that said, here are a few para-elementals you can throw in your own games to help those planes come to life!

Para-Elementals (CR 5) The four para-elementals of Ice, Magma, Ooze, and Smoke all make an appearance! They are, of course, all CR 5 as that is the same level as the regular elementals are in the Monster Manual. Now, technically, in 2nd edition, the paraelementals were slightly weaker than regular elementals (and quasi-elementals weaker than them), but I'm not going to start cutting corners on them. They deserve to be a minor threat to a group of level 5 players just as much as boring (and lame) elementals do!

Immoth (CR 8) I looked for some of the more weird creatures to bring forth in this, and one of the weirdest are the giant-elemental-like creatures who inhabit the Plane of Ice. These guys are just odd and have a few unique abilities that can really change up a fight. With their special poison, they can cause creatures to forget words that they speak, which makes them incredibly dangerous to spellcasters as they can't repeat cast spells that require a verbal component if they are poisoned by them! While this poison only lasts a minute, stronger Immoths can have it last for 24 hours, which can be quite a problem for if you are trying to cast fireball more than once. 

Vapor Rats (CR 1/4, CR 2) These guys are just cuties. I like rats, they are cute, they squeak, they are fairly smart, and... when you get enough of them in a single place, turn into a swarm that can ruin a player's life. These little rats are originally from the Plane of Smoke but have made their way across the multiverse. They have the ability to turn into gas and sneak into tiny places that even a normal rat couldn't get into. They are a constant pest in cloud giant castles, seeing as how few other vermin can actually get into a cloud castle! 

That's our monsters for this week, I hope you get a chance to use these! If you have any monsters you'd like done for a Monster Thursday, let me know in the comments below!