Amiel
2009-07-02, 11:00 AM
"Preposterous!"
"The very notion…is…absurd"
"We have…exhaustively documented all creatures, native and interloper, to the Inner Planes. There is…no evidence to suggest to the contrary. In short… there are no unknown inner-planar creatures."
"The author needs to reword his working theory."
The Inner, like the Outer, Realities are immense. Personifying metaphysical infinity, they are entirely too illimitable for the simple mortal to comprehend. The true scope of their immensity rupturing mortal conscious and raising a tower of ignorance to better protect the mind. We are perpetually constrained in our ability to comprehend and in our ability to understand. For too long have we taken the denizens of these Realities at face value; we know now that similarity does not breed sameness. What then do new and wondrous discoveries await us?
I point to you the Inner Planes. The Elemental Reality of Fire and the denizens of that plane in particular. We talk about natives when we refer to efreet and salamanders. But at one stage of their existence, they were once interlopers! Yes, I hear you gasp. They are not truly indigenous to the Great Furnace! No, that distinction belongs to the elementals. Yet, it is untrue to say that elementals are native either. They are after all, barely sentient pieces of the plane itself.
No, I believe we are overlooking something. The missing link between truth and reality.
-- Eremantarian, excerpt from Missing Pieces, Chapter 1
"Firstly, I must thank and congratulate Eremantarian. No one man has single-handedly molested relevant facts and common sense as well as he has. He talks about a Great War that drew the forces of these primordial elementals into opposition. Utter nonsense I say! If these were the true 'inheritors of the earth,' they would not fight each other. Morals and ethics? The very concept should be alien to them. By inference, the very notion of fighting each other is absurd."
-- Avantharam in response to Chapter 3, Foundations of Existence
Sereifah
Large Elemental (Extraplanar, Fire)
Hit Dice: 18d8+162 (243 hp)
Initiative: +14
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares), fly 80 ft. (average)
Armor Class: 39 (-1 size, +10 Dexterity, +20 natural), touch 19, flat-footed 30
Base Attack/Grapple: +18/+34
Attack: Slam +30 melee (2d8+12 + 4d8 fire)
Full Attack: 2 slams +30 melee (2d8+12 + 4d8 fire) and 4 wings +28 melee (1d8+6 + 4d8 fire)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Continual burn, spell-like abilities, summon elemental
Special Qualities: Blazing wake, damage reduction 15/-, darkvision 60 ft., fount of fire, great furnace, immunity to fire, poison, sleep effects, paralysis and stunning, low-light vision, partial vulnerability to cold, resistance to acid 10 and electricity 10, spell resistance 28, telepathy 100 ft.
Saves: Fort +21, Ref +21, Will +21
Abilities: Str 35, Dex 30, Con 29, Int 24, Wis 24, Cha 26
Skills:
Feats: Cleave, Flyby Attack, Great Cleave, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Multiattack, Power Attack
Environment: The Elemental Reality of Fire
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 20
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always Neutral
Advancement: 19 – 40 HD (Large), 41 – 54 HD (Huge)
Few have encountered a sereifah, fewer still have returned to tell of it. The sereifah are quiet enigmas, not much is known of them, and lesser still is known of their histories and how they came to be. There could be some truth to what the scholars posit. After all, subjective theories are often grounded in objective facts. Proof does exist but it's tenuous and highly debated.
The sereifah are the greatest of the elementals that dominate the Crematorium, a remarkably apt name for the Elemental Reality of Fire, and the true rulers of that Reality. The salamanders and efreet are interlopers, stains upon a plane noted for its neutral purity. Morality and ethics are alien to them, as are concepts of compassion and malevolence. Nothing is left in their wake, save for maybe ashes. While it is untrue to say they exist for no reason other than to burn, their clinical detachment from the immense destruction they cause truly highlights their profoundly alien mindset. They do not back down from combat nor do they instigate it. Rare is the sereifah who appreciates the concept of mercy.
Sereifah are true loners, solitary beacons upon the firestorm of their own past, present and future. It is true to say that a sereifah is the rival of any powerful fiend or angel though they seldom exercise this point. Neither do they exercise their influence over others of their ilk, deliberately staying out of the politics rife in the Reality of Fire.
Relations between the efreet, salamanders, other interlopers and the sereifah exist only with a strained courtesy. The interlopers face severe condemnation from the sereifah for tainting this bastion of neutrality with needless morality or ethics, and are forced to bend the knee to the greater power of these incarnations of fire. The efreet chafe at dominion by out-siders, salamanders view the sereifah with enmity while the coldness and aloofness of the sereifah repels the azer. Avoidance by the lesser races is key to any tenuous diplomacy while the sereifah are content to have nothing to do with what are clearly inferiors.
A sereifah has an intellectual brilliance challenged by few.
Sereifah appear as tall, slender beings. Their skins burn white-hot with intense heat. Their heads are seemingly bald, though red hot flames lick their scalps, creating the illusion of hair. Four immense pairs of wings, the coloration of hot ember flecked with intense orange fire, spread from their backs. Phoenix-like, they radiate a tremendous heat. Their eyes burn with the intensity of a thousand suns and their high cheekbones frame a face of handsome features.
Combat
Blazing Wake (Ex): Sereifah leave roaring infernos behind them. The path of the sereifah's movement burns as a wall of fire spell. Both sides of the wall radiate heat, dealing 2d4 points of damage to those within 10 ft., and 1d4 points of damage to those within 20 ft. Those passing through the wall take 12d6 points of fire damage. The damage halves after every round for 4 rounds, this is due to the flames cooling over those rounds. This quality always benefits from Great Furnace.
A sereifah can also remain in one place, causing the inferno to arise around them. If the sereifah does not move in the round, a 10 ft. radius flaming circle centered on it is formed, with all the same properties of Blazing Wake.
Finally, 2/day as a standard action, provided it has caused the blaze to arise centered on it, the sereifah can release a pyroclasm of white-hot flame striking all for 20d8 fire damage within a 30 ft. radius. This ability causes the sereifah to forego the use of spell-like abilities for 1d4 rounds.
Continual Burn (Ex): All fire damage originating from the sereifah forces the risk of continual burn. Those who suffer fire damage from a sereifah's attacks must succeed on a Reflex save DC 28 or catch fire themselves. This deals one-half of the original fire damage every round until extinguished. The flames can be doused with a Reflex save DC 28 each round or immersion in any nonflammable liquid or any effect that deals at least 4 points of cold damage to the victim. Spells that create water or use water to cause damage also can extinguish the flame. Spells that magically control fire are effective against the flames. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Fount of Fire (Ex): In their natural state, the sereifah are immense energy beings. When they walk among lesser beings, though, they are chained and tethered to shells that bind and contain their essences. Even so, this does not prevent the release and seepage of these immense energies. A sereifah has the space and reach of a Huge creature and is capable of attacking any creature in those squares.
While technically elementals, sereifah are in reality ideals of fire; all calculations are as per outsider mechanics.
So intense is their connection to the Reality of Fire that it ignores the resistance to fire of creatures and affected creatures with immunity to fire still take full damage if they fail on a Fort DC 28 save. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Additionally, creatures with the fire subtype, and especially elementals, hit by a sereifah's melee attacks gain two negative levels. For each negative level bestowed, the sereifah gains two temporary hit points. A sereifah can use its energy drain ability once every 1d4 rounds. Any metal weapon wielded against the sereifah must succeed a Fort DC 28 save or melt away into slag. Additionally, a sereifah can command fire elementals as a cleric of their HD. Finally, any being engaged in a grapple with a sereifah suffers 2d8 points of fire damage; there is no save.
Great Furnace (Ex): A sereifah's fire-based attacks, including spells or spell-like abilities, function as if they were either empowered or maximised if it so chooses; it cannot be both. Furthermore, a sereifah is perpetually surrounded by waves of fire and burning air; unprotected wood, paper, cloth and other flammable materials catch fire almost immediately and those wearing unprotected flammable clothing catch on fire. In addition, individuals take 2d8 points of fire damage every round they are within ten feet of the sereifah. Creatures of the water subtype suffer excruciating agony. Those that are made of water take double damage each round.
Regeneration (Ex): Cold and water deal half damage to a sereifah. When in contact with a blaze at least twice their size, a sereifah benefits from regeneration 6. Additionally, fire damage heals an equal amount of damage instead; fire damage that would normally penetrate immunities instead deals no damage. The creature cannot be healed any other way except by means of this ability.
Spell-Like Abilities: At will – burning hands, cone of fire, detect magic, elemental swarm, fireball, fire seeds, fire storm, fire trap, flame strike, flaming sphere, greater dispel magic, greater teleport, heat metal, incendiary cloud, meteor swarm, orb of fire, produce flame, pyrotechnics, resist energy, scorching ray, wall of fire. Caster level 18th. Save DC = 18 + spell level.
Summon Elemental (Sp): Four times per day, a sereifah may automatically summon 4 small fire elementals, medium fire elementals, or large fire elementals, or 2 huge fire elementals, greater fire elementals, or elder fire elementals. This is the equivalent of an 8th-level spell.
"The very notion…is…absurd"
"We have…exhaustively documented all creatures, native and interloper, to the Inner Planes. There is…no evidence to suggest to the contrary. In short… there are no unknown inner-planar creatures."
"The author needs to reword his working theory."
The Inner, like the Outer, Realities are immense. Personifying metaphysical infinity, they are entirely too illimitable for the simple mortal to comprehend. The true scope of their immensity rupturing mortal conscious and raising a tower of ignorance to better protect the mind. We are perpetually constrained in our ability to comprehend and in our ability to understand. For too long have we taken the denizens of these Realities at face value; we know now that similarity does not breed sameness. What then do new and wondrous discoveries await us?
I point to you the Inner Planes. The Elemental Reality of Fire and the denizens of that plane in particular. We talk about natives when we refer to efreet and salamanders. But at one stage of their existence, they were once interlopers! Yes, I hear you gasp. They are not truly indigenous to the Great Furnace! No, that distinction belongs to the elementals. Yet, it is untrue to say that elementals are native either. They are after all, barely sentient pieces of the plane itself.
No, I believe we are overlooking something. The missing link between truth and reality.
-- Eremantarian, excerpt from Missing Pieces, Chapter 1
"Firstly, I must thank and congratulate Eremantarian. No one man has single-handedly molested relevant facts and common sense as well as he has. He talks about a Great War that drew the forces of these primordial elementals into opposition. Utter nonsense I say! If these were the true 'inheritors of the earth,' they would not fight each other. Morals and ethics? The very concept should be alien to them. By inference, the very notion of fighting each other is absurd."
-- Avantharam in response to Chapter 3, Foundations of Existence
Sereifah
Large Elemental (Extraplanar, Fire)
Hit Dice: 18d8+162 (243 hp)
Initiative: +14
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares), fly 80 ft. (average)
Armor Class: 39 (-1 size, +10 Dexterity, +20 natural), touch 19, flat-footed 30
Base Attack/Grapple: +18/+34
Attack: Slam +30 melee (2d8+12 + 4d8 fire)
Full Attack: 2 slams +30 melee (2d8+12 + 4d8 fire) and 4 wings +28 melee (1d8+6 + 4d8 fire)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Continual burn, spell-like abilities, summon elemental
Special Qualities: Blazing wake, damage reduction 15/-, darkvision 60 ft., fount of fire, great furnace, immunity to fire, poison, sleep effects, paralysis and stunning, low-light vision, partial vulnerability to cold, resistance to acid 10 and electricity 10, spell resistance 28, telepathy 100 ft.
Saves: Fort +21, Ref +21, Will +21
Abilities: Str 35, Dex 30, Con 29, Int 24, Wis 24, Cha 26
Skills:
Feats: Cleave, Flyby Attack, Great Cleave, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Multiattack, Power Attack
Environment: The Elemental Reality of Fire
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 20
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always Neutral
Advancement: 19 – 40 HD (Large), 41 – 54 HD (Huge)
Few have encountered a sereifah, fewer still have returned to tell of it. The sereifah are quiet enigmas, not much is known of them, and lesser still is known of their histories and how they came to be. There could be some truth to what the scholars posit. After all, subjective theories are often grounded in objective facts. Proof does exist but it's tenuous and highly debated.
The sereifah are the greatest of the elementals that dominate the Crematorium, a remarkably apt name for the Elemental Reality of Fire, and the true rulers of that Reality. The salamanders and efreet are interlopers, stains upon a plane noted for its neutral purity. Morality and ethics are alien to them, as are concepts of compassion and malevolence. Nothing is left in their wake, save for maybe ashes. While it is untrue to say they exist for no reason other than to burn, their clinical detachment from the immense destruction they cause truly highlights their profoundly alien mindset. They do not back down from combat nor do they instigate it. Rare is the sereifah who appreciates the concept of mercy.
Sereifah are true loners, solitary beacons upon the firestorm of their own past, present and future. It is true to say that a sereifah is the rival of any powerful fiend or angel though they seldom exercise this point. Neither do they exercise their influence over others of their ilk, deliberately staying out of the politics rife in the Reality of Fire.
Relations between the efreet, salamanders, other interlopers and the sereifah exist only with a strained courtesy. The interlopers face severe condemnation from the sereifah for tainting this bastion of neutrality with needless morality or ethics, and are forced to bend the knee to the greater power of these incarnations of fire. The efreet chafe at dominion by out-siders, salamanders view the sereifah with enmity while the coldness and aloofness of the sereifah repels the azer. Avoidance by the lesser races is key to any tenuous diplomacy while the sereifah are content to have nothing to do with what are clearly inferiors.
A sereifah has an intellectual brilliance challenged by few.
Sereifah appear as tall, slender beings. Their skins burn white-hot with intense heat. Their heads are seemingly bald, though red hot flames lick their scalps, creating the illusion of hair. Four immense pairs of wings, the coloration of hot ember flecked with intense orange fire, spread from their backs. Phoenix-like, they radiate a tremendous heat. Their eyes burn with the intensity of a thousand suns and their high cheekbones frame a face of handsome features.
Combat
Blazing Wake (Ex): Sereifah leave roaring infernos behind them. The path of the sereifah's movement burns as a wall of fire spell. Both sides of the wall radiate heat, dealing 2d4 points of damage to those within 10 ft., and 1d4 points of damage to those within 20 ft. Those passing through the wall take 12d6 points of fire damage. The damage halves after every round for 4 rounds, this is due to the flames cooling over those rounds. This quality always benefits from Great Furnace.
A sereifah can also remain in one place, causing the inferno to arise around them. If the sereifah does not move in the round, a 10 ft. radius flaming circle centered on it is formed, with all the same properties of Blazing Wake.
Finally, 2/day as a standard action, provided it has caused the blaze to arise centered on it, the sereifah can release a pyroclasm of white-hot flame striking all for 20d8 fire damage within a 30 ft. radius. This ability causes the sereifah to forego the use of spell-like abilities for 1d4 rounds.
Continual Burn (Ex): All fire damage originating from the sereifah forces the risk of continual burn. Those who suffer fire damage from a sereifah's attacks must succeed on a Reflex save DC 28 or catch fire themselves. This deals one-half of the original fire damage every round until extinguished. The flames can be doused with a Reflex save DC 28 each round or immersion in any nonflammable liquid or any effect that deals at least 4 points of cold damage to the victim. Spells that create water or use water to cause damage also can extinguish the flame. Spells that magically control fire are effective against the flames. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Fount of Fire (Ex): In their natural state, the sereifah are immense energy beings. When they walk among lesser beings, though, they are chained and tethered to shells that bind and contain their essences. Even so, this does not prevent the release and seepage of these immense energies. A sereifah has the space and reach of a Huge creature and is capable of attacking any creature in those squares.
While technically elementals, sereifah are in reality ideals of fire; all calculations are as per outsider mechanics.
So intense is their connection to the Reality of Fire that it ignores the resistance to fire of creatures and affected creatures with immunity to fire still take full damage if they fail on a Fort DC 28 save. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Additionally, creatures with the fire subtype, and especially elementals, hit by a sereifah's melee attacks gain two negative levels. For each negative level bestowed, the sereifah gains two temporary hit points. A sereifah can use its energy drain ability once every 1d4 rounds. Any metal weapon wielded against the sereifah must succeed a Fort DC 28 save or melt away into slag. Additionally, a sereifah can command fire elementals as a cleric of their HD. Finally, any being engaged in a grapple with a sereifah suffers 2d8 points of fire damage; there is no save.
Great Furnace (Ex): A sereifah's fire-based attacks, including spells or spell-like abilities, function as if they were either empowered or maximised if it so chooses; it cannot be both. Furthermore, a sereifah is perpetually surrounded by waves of fire and burning air; unprotected wood, paper, cloth and other flammable materials catch fire almost immediately and those wearing unprotected flammable clothing catch on fire. In addition, individuals take 2d8 points of fire damage every round they are within ten feet of the sereifah. Creatures of the water subtype suffer excruciating agony. Those that are made of water take double damage each round.
Regeneration (Ex): Cold and water deal half damage to a sereifah. When in contact with a blaze at least twice their size, a sereifah benefits from regeneration 6. Additionally, fire damage heals an equal amount of damage instead; fire damage that would normally penetrate immunities instead deals no damage. The creature cannot be healed any other way except by means of this ability.
Spell-Like Abilities: At will – burning hands, cone of fire, detect magic, elemental swarm, fireball, fire seeds, fire storm, fire trap, flame strike, flaming sphere, greater dispel magic, greater teleport, heat metal, incendiary cloud, meteor swarm, orb of fire, produce flame, pyrotechnics, resist energy, scorching ray, wall of fire. Caster level 18th. Save DC = 18 + spell level.
Summon Elemental (Sp): Four times per day, a sereifah may automatically summon 4 small fire elementals, medium fire elementals, or large fire elementals, or 2 huge fire elementals, greater fire elementals, or elder fire elementals. This is the equivalent of an 8th-level spell.