Undead Earth Elemental (Undead, Elemental)--Montporte Dungeon Campaign Critter

UNDEAD EARTH ELEMENTAL
Armor Class: 2 [17]
Hit Dice: 10
Attacks: 2 Slams (2d6 each)
Saving Throw: 5
Special: Level Drain (1 level); Move Through Stone & Earth
Move: 5
Challenge Level/XP: 12/2,000

Undead earth elementals whose life energy has been replaced by negative energy, so that they are a combination of pure elemental earth plus negative energy (see On the Elements and On the Energies).

Undead earth elementals resemble their non-undead relatives, but are looser in form, being made up of gravel, sand, and silt.

COMBAT: Undead earth elementals are unintelligent and will attack any living creature within 30'. It will continue to attack until it is destroyed, its opponents are destroyed, or its opponents retreat 100' in distance from the undead earth elemental.

LEVEL DRAIN: When an undead earth elemental strikes its opponent, it drains one level from its victim. The victim does get a saving throw and a successful save indicates no level drain. The attempted level drain is limited to once per round, so even if an undead earth elemental successfully strikes an opponent twice, only one level drain attempt is made.

MOVE THROUGH STONE & EARTH: An undead earth elemental may pass through solid stone or earth at the rate of 1. The undead earth elemental may not attack when it is fully or partially passing through stone or earth.

Montporte Dungeon Mysteries: Vardray's Discontinuity and the Deep Dark

Introduction
Deep under the earth lies the Vardray Discontinuity. It was discovered in ancient times by the sage and wizard, Vardray. His writings have been lost to us, but Pliny the Alder, the great elven scholar and encyclopedist, has preserved excerpts of Vardray's work in his Gazetteer of Arcane Geography. Pliny lived in late antiquity and some of his works have not been passed down to us. Fortunately, we do have a number of reliable and complete copies of his Gazetteer of Arcane Geography.

Pliny on the Vardray Discontinuity
In his Gazetteer of Arcane Geography, Pliny records the following with regards to the Vardray Discontinuity.

The mighty elven wizard Vardray is the first to describe what is now known to sages and scholars as the Vardray Discontinuity. How Vardray discovered the discontinuity is shrouded in mystery, but many stories come to us of Vardray’s unique and creative laboratory spells and his renown courage as an explorer. 

Vardray, in his Observations from the Field: Volume 2, writes:

And it came to pass that I learned of an odd and major arcane feature in the eastern mountains. The dwarves, in the Elder Days, named these mountains, Dragonfang. I have found that there is a very narrow zone that separates an upper region of the earth’s volume from the deeper region below this narrow zone of separation. 

Above this separation zone [now known as the Vardray Discontinuity—Pliny], the rock and soil contain very little magic. This is the earth—the rock, stones and soil—that we see around us every day. I call this the Mundane Zone. However, below this zone of separation lies a region permeated by magic and wonder. I call this the Deep Zone. 

This Deep Zone is permeated by a magical energy such that certain kinds of plants are able to draw sustenance from it much like our trees, grasses, vines and crops draw life from the sun. In turn, these plants support a wide variety of other creatures. Indeed, I have learned of races living in the Deep Zone and raise crops of Deep Zone plants for food and trade. Stories of these societies can be found among the dwarves. 

The material of our universe is somehow altered in this Deep Zone so that has the most amazing and wondrous properties. I have discovered some of these properties during my investigations. Firstly, in the Deep Zone, the material of our universe is stretched thin, for lack of the better term. There are places where powerful creatures find it easy to pass from their home plane to our plane of Aarde and back again. This, of course, makes the Deep Zone both interesting and dangerous.

The Deep Zone also features areas where the laws of geometry do not match the geometry of our surface world. For example, there are many areas where careful mapping would tell a Deep Zone traveler that their destination is 2 days distant, when in fact, the destination is 5 days distant. Goblin traders from the Deep Zone have told me that special maps are required to navigate between locations in the Deep Zone. The goblins, keeping these maps to themselves, have become masters of Deep Zone trade. 

The goblins have also told me of cities and lands that lie outside of our dimension, yet have access or a portal via the Deep Zone. These cities and lands are part of our plane, the plane of Aarde, yet they are not. The goblins’ descriptions of these lands are beyond belief, but I would not be surprised if they contain much truth. 

Much to the delight of dwarves, great riches can be mined in the Deep Zone below the eastern mountains [Dragonfang]. Dwarven history is filled with the establishment of mines and cities in and above the Deep Zone in the eastern mountains [Dragonfang]. The stories of these settlements have the same sad plot, the discovery and extraction of obscene amounts of metals and gems of all sorts followed by horrible and complete disaster from below. As I noted above, the Deep Zone is a dangerous place. 

In terms of geography, the Deep Zone lies closest to the surface in areas of the eastern mountains [Dragonfang]. The narrow zone that separates the Deep Zone from the Mundane Zone plunges deeper into the earth as one moves west away from the mountains towards more civilized lands. In fact, I was unable to determine any evidence that the Deep Zone exists beneath our own settled lands to the west. On the other hand, my preliminary work in the laboratory and field indicates that the Deep Zone does exist beneath the wild land to the east of the eastern mountains [Dragonfang]. The Deep Zone lies deeper below the surface of the wild land than it does in the eastern mountains [Dragonfang] but it is clearly there below the surface. I believe that the existence of the Deep Zone beneath the wild land might be the reason the wild land is so wild.

I, Pliny, have in my own humble travels come across interesting settlements and history in the Dragonfang. For example, there is a settlement of humans who have dedicated themselves to understanding the fundamental fabric of the universe by studying the elements and energies. I believe that they have found this easier by living in close proximity to the Deep Zone. There are also dark and ancient tales of kobolds abiding in the Deep Zone and master the magic of the elements and energies for malevolent purposes. Fortunately for us today, kobolds have lost both the knowledge and interest in such dangerous magic. I have written more about this in other writings.

Related Posts
The World of Montporte
The Montporte Region: History and Geography
The Deep Dark: That Which Lies Beneath the Montporte Dungeon
Montporte Cosmological Notes: On the Planes
Montporte Cosmological Notes: On the Elements
Montporte Cosmological Notes: On the Energies
Goblins (Fey)--Montporte Dungeon Campaign Critter
Peoples, Tribes, and Gangs in the Montporte Dungeon
Little Larry the Kobold (an NPC's story)

Related Maps

The town of Montporte and surrounding area

The Montporte region

Montporte Cosmological Notes: On the Energies

I am slowly developing a cosmology for the Montporte Dungeon campaign. In a few previous posts, I outlined the overall cosmology, as well as a description of the five planes and the four elements. As the players continue to explore the Montporte dungeon, it has become important for them to have an understanding the structure of the universe. Hopefully, this will give them a bit of an interpretive framework to understand what they are experiencing. Today's post gives a bit of information about the three energies.

The Three Energies
The physical universe is made up of matter and energy. Matter is made up of the four elements. There are three forms of energy:

• Positive: The generative and organizing energy of the universe.
• Negative: The entropic and degenerative energy of the universe.
• Chi: The life energy.

Positive Energy
Positive energy has a generative ability and forms the basis of healing and restorative magic. Like the other two energies, it is pervades all matter. There are very rare instances when positive energy exists in close to a pure state. In those instances, it be destructive to organic matter, much in a same way flesh can be seared by an otherwise warming and life-giving flame. It is thought to cause madness and even mutations.

Scholars have speculated about the existence of beings who are a combination of organic matter and positive energy, with the positive energy replacing chi as the vital force, but there are no known examples of such creatures.

Negative Energy
Negative energy balances positive energy, by bringing dissolution, degeneration and entropy. Like positive energy, negative energy pervades all matter. It is a source of power for destructive magic, particularly necromancy. It has been speculated that demons from the plane of Syvyys feed on the negative energy released by the tortured souls of mortals, but few have ever dared to research this hypothesis.

Undead are a combination of formerly living organic matter and a concentration of negative energy, where the negative energy serves as chi. Positive energy, accessed through divine favor and will, empowers clerical types to turn and even destroy undead.

Chi-The Life Energy
Chi is the least understood of the three energies and its relationship with the other two energies is shrouded mystery. It exists most strongly within living organisms, but it also pervades all matter, albeit in very small amounts. This ambient form of chi is thought by some to be a residual from living creatures when they die. Others believe it to be evidence that the entire universe is a form of life.

Monks manipulate chi found in their own bodies through practiced mental and physical discipline. Druids access chi found in nature and other living things through the sympathetic tuning of their spirits to the spirits found in nature.

Mana
From time to time, mages and scholars have postulated the existence of a fourth fundamental energy, mana. Mana, they explain, is the underlying power of all magic. Octavius DeMoped, through a series of cleverly designed experiments, has conclusively shown that mana is an energy, but it a compound energy, not a fundamental energy. At the same time, DeMoped's research results clearly support the idea that mana is the underlying power of magic.

While mages have developed the ability to create and use mana through spells, rituals, potions and objects of power, they do not understand the actual process or mechanisms of how magic and mana work together to accomplish magic.