Elemental Earth

Solid rock and earth in every direction, broken by hollows, mazes of tunnels, veins of ore and gems as big as houses. Its spirits swim through stone as fish swim through water. One arrives by spell or by the deepest chasm of a mortal mountain, and leaves the same way. A visitor has to carry light and air, and dig or be shown the way, since nothing here stays open for long.

Light
Dark
Going
Hard

Hear it

Hazards

  • Total darkness. No light has ever reached most of this place. D&D 5e: Away from a light, the place is in Darkness, which blocks sight like a thick fog: anyone trying to see into it is effectively Blinded. Darkvision turns it into dim light, in shades of grey, within its range.
  • Sealed air. Pockets of air are small and closed. A fire or a crowd uses them up fast. D&D 5e: A creature can hold its breath for 1 plus its Constitution modifier minutes, never less than 30 seconds. After that it gains 1 Exhaustion at the end of each of its turns, and loses all of it as soon as it can breathe again.
  • Closing rock. Tunnels close behind travellers as the stone slowly moves. D&D 5e (House rule): When a passage closes, each creature in it makes a DC 15 Dexterity save. On a failure it takes 4d10 Bludgeoning damage and is Restrained until dug free (DC 15 Strength check, by itself or a friend).
  • Chasms. Hollows open without warning onto drops of hundreds of feet. 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.

Adventure hooks

  1. A creature that eats metal has wandered into the mortal world up a deep mine. The dwarves who own the mine want it led home before it eats their gate, and they are not keen on the party’s armour going down with it.
  2. A jeweller wants a singing gem from a cave in the deep rock as a gift for a queen. The gems sing only while they are in the cave, which the jeweller does not believe.
  3. The bones of a miner who fell through from the mortal world lie in a hollow of the deep rock. His family wants them home, and the spirits of the stone want a song in exchange, one about him.
  4. Once a year a market opens in a hollow where earth spirits trade gems for stories. The party has a good story to sell, but it belongs to one of them, and the others will know.

What may happen

  1. A cave lined with gems as big as shields, glittering in the lantern light.
  2. A head of living rock rises out of the wall, looks at the party, and sinks back without a sound.
  3. A round creature with many arms pushes out of the floor, sniffing at the party’s coins and weapons.
  4. The whole tunnel groans and shifts a hand’s width to the left.
  5. The bones of a mortal miner, his pick still in hand, beside a tunnel that ends in solid stone.
  6. A forest of crystals hums at a pitch that sets teeth on edge.
  7. A lake of warm mud blocks the way. Bubbles rise slowly and burst with a smell of eggs.
  8. A great hollow where stone folk trade ores and gems. Mortal coin is a curiosity here.
  9. A carved door set in the rock, with no wall, room or tunnel behind it.
  10. A cloud of fine dust pours out of a crack and hangs in the air.
  11. A deep, slow beat sounds through the rock, as if the mountain itself had a heart.

Creatures

To bring back

Elemental Essence, Dao Gravel

Other planes

Feywild, Shadowfell, Ethereal, Astral, Elemental Fire, Elemental Water, Elemental Air, 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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