Lava Elementals - Walking Volcanoes of Destruction

Elementals are a classic monster across so many different flavours of fiction. As a writer and Game Master, I love them as often as I possibly can. There's just something so evocative of this immense form made of howling winds and crumbling stones. The forces of nature that we see as placid outside our windows or terrifying in the tropical climates of the world, are given a humanoid shape for us to truly fear.

In a lot of these stories, the elemental is an incarnation of only one of the classic alchemical elements. Air, earth, fire, and water. What would happen if there were a mixture of two elements together? The volatile combination makes the creature far greater than the sum of its parts.

This is the final elemental hybrid in the series, and I wanted to save my personal favourite for last.

Lava Elemental

There is no clearer vision of what the union of fire and earth could be. The intense heat inside a volcano or the molten core of the earth is not technically fire, but elemental fire is the embodiment of true heat (which makes me wonder if there's an incarnation of true cold...).

When Volcanoes walk, run - Pyroclastic Elemental by Svetlin Velinov

When the heat inside the earth bubbles up to the surface, it melts the rock and earth around it. The magma knits together the loose rocks that tower together into an earth elemental. The dripping ooze of molten rock scorches and eats all that's around it.

The lava elemental has the wanton desires of destruction of the wildfire elemental. The heat within it seeks to grow and spread as is the way of a fire unless it's doused. The key difference between them and wildfire elementals is the lack of a clock on their lifespan. When a lava elemental breaks down a stone structure like a hill or building, it reduces it to magma and absorbs it into its growing body. As it gains size and mass, it gains further intent to aggressively attack and add more to its hulking, burning stone form.

The growing desire to destroy alongside the immense heat makes lava elementals instrumental in the war efforts of beings of elemental fire, red dragons, and fire giants. The persistence and single minded nature of the fire elemental leads it to wander climes colder than the inside of their volcano nurseries and level the worlds of gods and men.

Lava Elemental Stats generated with Homebrewery

The lands that have been visited by a lava elemental and survived, have changed for the better. The soil ravaged by volcanic flame have been left rich and fertile for farming and gardening. A destroyed kingdom can resurrect itself on the trade of rare igneous rocks and metals smelted in the immense heat. Some say that islands in the distant shores of many worlds in fantasy RPGs were created when colossal lava elementals cooled and died naturally.

Magmatic Forces

The lava elemental is a formidable threat and a great wandering monster. They occur naturally in geologically active places in your world, and a great guardian for a villain's volcano lair. In the event they're somewhere far from a naturally magmatic place, they may have been conjured, leading the party to find what destructive conjurer brought this being to the area. Once they've dealt with the being of course.

This wraps up the elemental hybrid series we've had here on Apotheosis Studios. There have been ideas for other elemental beings that ought to get their own stat blocks for your Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons games, so keep your eyes right here to see them. Now we want to hear from you. How would the lava elemental feature in games you GM? Which elements could you imagine striding the earth? Let us know in our discord server or in the comments below.

Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com, he writes about card gaming and PC gaming to a corner of the internet he carved out himself. On Youtube, he can be found game mastering for No Ordinary Heroes, or editing the antics on The Hostile Atmosphere. Follow his Twitter @IzzetTinkerer.