Elemental Evil

In the elemental planes, life is born of proximity to the two great metaphysical poles - Creation and Destruction. Planes that drift nearer Creation tend to give rise to gentler beings; those nearer Destruction breed crueler ones.

The Princes and Eldars

Every elemental plane holds titanic beings called Princes or Eldars - elementals of immense power who have existed for thousands of years. The malevolent among them are named the Princes of Elemental Evil. They covet the central Prime Material plane, not to rule it but to unmake it - to dissolve the world and remake it as an extension of their own element.

Such a Prince is nearly as mighty as a demon: not the equal of the Nine Lords of Mictlān, but not far beneath them.

The Elemental Evil Cults

In the mortal world the Princes are served by secret Elemental Evil cults, which labor to drag their masters across the planar veil. Many have risen over the ages; some were exposed and destroyed once discovered.

Their signature method is called Sharding. With the Prince’s own help, a shard of its essence is broken away and lodged within willing hosts who carry it. The power feeds on itself and grows, and once enough of the essence has crossed into the world, a final rite slays the hosts and pours the Prince fully into reality.

The method is fiendishly difficult to counter - yet the Prime Material still stands, because most records of the final ritual were lost. Legend says its inventors, a cult of elementals who were also smugglers, still hold the secret of the rite; what became of them, no one knows.

See Also

• Mictlān (and its Nine Lords) · Primordial (the tongue of the elemental planes) · The Heavens of Thelemar (the wandering elemental planes)

Sources & Attribution

• Primary lore: content/Books/Elements of Wrath The Story of the Elemental Evil Cults.md (K. Brown), author TrueMichato.