Elementals

**Elementals** are monstrous creatures highly related to the natural elements that compose the world. They are believed to come from another plane of existence, a realm where the laws of physics and magic are radically different from the world of Giantstep. However, the low frequency of their sightings and the fact they leave no trace of their existence once they are downed makes them rather difficult to study.

## Composition and behavior

The study of elementals has been going on since ancient times, with many archived and documented encounters with the creatures. Most of the time, the destructive nature of the elementals means that scholars go to their encounter alongside teams of adventurers or wizards to take them down, and thus studying them while they are not fighting is something very rarely done. Thus, the bulk of the information we have about them is about how to confront them. In particular, alchemists are extremely interested in the study of the elementals, since their nature keenly relates to their own science, and many believe figuring out their inner workings could unlock a lot of potential knowledge.

For starters, the elementals’ shape will depend on their power. Lesser elementals are barely a threat, merely magical creatures that have magical abilities with so little power that they can barely keep their shape before dissipating where they stood, only lasting a couple of hours. Proper elementals are able to sustain themselves without dissipating, sustaining themselves by being near the element they are linked to, and absorbing magical energy in the air. In this stage, the elementals are still somewhat shapeless, but they can be clearly differentiated from their environment. It is at this stage where they also have enough energy to affect the world around them, and thus be a threat to people around them. Elementals have a natural tendency to go nearby populations of sentient species, destroying everything on their path. How do these creatures know how to find these centers, we still do not know. The main way to counter them is spending their energy. While the elemental will absorb a consistent amount of energy from the environment, it will attack anything that is sentient, seeing it as a threat. If the team fighting an elemental are able to continuously to disrupt its form (and even better if using mystical weapons and/or spells), its energy expenditure will surpass its ability to obtain sustenance, and will dissolve into nothing.

The elementals can be of different sizes and complexities. The more energy and power an elemental has, the more it will develop a solid shape, adopting more and more a humanoid form. However, this shape is by no means a way to signal the creature’s weak spots (for example, even if you cut off the creature’s “head”, it won’t necessarily kill it, since it has no real biology to destroy). This humanoid form is not a sign for sentience either, since their behavior does not change regardless of their power. However, once they reach a certain humanoid form, if their power keeps increasing, they will devolve into more animalistic and abstract forms. In rare occasions, the creature has been seen splitting into two, halving the original elemental’s power into two creatures. And also, there are also cases where two different elementals have fused together when close to each other, changing not only the resulting elemental’s power, but also their nature. Indeed, most of the elemental encounters are of the four basic types: water elementals, air elementals, earth elementals and fire elementals. Once these creatures combine with each other, depending on their power and types mixed, we could find different kinds of elemental. Even if their energy is spent, their new nature stays, at least until the creatures are spent and dissipate.

Elementals usually appear in areas where the barrier between the material and the magical world is thinner, and the thinner it is, the stronger the creature will appear, since it does not need to spend itself in crossing the realms. However, many wizards have managed to summon elementals, and in these cases, the creature appears with extra power, since the aid of the summoner helps the creature save power. However, elementals cannot be controlled, becoming as much of a threat to the summoner as it is to the general population nearby.