Elemental Plane of Fire

Description

“It is a plane continually ablaze. It smells of burning flesh and ashen dreams. It is flame incarnate.” — Manual of the Planes

• Arriving on the Plane of Fire was like stepping into the flaming maw of an ancient red dragon; if one didn't have protection or immunity from temperatures high enough to melt stone then death was swift. The following discussion assumes a visitor and all their clothing and gear had this capability and either did not need to breathe or could compensate for a superheated, often toxic atmosphere that could immolate one from the inside (think cloudkill plus incendiary cloud). In general, the more fluid the elemental fire, the hotter it was and the more damage it did to unprotected material.

Efreet and the City of Brass in the Plane of Fire

• Unlike the other three elemental planes, the Plane of Fire had normal gravity and a landscape, although most of the "ground" was made primarily of loosely packed elemental fire and felt like walking in a swamp of hot coals. The rivers and oceans were filled with a more liquid version of the same stuff and swimming worked normally as a mode of transportation. Non-native flying creatures found the atmosphere thin and therefore did not have their usual speed or maneuverability. Visibility was hampered by the smoke coming off the flames engulfing, but not consuming, nearly every solid, liquid, or gas (and creature) on the plane. What one could see was usually distorted by heat ripples. Geographic features such as hills, mountains, and cliffs did not have a geologic lifespan because even the more solid areas slowly moved like a subterranean magma flow as seen on the Prime Material Plane. Permanent physical structures were very rare.
• If the Plane of Fire had weather, it was of course hot and deadly. Rains of hot ash moved about like thunderstorms, threatening those on or near the ground with hot embers and blinding ash. Those in the air had to watch out for clouds of superheated steam blowing around and condensing scalding water on exposed surfaces. The water quickly evaporated and the cycle began anew. Easier to avoid but just as deadly were the rivers of magma and "firefalls". Matter from other planes either evaporated, burned to ash, or melted into magma. Magma mixed with elemental fire formed a rapidly moving, incredibly hot slurry that coursed around the terrain and occasionally cascaded over a cliff edge to create a firefall, often manifesting an elemental vortex in the spectacular display. The Great Wheel cosmology model explained these hazards and others as pockets of elements from all the other elemental, para-, and quasi-elemental planes that got sucked into the Plane of Fire and cast adrift to face their fate. Cold spots could even be found where it felt like the middle of the Raurin desert at midday. With a guide, a traveler could approach the borders with the other planes, where the smoke finally choked out the fire, or the fire became nothing but cold ash, or the molten earth absorbed the fire, or the radiance ultimately outshone the fire.
• The dangers of the plane could not be overstated, but those that survived the trip saw wonders and beauty at nearly every turn. Flame colors spanned the rainbow, from the vermilion of a forge hearth to the yellow-white of heated iron, from the blues and greens of alchemical reactions to the familiar candle-flame yellows and oranges. The conflagration formed fountains, jets, sheets, rivers, waves, walls, rains, cascades, clouds, swirls, and pits of brilliant incandescence on a scale found nowhere else.

City of Brass

Inhabitants

• Surprisingly many creatures and races could tolerate and even thrive in the Elemental Plane of Fire. First and foremost were the fire elementals, of course, being constructed directly from the substance of the plane itself. They could assume the form of animals or monsters from the Prime Material Plane, mimic humanoid shape, or create composites with elemental shapes: a lava lion with a flaming mane and charcoal eyes, or a man-shaped torso with fire jets for arms and legs and a tiny tornado of flame for a head, for example. Fire elementals could usually be distinguished by the different colors of flame coming off their bodies, but when standing still they could blend into the background just as a rogue could hide in shadows. Fire bats, fire snakes, harginn, phantom stalkers, and salamanders were also thought to be natives of this plane, but the origins of magmen (or magmin) and the azer were hotly debated.

• Visitors and immigrants to the Plane of Fire included brass and gold dragons; the efreet; fire giants; hell hounds; some janni; mephits of the fire, magma, and steam varieties; pyrohydra; rast; and thoqqua. Trading missions and diplomacy brought many peoples to the City of Brass, such as the mercane and devils from the Nine Hells.

• The language spoken by the natives was called Ignan and it resembled the hisses and clicks of green wood being consumed by a burning campfire.

Realms

• Kossuth, the Lord of Flames, the Firelord, Tyrant among Fire Elementals, the Fire Tyrant, once had a palace made of elemental fire here, called the Crimson Pillar.
• Amaimon, King of the Azer, had no specific palace but traveled with his court from tower to tower (the azer were marvelous metalworkers and built grand towers scattered about the plane), holding feasts and fetes with dancing.
• Marrake al-Sidan al-Hariq ben Lazan, Sultan of the Efreet, the Lord of the Flame, the Potentate Incandescent, the Tempering and Eternal Flame of Truth, the Smoldering Dictator, and other titles, lived in his Charcoal Palace in the City of Brass.
• Imix, the Prince of Evil Fire Creatures, once dwelled in a tremendous active volcano on this plane.