Boitatà

On the Boitatá

Elementals come in many shapes and sizes, from mephits to flail snails to leviathans.

Many of them are not suited for life outside of their planes of origin. Salamanders are one such class of Fire Elemental, which can sometimes be found in places where flame is strong enough. They delight in the act of burning, seeing it as an art, and live to observe flames consume that which has not been set ablaze. In that way, they are not too different from some druids of the Wildfire. But just as the druids vary in belief and manner of action, so do creatures of the flame.

The Boitatá are of a different temperament. Where Salamanders create Flame, the Boitatá are born of it, a presence that lingers. They are serpentine elementals of pure burning fire, born not in the Elemental Planes, but from places where fire has been used wrongly. Fields burned for greed rather than renewal, forests set ablaze to erase boundaries and claim ownership of land, wetlands scorched to expose what has been hidden. Boitatá do not possess a soul, and therefore cannot be considered truly a living, sentient creature. However, they are made up of many memories- of the land that birthed them, and of the creatures swept up by the nefarious blaze.

Boitatá rarely hunt. They watch, becoming guardians of a place whose scars created them. Boitatá vary greatly in size, but most are as large as titanoboa. Their bodies are made of swirling flame and glassy ash, eyes burning with a magical light that is even stronger than flame. To be seen by a Boitatá is to be marked by memory- if it so wishes, it has been reported that those who met the creature's gaze have had visions burned into their mind, recurring dreams of a land before fire met it. Such visions can begin to overlay with reality, causing great grief and the desire to undo the harm, or burn for it.

A Boitatá, therefore, rarely burns as normal flame. Crops grown on stolen land wither. Paths meant to hide illegal clearings glow as if full of cinders.

Druids do not need circles to exist, but to form a Druidic Circle, more than a group of them is needed. They need power, whether that be in place or creature. When druids aligned with the Wildfire meet a Boitatá, the creature may regard them as worthy, and become their Patron, lending them the land it protects. This patronage does not last forever- if a member of the Circle goes against the Boitatá's wishes, the entire Circle is dissolved and expelled from the land.

It is said that if a Boitatá unleashes true fire, then it is not to protect the land- but to lash out, because it has already been lost.