In Eberron (to my knowledge) they power airships using air elementals for bouyancy or fire elementals for hot air, or something of the like. But elementals are intelligent creatures; they have least 6 intelligence and a common language they speak, and they're neutral, not evil. Therefore, it would seem that using these creatures to power a ship is akin to slave labor/animal abuse of some form.
I would like to harness a fire elemental to provide perpetual flame in a steam engine for a spelljammer ship that's also seaworthy. The continual flame spell is as strong as a torch without heat, so no good. Would there be a way to do this ethically? It would be fed fuel, and perhaps letting it roam occasionally so it isn't kept cramped in the engines?
What could be done so that a good-aligned character would have little to no qualms about this arrangement? I'm sure an elemental would be happy to have an excuse to just relentlessly generate heat, but the engines won't be on forever. In fact, there may be long periods of inactivity. And a bored elemental aboard a ship might be a bad idea.
In Eberron (to my knowledge) they power airships using air elementals for bouyancy or fire elementals for hot air, or something of the like. But elementals are intelligent creatures; they have least 6 intelligence and a common language they speak, and they're neutral, not evil. Therefore, it would seem that using these creatures to power a ship is akin to slave labor/animal abuse of some form.
That's specious logic - an elder tempest, for example, which is the most powerful kind of air elemental we have in 5E so far as I know, has no languages, is Intelligence 2, and is immune to exhaustion (which means it functionally has no metabolism). You're assuming a lot about creatures that aren't very similar to life as you know it.
I would like to harness a fire elemental to provide perpetual flame in a steam engine for a spelljammer ship that's also seaworthy. The continual flame spell is as strong as a torch without heat, so no good. Would there be a way to do this ethically? It would be fed fuel, and perhaps letting it roam occasionally so it isn't kept cramped in the engines?
Depends on what elementals your DM will allow you to summon into an object/construct, what conditions are like for the elemental while bound (which is also up to your DM), and what the elementals in your setting are like mentally (also up to your DM). E.g. we have no idea if the elementals in your DM's world are capable of boredom, and if so, how they get bored - maybe a fire elemental is "happy" so long as it's burning "fuel" (remember, fire elementals are fire and hence don't need to consume any fuel to remain hot).
What could be done so that a good-aligned character would have little to no qualms about this arrangement?
Depends on both your setting and your character.
I'm sure an elemental would be happy to have an excuse to just relentlessly generate heat, but the engines won't be on forever. In fact, there may be long periods of inactivity. And a bored elemental aboard a ship might be a bad idea.
There's no reason to turn the engine off if there's a fire elemental inside it - in the real world you turn your engine off because fuel is finite - but also if you want to move things with water I'm not following why you even have a fire elemental instead of just having a water elemental operate your hydraulics. Of course, an earth or air elemental could also provide the motive force, just as a construct or an undead creature could.
You could easily circumvent this by using a lesser elemental. Animated Breaths, Fire Snakes, and Strixhaven Mascots (which could be reskinned to something setting agnostic) , for example, can all understand language, but lack the intelligence to speak.
Or you can just have an elemental who is a member of the crew - they do their part when needed, and otherwise get to partake in the crew’s activities.
Or your good character can just not question the fact that there is slavery on the ship - they grew up with that as the norm, and they would not see that as “evil” even if our real world contemporary morals would see it is problematic. This could even be a plot point as the character comes to the realisation that maybe the system they took for granted is not as moral as they assumed.
Or you could acknowledge that, as non-human entities, elementals might have a completely different set of priorities, and what a human might see as being repressed is considered the way the world should work to the elemental - after all, they are creatures that can be bound to serve in ways that mortals cannot - their physiology would likely give them a very different view on what constitutes “slavery”.
The fire elemental boils the water, steam power turns the crank. An air elemental could work for that too I suppose, but I prefer the steampunk nature of using a steam boiler. Plus it's another layer of metal between potentially dangerous creature and the rest of the ship. And I imagine a fire elemental is not an infinite source of heat; it needs energy sometimes, especially if the heat it's generating is being used to boil something. Constantly boiling water is a lot more intensive than simply heating the air around you. As you've mentioned however, that sort of thing can be setting-specific.
In Eberron (to my knowledge) they power airships using air elementals for bouyancy or fire elementals for hot air, or something of the like. But elementals are intelligent creatures; they have least 6 intelligence and a common language they speak, and they're neutral, not evil. Therefore, it would seem that using these creatures to power a ship is akin to slave labor/animal abuse of some form.
That's specious logic - an elder tempest, for example, which is the most powerful kind of air elemental we have in 5E so far as I know, has no languages, is Intelligence 2, and is immune to exhaustion (which means it functionally has no metabolism). You're assuming a lot about creatures that aren't very similar to life as you know it.
A basic air elemental has the Auran language in its stat block, a xorn knows Terran, etc. It feels like you're cherrypicking looking for an example that doesn't have a language. It looks to me like Legolover11 was talking about the specific creature air elemental, which does have the stats they presented.
I think Caerwyn has the right of it, but if you want to treat it like any working farm animal, that'd be another way to go. Plowhorses don't spend all day in the plow, get breaks, etc. Or carriage horses. And it's easier, in some ways, since they can communicate their needs and actually have a contract. Heck, give them a guild.
"Noble Genies from the respective elemental planes have banded together to create an interplanar mercantile comglomerate. To achieve this they created spelljammer ships capable of sailing any sea on any plane. The ships are crewed by elementals; from Mephits as basic crew (ratings, cabin crew, cooks), to base level Elementals serving more specialised rolls (engine room, navigation and sails) upto Elemental Myrmidon serving as defense (sip to ship combat) and a Genie acting as captain. All these creatures are drawn form the domains the Noble Genies maintain and work for various reasons known only to them and their respective Noble Genie (some maybe compelled by elemental mastery, some by debt, others paid for their time or others work due to soem other arrangement, contract or pact).
From time to time the Noble Genies rent or sell off one of their ships along with its crew to denizens of other planes or sell passage to other creatures wishing to move from one plane to another."
Viewed like that you some lore to explain why the ship works the way it does, and you can then go off on a tangent if you want to have such a ship go "rogue" where the elementals mutiny and cast their Genie captain overboard and effectively become elemental pirates.
There’s no easy answers in Eberron. The elemental binders of Zilargo claim that bound elementals are perfectly content; that elementals don’t experience the passage of time the way humans do. All they wish is to express their elemental nature, and that’s what they do through the binding. The Zil argue that elementals don’t even understand that they ARE bound, and that binding elementals is in fact MORE humane than using beasts of burden. An elemental doesn’t feel hunger, exhaustion, or pain; all a fire elemental wants to do is BURN, and it’s just as content to do that in a ring of fire as it is in Fernia.
On the other hand, an Ashbound druid will tell you that this is a fundamental disruption of the natural order. And any random person might say “When a bound elemental is released, it usually goes on a rampage. That means it was unhappy, right?”
Maybe… or maybe not. In my opinion, the “raw” elementals — the “fire elemental” as opposed to the more anthropomorphic salamander, efreeti, or azer — are extremely alien. They don’t experience existence in the same way as creatures of the material plane. They are immortals who exist almost entirely in the moment, making no plans for the future or worrying about the past. My views are pretty close to the description from the 5E Monster Manual: “A wild spirit of elemental force has no desire except to course through the element of its native plane… these elemental spirits have no society or culture, and little sense of being.”
When the fire elemental is released, it usually WILL go on a rampage. Because what it wants more than anything is to burn and to be surrounded by fire… so it will attempt to CREATE as much fire as possible. If it burns your house down, there’s no malice involved; it literally doesn’t understand the concept of a house, or for that matter the concept of YOU. In my short story “Principles of Fire” one of the characters interrogates a bound air elemental; he advises a colleague that the elemental doesn’t really understand its surroundings, and sees humans as, essentially, blobs of water.
So: there’s no absolute answer. Some people are certain that the elementals are entirely happy, and others are certain that it’s a barbaric and inhumane practice. What I can say is that MOST of the people in the Five Nations don’t think about it at all; to them, it’s no different from yoking an ox or using a bonfire to cook dinner. If you want to create a story based on a radical group that has proof that bound elementals are suffering, create that story. But the default is that there are extreme views on both sides, but that the majority of people just ride the airship without giving a thought to whether the ring has been unjustly imprisoned.
First, I love this worldbuilding question and I know some players would eat this up.
Ideas for status quo: Elemental was rescued by the captain/ship designer and chooses to power the ship as thanks. Elemental was technically enslaved, but the crew befriended it, treats it well, and emancipated it. It's content to stay with its friends. Elemental was "born" in the ship and considers the engine room home.
Ideas for plot hooks: Lost elemental agreed to power the ship if the crew can take it back to its native plane; the captain doesn't know how the ship will fly once they fulfill their end of the bargain. Elementals are enslaved and kept tame by powerful magic; there's a growing abolitionist movement and some activists are secretly on board. Elementals are compensated somehow for their work; it's expensive/difficult, the crew is running out of resources, and the elemental is starting to get impatient...
Elementals are eternal - and it's not like life on the elemental plane of X is all that exciting. 'Ooh, look at all that interesting fire over here, it's much better than the fire we have back home'.
So potentially, having a real job for a decade or two could be the most fun your elemental ever had. 'What, you'll pay me in nice, combustible, organic wood, and all I have to do is heat this boiler for a year? Where do I sign up!'
Did you watch Howl's Moving Castle? Calcifer might be your answer.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I'd argue that elementals have a consciousness that is fundamentally different then other sentient life and trying to ascribe our morality to them is a fools errand.
No one is trying to ascribe our morality to elementals; the debate is about the morality of the people exploiting them.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
No one is trying to ascribe our morality to elementals; the debate is about the morality of the people exploiting them.
But is it exploitation? They're elementals - all they do is burn things. It's not like they have better things to do. They're not raising families, they don't have hobbies, they don't go to work, or on holidays. Then again, I'm the one who brought up Calcifer. But meh.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work.
2.
the action of making use of and benefiting from resources.
"the Bronze Age saw exploitation of gold deposits"
Yes, it's exploitation. Whether it's immoral or not...is shady. Are they self-aware? Or are they automatons? If the latter, then it's not immoral. If the former, then uncoerced consent should be obtained through fair and honest trade.
If a fire elemental is happy enough to just burn stuff and is fine with the relationship...then it's a symbiotic and moral. If it's being coerced, then it's a different matter. Whether we think their use of their time is more important than them working for us is irrelevant.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Exploitation of labor is not the same as exploitation of natural ressources. I realise it's the same word, but it's not the same meaning.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Exploitation of labor is not the same as exploitation of natural ressources. I realise it's the same word, but it's not the same meaning.
That would be why Linklite posted both definitions, and specifically utilised both in their response - applying the definition of labour when discussing sentient elementals, and the definition for natural resources when discussing non-sentient, more animal-like elementals.
Granted, I think Linklite missed the important word “unfairly” in their definition in reaching their conclusion that there was exploitation. If the elemental’s labour was being used fairly—defined by the potentially alien definition of “fairness” of a non-human creature—then there would definitionally not be exploitation.
But, again, that is all going to come down to how the world is set up and what choices the DM makes with how elementals exist within their world.
Wait. Let me get this straight. You are all upset that elementals are being used (or exploited) to power Eberron vehicles? Yet, no one bats an eye when a soul is thrown into an engine to power a hell car in "Descent Into Avernus" like it was a piece of coal? At least the elemental gets to live in the engine. A persons soul, the last remanent of existence, is completely destroyed. For what? To power a car? Y'all need to get your priorities straight.
Wait. Let me get this straight. You are all upset that elementals are being used (or exploited) to power Eberron vehicles? Yet, no one bats an eye when a soul is thrown into an engine to power a hell car in "Descent Into Avernus" like it was a piece of coal? At least the elemental gets to live in the engine. A persons soul, the last remanent of existence, is completely destroyed. For what? To power a car? Y'all need to get your priorities straight.
Our priorities are staying on topic and addressing the question raised by OP. I am sure there would be a different at discussion if we were talking about soul cars, but we are not.
Wait. Let me get this straight. You are all upset that elementals are being used (or exploited) to power Eberron vehicles? Yet, no one bats an eye when a soul is thrown into an engine to power a hell car in "Descent Into Avernus" like it was a piece of coal? At least the elemental gets to live in the engine. A persons soul, the last remanent of existence, is completely destroyed. For what? To power a car? Y'all need to get your priorities straight.
Our priorities are staying on topic and addressing the question raised by OP. I am sure there would be a different at discussion if we were talking about soul cars, but we are not.
The discussion was the exploitation of labor and/or resources to power a vehicle. How is the exploitation/destruction of a soul to power a vehicle not the same thing?
In Eberron (to my knowledge) they power airships using air elementals for bouyancy or fire elementals for hot air, or something of the like. But elementals are intelligent creatures; they have least 6 intelligence and a common language they speak, and they're neutral, not evil. Therefore, it would seem that using these creatures to power a ship is akin to slave labor/animal abuse of some form.
I would like to harness a fire elemental to provide perpetual flame in a steam engine for a spelljammer ship that's also seaworthy. The continual flame spell is as strong as a torch without heat, so no good. Would there be a way to do this ethically? It would be fed fuel, and perhaps letting it roam occasionally so it isn't kept cramped in the engines?
What could be done so that a good-aligned character would have little to no qualms about this arrangement? I'm sure an elemental would be happy to have an excuse to just relentlessly generate heat, but the engines won't be on forever. In fact, there may be long periods of inactivity. And a bored elemental aboard a ship might be a bad idea.
That's specious logic - an elder tempest, for example, which is the most powerful kind of air elemental we have in 5E so far as I know, has no languages, is Intelligence 2, and is immune to exhaustion (which means it functionally has no metabolism). You're assuming a lot about creatures that aren't very similar to life as you know it.
Depends on what elementals your DM will allow you to summon into an object/construct, what conditions are like for the elemental while bound (which is also up to your DM), and what the elementals in your setting are like mentally (also up to your DM). E.g. we have no idea if the elementals in your DM's world are capable of boredom, and if so, how they get bored - maybe a fire elemental is "happy" so long as it's burning "fuel" (remember, fire elementals are fire and hence don't need to consume any fuel to remain hot).
Depends on both your setting and your character.
There's no reason to turn the engine off if there's a fire elemental inside it - in the real world you turn your engine off because fuel is finite - but also if you want to move things with water I'm not following why you even have a fire elemental instead of just having a water elemental operate your hydraulics. Of course, an earth or air elemental could also provide the motive force, just as a construct or an undead creature could.
You could easily circumvent this by using a lesser elemental. Animated Breaths, Fire Snakes, and Strixhaven Mascots (which could be reskinned to something setting agnostic) , for example, can all understand language, but lack the intelligence to speak.
Or you can just have an elemental who is a member of the crew - they do their part when needed, and otherwise get to partake in the crew’s activities.
Or your good character can just not question the fact that there is slavery on the ship - they grew up with that as the norm, and they would not see that as “evil” even if our real world contemporary morals would see it is problematic. This could even be a plot point as the character comes to the realisation that maybe the system they took for granted is not as moral as they assumed.
Or you could acknowledge that, as non-human entities, elementals might have a completely different set of priorities, and what a human might see as being repressed is considered the way the world should work to the elemental - after all, they are creatures that can be bound to serve in ways that mortals cannot - their physiology would likely give them a very different view on what constitutes “slavery”.
The fire elemental boils the water, steam power turns the crank. An air elemental could work for that too I suppose, but I prefer the steampunk nature of using a steam boiler. Plus it's another layer of metal between potentially dangerous creature and the rest of the ship. And I imagine a fire elemental is not an infinite source of heat; it needs energy sometimes, especially if the heat it's generating is being used to boil something. Constantly boiling water is a lot more intensive than simply heating the air around you. As you've mentioned however, that sort of thing can be setting-specific.
A basic air elemental has the Auran language in its stat block, a xorn knows Terran, etc. It feels like you're cherrypicking looking for an example that doesn't have a language. It looks to me like Legolover11 was talking about the specific creature air elemental, which does have the stats they presented.
I think Caerwyn has the right of it, but if you want to treat it like any working farm animal, that'd be another way to go. Plowhorses don't spend all day in the plow, get breaks, etc. Or carriage horses. And it's easier, in some ways, since they can communicate their needs and actually have a contract. Heck, give them a guild.
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
Consider paying them a living wage
What does "a living wage" mean for a being that doesn't need to eat, sleep, or breathe?
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
You could view it as follows:
"Noble Genies from the respective elemental planes have banded together to create an interplanar mercantile comglomerate. To achieve this they created spelljammer ships capable of sailing any sea on any plane. The ships are crewed by elementals; from Mephits as basic crew (ratings, cabin crew, cooks), to base level Elementals serving more specialised rolls (engine room, navigation and sails) upto Elemental Myrmidon serving as defense (sip to ship combat) and a Genie acting as captain. All these creatures are drawn form the domains the Noble Genies maintain and work for various reasons known only to them and their respective Noble Genie (some maybe compelled by elemental mastery, some by debt, others paid for their time or others work due to soem other arrangement, contract or pact).
From time to time the Noble Genies rent or sell off one of their ships along with its crew to denizens of other planes or sell passage to other creatures wishing to move from one plane to another."
Viewed like that you some lore to explain why the ship works the way it does, and you can then go off on a tangent if you want to have such a ship go "rogue" where the elementals mutiny and cast their Genie captain overboard and effectively become elemental pirates.
Rather than saying anything myself, I'll just share Keith Bakers thoughts on this in their entirety:
First, I love this worldbuilding question and I know some players would eat this up.
Ideas for status quo:
Elemental was rescued by the captain/ship designer and chooses to power the ship as thanks.
Elemental was technically enslaved, but the crew befriended it, treats it well, and emancipated it. It's content to stay with its friends.
Elemental was "born" in the ship and considers the engine room home.
Ideas for plot hooks:
Lost elemental agreed to power the ship if the crew can take it back to its native plane; the captain doesn't know how the ship will fly once they fulfill their end of the bargain.
Elementals are enslaved and kept tame by powerful magic; there's a growing abolitionist movement and some activists are secretly on board.
Elementals are compensated somehow for their work; it's expensive/difficult, the crew is running out of resources, and the elemental is starting to get impatient...
Elementals are eternal - and it's not like life on the elemental plane of X is all that exciting. 'Ooh, look at all that interesting fire over here, it's much better than the fire we have back home'.
So potentially, having a real job for a decade or two could be the most fun your elemental ever had. 'What, you'll pay me in nice, combustible, organic wood, and all I have to do is heat this boiler for a year? Where do I sign up!'
Did you watch Howl's Moving Castle? Calcifer might be your answer.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I'd argue that elementals have a consciousness that is fundamentally different then other sentient life and trying to ascribe our morality to them is a fools errand.
No one is trying to ascribe our morality to elementals; the debate is about the morality of the people exploiting them.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
But is it exploitation? They're elementals - all they do is burn things. It's not like they have better things to do. They're not raising families, they don't have hobbies, they don't go to work, or on holidays. Then again, I'm the one who brought up Calcifer. But meh.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
exploitation
/ɛksplɔɪˈteɪʃ(ə)n/
noun
1.
the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work.
2.
the action of making use of and benefiting from resources.
"the Bronze Age saw exploitation of gold deposits"
Yes, it's exploitation. Whether it's immoral or not...is shady. Are they self-aware? Or are they automatons? If the latter, then it's not immoral. If the former, then uncoerced consent should be obtained through fair and honest trade.
If a fire elemental is happy enough to just burn stuff and is fine with the relationship...then it's a symbiotic and moral. If it's being coerced, then it's a different matter. Whether we think their use of their time is more important than them working for us is irrelevant.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Exploitation of labor is not the same as exploitation of natural ressources. I realise it's the same word, but it's not the same meaning.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
That would be why Linklite posted both definitions, and specifically utilised both in their response - applying the definition of labour when discussing sentient elementals, and the definition for natural resources when discussing non-sentient, more animal-like elementals.
Granted, I think Linklite missed the important word “unfairly” in their definition in reaching their conclusion that there was exploitation. If the elemental’s labour was being used fairly—defined by the potentially alien definition of “fairness” of a non-human creature—then there would definitionally not be exploitation.
But, again, that is all going to come down to how the world is set up and what choices the DM makes with how elementals exist within their world.
Wait. Let me get this straight. You are all upset that elementals are being used (or exploited) to power Eberron vehicles? Yet, no one bats an eye when a soul is thrown into an engine to power a hell car in "Descent Into Avernus" like it was a piece of coal? At least the elemental gets to live in the engine. A persons soul, the last remanent of existence, is completely destroyed. For what? To power a car? Y'all need to get your priorities straight.
Our priorities are staying on topic and addressing the question raised by OP. I am sure there would be a different at discussion if we were talking about soul cars, but we are not.
The discussion was the exploitation of labor and/or resources to power a vehicle. How is the exploitation/destruction of a soul to power a vehicle not the same thing?