Apparently the hashcash plugin is creating problems. At the time I installed it, it was the best thing I could find. Now that other options are available and Keith was helpful in pointing out the effects of hashcash, I took it off.
I also removed the captcha per the recommendation of the new plugin's authors. I really hated having to add that on.
In regards to the primordials (and possibly the secordials and/or the ultimordials) I will end the series with the idea that started it, an Ice Cream Primordial. The next post will venture outside the classical elements of air, earth, fire, water, wood, metal, aether, sulfur, mercury and salt. For example, the primordials of the Prime Material plane are Howard-esque ape-men. The primordials of the any of the good Outer Planes are likely to be vaguely like an angel or archon. Vampires would be the primordials of the Demiplane of Dread.
When thinking about a list primary substances, the definitions get more interesting when you venture outside the Prime Material. There's ichor (traditionally the blood of a god), ectoplasm (traditionally a spirit material) and the material of the astral plane (traditionally a mental material). You could even recast the shadow as a primordial of one or more planes.
Taking it to a kind of Spelljammer metaphor, you could have a primordial of one crystal sphere instead of one place. For example, you could have the draconians or kender as primordials of Krynnspace or the Green Martians of Solspace.
Beyond that, though, I want something a bit outside those ideas. For my son, it's Candyland (and its neighbors Pieland and Ice Cream Land). For me, I'm not sure yet. I thought about a Buckeyball land with creatures of pure carbon, but that's just a variation of the elemental. I'm looking for something like the Cash Primordials of Moneyland or the Paladins of Didactic Land or the monks of Mathetic Land. These are creatures whose primary essence is more of an idea that a physical substance.
What would a creature composed of monetary value be like? It would have to be able to change forms quickly, stay in motion and feed off the perceived worth given to it by the creatures around it. It could not exist on its own, but would need at least a symbiotic relationship with another race to keep going. I imagine these guys would gorge themselves in the presence of a dragon...
We'll see what the future holds!
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(incidentally, I just use akismet — comes with wordpress — for my anti-spam needs. I think I’ve had one false hit in over a year, and I spotted that anyway. Between that and comment moderation it seems pretty manageable.)
I wonder, how homogeneous do you expect primordials to be? You’ve got the hermetic elements so far, and the others seem to each mostly be homogeneous materials, if not substances. At least, until you get to draconians and vampires.
It comes to me that you might look at, for crunch at least, Green Ronin’s Advanced Bestiary — chock full of templates, and if I recall correctly there are a fair few that apply “fundamental nature” kinds of changes to the creatures.
When I get a minute I’ll try to look up some specific examples (I should get back to work…).
That’s part of what I am wrestling with. I don’t want primordials to be necessarily homogenous yet somehow quintessential.
Initially, it was rethinking the world that fire elementals lived in. In other words, the biggest change is actually in their home plane more than their composition. The plane where Fire Primordials live is not an eternal fire. It is not even an arid wasteland. Others on that plane exist that are much like elves or gnomes or even humans.
Taking that route, I didn’t want to just make sentient golems and create zillions of planes.
However, the idea changed in mid-execution to not only change a primordial’s home plane, but to the nature of the primordial themselves. Instead of being homogenous and exploring the world where they live, the idea was to make them the most iconic race to their plane. For example, with naming draconians as the primordial, I would look at their physiology and abilities and do the same exercise about their environment that I did with the hermetic primordials (fire, air, earth, water).
Then the idea changed yet again into creating a creature that embodies an idea.
I’ll know it when I find it. I have Advanced Bestiary somewhere, I’ll find it.
It almost sounds as if, then, that “humans” could be the ‘primordials’ of the Prime Plane. Or something.
You’d think that, but the Primordials of the Prime Material Plane are really a group of ape-men yet to be described. Their minds are open to a wider sense of vision and color. This allows them psionic detection type abilities without having psionic abilities.