In this installment of Khayd’haik the Troll Mystic’s series on elementals, he discusses the appearances of different types of elementals, and how their appearances might be altered to make them look like something other than elementals. He gives historical examples of what some wizards have done with regard to disguising elementals, especially in attempts to make elementals look human.
Check out the introductory installment on elementals if you missed it or any previous installments.
An elemental appears as a form constructed from its associated element. Depending on the type of elemental, this form may or may not be solid or appear solid.
Stone Elementals
Stone elementals appear to be constructed of stone. Some may have a metallic appearance, though this is less common. The surface of a stone elemental’s body may be smooth, pockmarked, or a mix of both. If they take the form of a creature, they will not have true eyes, teeth, fangs, fur or hair. An elemental in the form of a person, for example, would look more like an animated statue than a person.
Most stone elementals are a single color, often gray, brown or reddish-brown. Few stone elementals are naturally colored black or white as a single color, though they could be magically colored that way. Some stone elementals are naturally multi-colored, which could include the colors black or white. Marble stone elementals, for example, are typically a swirling mix of two colors, either of which could be black or white.
The eyes of a single-colored stone elemental are the same color as the rest of the body. Multi-colored stone elementals may have darker stone for pupils, surrounded by a thin ring of light colored stone, with the orb itself being an even lighter colored stone. This can give the stone elemental the appearance of having human-like eyes. Close inspection will reveal the eyes not to be fleshy or wet, but smooth and dry.
Hair fashioned on a stone elemental typically is not separable into individual strands, but merely has the semblance of a mass of hair, styled to the liking of the elemental or the summoning wizard.
Teeth or fangs sported by a stone elemental will look like real teeth or fangs if formed from stone of an appropriate color.
There are instances of wizards summoning human-shaped stone elementals and disguising them to look as human as possible. Wizards can be a funny bunch. Dressing a stone elemental in long sleeves, long pants, boots and gloves, a wizard would still need to worry about disguising the neck and face of an elemental. Applying a little rouge or white powder can help mask those areas sufficiently for the elemental to pass as a person. Putting a hat/hood/helmet and perhaps tinted lenses on the stone elemental can help disguise it. Magic can be used to give a stone elemental a beard.
Some stone elementals have a metallic look. These are rare, but such an elemental of an appropriate size could take the shape of a suit of plate armor, which might be hollow or solid, depending on the elemental’s volume. In this way, a stone elemental could pass as an armored knight. Its weight, however, could be much greater than that of an armored knight, if the assumed form was a solid mass. It could be much lighter than an armored knight, if the assumed form was a thin, hollow shell.
Another way to give a stone elemental the appearance of an armored knight is to have it parade around inside a suit of plate armor.
In any case, stone elementals move so slowly, they wouldn’t act like knights. Maybe zombie knights. If you had a stone elemental that didn’t weight too much, you could dress it in a suit of plate armor and sit it on a horse to give the appearance of an armored knight sitting on a horse. It could grip a weapon easily enough. Using it effectively would be another question entirely.
There is the tale of one wizard who delayed an enemy army long enough for reinforcements to arrive by having stone elementals take the shapes not of armored knights, but of armored knights on mounts. That is, each elemental took the form of both the knight and his mount. Standing there in a bank of misty wind elementals, thus making it difficult to see their features, the stone elementals caused enemy generals to doubt the city could be taken as easily as expected. Each summoned stone elemental was a relatively small one, only capable of creating a thin shell of the shape it assumed, and could easily have been overrun by the enemy, but the enemy didn’t know that. Both the stone elementals and the wind elementals had before this been used to perform janitorial services in the city, summoned by the wizard over the years to keep the city clean. The elementals were so small in their natural shapes, the city residents hardly paid them any mind, even though there were thousands of them.
Wind Elementals
Wind elementals may be invisible or look like mists or clouds. Even if they are invisible, they will distort the air when they move.
Any wind elemental that can be seen is typically white or gray in color. Any other color is rare, unless magically applied. Some wizards have summoned misty wind elementals and magically colored them red to make them look like bloodmists.
Misty wind elementals can be mistaken for ghosts. Cloud-like wind elementals might have a solid appearance from a distance, but up close you’d see through them, at least partially.
Although they can take any shape they want, wind elementals can’t be disguised to look that human, because they aren’t solid. Clothes or armor fall right through them. Rouge will not stick. Trying to magically grow a beard on them will fail; the beard might appear, but it would immediately fall off, with nothing solid to remain attached to.
A group of wind elementals might appear as a fog bank. They can be used to give a wizard’s abode a creepy atmosphere, without requiring the wizard to traffic with undead spirits.
Flame Elementals
A flame elemental looks like a large burning ember—a solid core engulfed by flames. The core can be shaped according to the elemental’s or its summoner’s desires, and the flames will rise from that core. The flames engulfing the core of a flame elemental are not normal flames. They can’t be put out by water, for instance.
Any physical object or creature that a flame elemental touches will ignite if not completely immune to fire. So a flame elemental is often surrounded by flames other than those that constitute its body. If you look into a fire and see a solid dark mass dancing about within, you could be looking at a flame elemental. Exactly how much of what you see is flame elemental and how much is not, however, can be difficult to determine. The amount of flame that constitutes a flame elemental’s body is not always proportionate to the size of the elemental’s core. An elemental with a tiny core no larger than the tip of your finger could appear as a raging inferno because of the massive flames of which the rest of its body consists.
The eyes of a flame elemental vary but are often white hot embers small enough to hold in one’s fist. Each eye may sport a coal black spot for the pupil and a flickering circle of red, blue, orange or white flame around it.
Forget about trying to disguise a flame elemental. It will burn pretty much any disguise you try to place on it—clothes, rouge, whatever. Magically grown hair will exist for the fraction of a second it takes to incinerate.
If you really want to disguise a flame elemental, you need a flameproof suit that covers its entire being. But you can’t cut off the oxygen supply, unless the suit has an internal portal connected to the flame dimension (and you install plenty of safeguards, preventing the elemental from escaping through the portal or the suit from melting from immense internal heat). If the suit has holes in it, then the flames of the flame elemental will lick out through them. It sort of gives away the fact that a flame elemental is inside.
There is a tale of one wizard who summoned a flame elemental and placed it inside a suit of magical plate armor impervious to flame. The suit covered the entire body, though it did have cracks in the armor on the back, over the shoulder blades, for the flame elemental to “breathe” (draw oxygen to burn). As long as the visor was closed, the suited elemental had the appearance of a knight with fiery wings. Opening the visor of course gave it all away. The lower half of the armor did not transfer heat, but the upper half did. So the elemental in this suit of armor could walk around without setting fire to the surfaces it walked on, but if it hugged you or struck you with a mailed fist, you suffered severe burns in addition to whatever harm you suffered from the crushing or bludgeoning.
Water Elementals
A water elemental looks like a glob or stream of water, or a mix of globs and streams. They are often clear in color, but may also be white, green, blue, or greenish-blue. Some may be so dark green as to appear black. Some water elementals may sport multiple colors.
Even a relatively calm surface on a water elemental’s body is constantly in flux with miniscule ripples. The colors of a multi-colored water elemental will flow all over the body, mixing with each other and then separating again.
The eyes of a water elemental are often a white or clear orb on which resides a deep green area in the center of a ring of light blue or light green. Other colors are possible.
Trying to disguise a water elemental is near impossible. They will drench any clothing you try to put on them, even if you can get the clothes to stay on. Rouge or powder applied to a water elemental will either dissolve or turn to paste. A magically grown beard on a water elemental will not stay in place. If it stays attached, it will be moving all over the elemental’s body, eventually ending up on its lowest extremity (its feet if it is in human form), so that the elemental will be dragging behind it a sopping wet beard that looks more like seaweed than a beard.
Putting a water elemental inside a water proof suit of armor could give the elemental the appearance of an armored knight. Its movements would be erratic, giving this false knight the look of being drunk. It couldn’t stand or sit still. If there was any crack in the armor, no matter how tiny, the water elemental would seep out. If you wanted the water elemental to survive long in this condition, you’d need to put some water inside the suit with the elemental. With or without the added water, the false knight would make sloshing sounds as it moved.
If a water elemental assumes human form, it can for a brief while control its surface colors to give itself the appearance of being dressed in human fashion. However, water elemental colors do not match the color of human flesh. Even if the water elemental tried to appear as an albino, an up close look would reveal it as an impostor. Seen from a distance, the appearance might fool a casual observer into believing the water elemental is an albino human. Or a white horse, if the elemental took an equine shape. But light would reflect differently off of a water elemental than it would a flesh and blood creature.
While it’s extremely difficult to pass a water elemental off as a human or other creature, water elementals are good at passing themselves off as bodies of water. Fill a moat with water elementals, and you have a moat that is capable of defending a castle in more ways than one.
A water elemental hiding in a river or other large moving body of water won’t be found unless it wants to be.
Shadow Elementals
Shadow elementals most often take two-dimensional forms, appearing as actual shadows without any objects or creatures to cast them. They can take three-dimensional forms, in which case they appear as volumes of solid blackness. They do not have solid form, regardless of their appearance.
The eyes of a shadow elemental are indistinguishable from the rest of the body. It’s not clear how a shadow elemental actually sees. It’s almost as though their entire bodies are sensing their surroundings, not through the reception of light, but of the absence of light. It’s as though they see the world in reverse of the way humans see it, if that makes sense.
A three-dimensional shadow elemental can’t be disguised with clothing, rouge, powder or other physical items, because it doesn’t have the physical strength to carry them. It can’t support a magical beard or walk about in armor. It could take human form, but it would have no features other than those you’d see by looking at a silhouette of a person. Exactly what features you’d see even then would depend on the angle from which you viewed the shadow elemental.
The only disguise for any shadow elemental, whether it be in two-dimensional or three-dimensional form, is within the area of a deep shadow or against a black backdrop. This amounts more to making the shadow elemental invisible than disguised. If a shadow elemental is hiding inside a larger area of shadow, the shadow elemental will typically be darker, unless there is no light in the area at all, such as in an underground tunnel after your torch goes out.
It has been known for a shadow elemental to walk along with a creature, overlaying the creature’s shadow. A shadow elemental could also be used to give a shadow to an otherwise shadowless creature or object.
In the next installment, Khayd’haik discusses how the different types of elementals interact with solid substances and structures, including traveling across solid surfaces.
If you have any additional information or anecdotes about how elementals look or can be disguised, please leave a comment.