Air Elemental

Appearance

In Grizburg, the air itself sometimes grows restless. These elementals manifest not as clean gusts or gentle breezes but as storms of ash, smog, and forge exhaust. Their forms are indistinct—faces half-formed in soot, hands stretching out of fog only to collapse back into vapor. Each shift of their bodies leaves behind a faint rattle, as if loose chains are dragged through the wind.   ---

Origins

Most air elementals are conjured from the Elemental Plane of Air, but Grizburg’s strain often tears free from the industrial sky. The constant hammering of forges, the billows of alchemical fires, and the whispers of Zothra-Khaar rising from the Depths twist the wind into something sentient. These entities are not pure spirits of sky, but smog elementals—born where breath itself curdles into poison.   ---  

Habitat

They linger above the Rustwater District and the choking alleys of Greendocks, drawn to the clash of heat and cold, smoke and mist. During monsoons they ride the stormfronts, their bodies swollen with river vapor. High above the chimneys, they whirl into violent cyclones, scattering sparks that ignite the rooftops below.   ---  

Ecology

Air elementals do not eat, but they consume movement. They devour sails, pulling ships to sudden halts; they shred banners and unravel ropes as if feeding. Workers caught in their spiral find every breath stolen, lungs emptied by forces too strong to resist. When the elemental departs, it leaves only silence, as if the city itself has been exhaled.   ---  

Behavior

They drift with deceptive grace, then strike in bursts of violence. One moment a veil of smoke, the next a hammering gale that hurls men into walls. When angered, they collapse into whirlwinds, dragging debris, ash, and rust flakes into a crushing storm. More unsettling are the voices that sometimes ride their gusts—shouts of drowned sailors, or the laughter of forge workers long dead.   ---  

Use by Factions

The Rust Barons capture them in iron-banded flasks, unleashing them to scatter striking workers or to collapse rivals’ chimneys. Smugglers bribe conjurers to bind them to river barges, where their steady winds can outrun House Greenglade patrols. Some whisper that Kurgan himself has bargained with one, its sighing breath now woven into the Harmonicon’s haunted melodies.   ---  

Cultural Role

Riverfolk call them “Smoke Wraiths.” To them, the appearance of such a creature is omen—either of a forge disaster or of a coming flood. Children in Rustwater play games daring each other to leap into sudden whirlwinds, hoping for a blessing. Many never return, their bodies carried into the Sko and never seen again.   ---  

Legends

Stories tell of an ancient elemental bound during the First Black Fire War, a storm so vast it circled Nolavor for seven years without breaking. When it was finally shattered, shards of its essence scattered across the land. Grizburg’s smog elementals are said to be fragments of that primeval cyclone, still hungry to reassemble themselves into a storm that will never end.   ---  

Closing Words

The air of Grizburg carries more than soot and smoke. Sometimes it gathers itself into shape and strikes back, reminding all who dwell there that breath itself can become enemy. Whether seen as spirit, omen, or weapon, the Air Elemental is both symptom and curse of a city that dares to choke the skies. Read more on D&D Beyond