Elemental Air

Open sky with no ground at all: winds, clouds as big as countries, and floating islands of rock and ice. One arrives by spell, by a storm’s eye or a mountain peak where the wind never stops, and leaves the same way. Whoever cannot fly falls, sometimes for days, until a wind or an island catches them. Its people love speed and freedom and laugh at anything that walks.

Light
Lit
Going
Hard

Hear it

Hazards

  • Gales. The wind never stops and sometimes doubles in a breath. D&D 5e: In a strong wind, ranged weapon attacks have Disadvantage, open flames go out and fog blows away. A flying creature must land at the end of its turn or fall.
  • The endless fall. With nothing below, a fall has no end until something gets in the way. D&D 5e (House rule): A creature that falls here drifts down about 150 m (500 feet) a round. Each hour, the GM rolls 1d6: on a 1 it reaches an island and lands with the damage of a 30 m (100 feet) fall; a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check lets a creature swim toward a seen island.
  • Hard landing. Islands come up fast and are not soft. D&D 5e: A fall deals 1d6 Bludgeoning damage per 3 m (10 feet), up to 20d6, and leaves the faller Prone unless it took no damage. Landing in water or another liquid: a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check as a Reaction halves the damage.
  • Cold of the heights. Near the ice islands and in the high winds the cold is bitter. D&D 5e: At −18 °C (0 °F) or colder, anyone exposed makes a DC 10 Constitution save at the end of each hour or gains 1 Exhaustion. Cold resistance or immunity passes automatically.

Adventure hooks

  1. A castle of cloud has drifted over a mortal kingdom and is dropping hailstones the size of fists. Its lord says it is an accident; the king below wants it moved, and has no way to reach it.
  2. A kite merchant sells travellers kites big enough to carry them, and swears most of them fly true. He wants the party to test his new model, with a discount.
  3. A breeze has attached itself to the party because it wants to see the mortal world. It means well, it keeps blowing hats off, and it has started to grow.
  4. A traveller has been falling for three days and shouts to the party for help as he passes. He knows exactly where he started, and has no idea where he will land.

What may happen

  1. A floating island of grass and rock, with a spring that pours off its edge into nothing.
  2. A castle built on a cloud, its towers bending in the wind. Music comes from inside.
  3. Something unseen keeps pace with the party; only the clouds bending around it give it away.
  4. Laughing spirits of wind dare the party to a race around a cloud.
  5. A storm cloud crackles with lightning that leaps from cloud to cloud like birds.
  6. A trader rides a giant kite, selling feathers that let one float for a minute.
  7. An island of blue ice drifts past, with a ship frozen whole inside it.
  8. A mortal falls past the party, shouting, waving, and very glad to see them.
  9. The wind drops all at once. In the silence, every cloud hangs still.
  10. A whirl of grit and dust sweeps through, stinging eyes.
  11. A rainbow stretches between two islands, solid enough to walk on, for an hour.

Creatures

To bring back

Aarakocra Large Feather, Elemental Essence, Djinn Dust, Whirlwind Heart

Other planes

Feywild, Shadowfell, Ethereal, Astral, Elemental Fire, Elemental Water, Elemental Earth, Infernal, Abyssal, Celestial, Hades

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

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