Fire Elementals, also known as Salamanders, are intelligent humanoid beings that are made of fire. No one knows anything about the origin or even the lifestyle of these creatures. All that is known is that, by using the spell Summon Elemental, these creatures will appear and serve the caster for the duration of the spell. They appear to have personalities and intelligences. However, when summoned, the elemental will always be as reserved as possible with words, and will follow the caster's order explicitly. Once the duration of the spell is complete, the elementals return to wherever it is that they came from. If an elemental is asked for information about it's own life or information regarding its species, the elemental may not respond, or some may just disappear. No one knows the name of any elementals, but it is assumed that they exist.
Unlike the other elementals, fire elementals must have a source that they can draw strength from. If there are no sources of flame anywhere nearby (within 5' of the caster) the fire elemental cannot be summoned. Once summoned though, the fire elemental will consume the sources of combustible materials that are at hand. For the duration of this spell, the fire elemental must remain within ten feet of some burnable object. Extinguishing a fire elemental is difficult. The elemental may jump and hop not only from fire to fire, but from burnable object to burnable object. Sometimes an adventurer will find that after having extinguished a fire elemental's source fire, that the elemental has managed to find temporary refuge in the adventurers clothing or hair. Once the adventurer begins to run around to find water to put out his clothing, the elemental has managed to leave the adventurer's clothing to some other burnable object. Fighting fire elementals can be hazardous.
Here are the only known facts concerning all elementals.
They have no spirit as we know it. When they die, they dissipate lifelessly into their respective element. They cannot be resurrected. It is rumored that the elementals, when they die, go through a form of reincarnation, and once again become another elemental of the same type, but this is purely conjecture. Another theory suggests that elementals are all things physical. It suggests that the earth and everything in it is comprised materially of elemental beings. If these elementals ever chose to, they could simply let go of each other, and the earth and all things in it would die instantly. Our spirits would then be freed from our physical selves and we would go forward to our next plane of existence. Most people prefer to sleep well at night and have chosen to disregard this theory.
Fire elementals have no weight to speak of. The reside in the flames of a fire. Elementals can reside in any amount of their respective element up to the volume of a normal man.
Salamanders, or fire elementals, have no physical body to speak of. They cannot be harmed by just physical weapons. Any weapon however that has any enchantment on it whatsoever (even just a light spell) may do its normal damage.
Reality
1650-1660
The Sylph (air), Gnome (earth), Salamander (fire), and Undine (water) originally appear in the Alchemical writings of someone by the name of Paracelsus. Supposedly these creatures are mortal but spiritless beings that live entirely in their respective element. I don't have access to these books, so this is really all I can say about it. This is the only thing I could find that resembled the standard elementals that the gaming community is aware of.
1300-50
The Greeks also had a mythological beast called a salamander. It was a lizard that was able to live in fire. I may use this definition later, but for now I wanted to keep Paracelsus' four beings together as a group. If you would like to change this for your own campaign, please feel free to do so.
