Elementals

From storm fronts, forest fires, earth­quakes, mudslides, from deep ocean currents, from lightning strikes and blizzards, from the heat-haze of the desert and the crushing force of the avalanche do elementals birth them­selves into the world.

The elemental races are old beyond measure. Before men, before beasts, and some say before even the gods, elementals have stalked Spira. They coalesce from the interplay of the world’s natural energies and begin as countless types and species; each elemental race carries a unique form. They are naturally material and live in the world—wind bears herd clouds while wood spiders lurk in ancient forests, and during the dry season of the South, vast stampedes of llama-yu fire orbs traverse the desert. They perpetuate the energies that birth them, and young elemen­tals live as embodiments of the dy­namism of nature.

If they survive the ages—unlike gods, they’re ageless but not immortal— ancient elementals become almost completely unique, powers named and feared whose original forms are lost to time. At the apex of both power and enlightenment, elementals undergo a slow metamorphosis, assuming the serpentine forms of the lesser elemental dragons; no other shape could express their might. Respected by Heaven, the dragons often serve as censors in the courts of Yu- Shan, charged with overseeing celestial law in both Heaven and Spira.

In the fallen Age of Sorrows, under a fractured celestial bureaucracy, lesser elementals follow their instincts without guidance, sometimes pushing natural processes into im­balance. Greater elementals rule courts of their lessers or pretend at godhood over men. And the lesser elemental dragons are as prone to corruption as the gods, demanding bribes and turning a blind eye to their duties. Yet elemen­tals’ terrestrial origins give them a unique perspective among the spirits of the world—elementals are mortal in a sense, native to the material, and have more reason than gods to sympathize with the plights of women and men.

[Will]

From storm fronts, forest fires, earth­quakes, mudslides, from deep ocean currents, from lightning strikes and blizzards, from the heat-haze of the desert and the crushing force of the avalanche do elementals birth them­selves into the world.

The elemental races are old beyond measure. Before men, before beasts, and some say before even the gods, elementals have stalked Spira. They coalesce from the interplay of the world’s natural energies and begin as countless types and species; each elemental race carries a unique form. They are naturally material and live in the world—wind bears herd clouds while wood spiders lurk in ancient forests, and during the dry season of the South, vast stampedes of llama-yu fire orbs traverse the desert. They perpetuate the energies that birth them, and young elemen­tals live as embodiments of the dy­namism of nature.

If they survive the ages—unlike gods, they’re ageless but not immortal— ancient elementals become almost completely unique, powers named and feared whose original forms are lost to time. At the apex of both power and enlightenment, elementals undergo a slow metamorphosis, assuming the serpentine forms of the lesser elemental dragons; no other shape could express their might. Respected by Heaven, the dragons often serve as censors in the courts of Yu- Shan, charged with overseeing celestial law in both Heaven and Spira.

In the fallen Age of Sorrows, under a fractured celestial bureaucracy, lesser elementals follow their instincts without guidance, sometimes pushing natural processes into im­balance. Greater elementals rule courts of their lessers or pretend at godhood over men. And the lesser elemental dragons are as prone to corruption as the gods, demanding bribes and turning a blind eye to their duties. Yet elemen­tals’ terrestrial origins give them a unique perspective among the spirits of the world—elementals are mortal in a sense, native to the material, and have more reason than gods to sympathize with the plights of women and men.