Hi there. 
Until someone actually gets a copy and starts posting somewhere online, we really can't tell you much of anything about this upcoming article, but I was wondering if maybe you wanted to hear about our design philosophy and inspirations and such for this article and its predecessor?
If you like, we could answer more in-depth questions once this issue reaches subscribers in a few weeks.
Nope, not Istishia, Grumbar, Kossuth, and Akadi. I'm referring to Ben-hadar, Chan, Sunnis, and Zaaman Rul.
The "we" is my co-author, known as Shade on ENWorld (and other places) and myself of course. We don't represent Dragon magazine other than as occasional freelance contributors.
For this new article, well there really wasn't much use we could get out of the 1E MotP; however, we did get some use out of that book for our previous archomental article, which appeared in Dragon #347.
That last article was you guys? Nice work. I know Shade, he's the monster fanatic, and I do believe you're the ENWorld Creature Codex's main writer.
So what was your design philosophy and inspiration? Did you manage to sneak any Planescape references into the article? 
Well, it remains to be seen what exactly does and does not make it into print. But yes, since the good archomentals only previously appeared in Planescape, there are gobs of PS references throughout. Count on that.
And yes, the previous article was us as well. We originally pitched these articles at the same time, and both were accepted. We figured the evil archomentals had a broader appeal and recognition, so we got to them first, but quickly followed up with the good guys.
And yep, we both work together on the Creature Catalog website, when our busy lives allow us the time.
not much interest in this topic, yet?
Not much traffic on planewalker.com these days.
But I'd be interested in hearing what you did with the archomentals, especially since I'm not subscribed to Dragon. Are they unique creatures, or did you use that template that Seraph of Babel later "borrowed"?
No, we didn't use a template, and I'm pretty sure that copying Seraph's work (especially without asking) would have been inadvisable.
We made them similar in power level to where we set the evil ones in Dragon #347, for consistency's sake.
Though I'm curious how much of anything to do with the good archomentals, ties into the Rod of Seven Parts and the Temple of Elemental Evil that the Elemental Princes of Evil article did.
If by "ties into the Rod of Seven Parts", you mean the Law vs. Chaos war in the Age Before Ages, yes we dealt with that just as we did with the evil archomentals. I think it's safe to say that, since we did mention their involvement in the other article.
As far as the Temple of Elemental Evil goes, well, the good archomentals were never involved in it before...
Someone on Enworld posted that they have the issue, but so far have posted zip about this article. If someone mentions something specific, I figure I can talk about that...
In PS, what divine rank are the Archomentals?
Divine rank is new to 3e.
So, um, were they deities in PS? Do they have any divine rank now?
They were considered to be "near-powers" in Planescape. Not deities, but only one step removed.
Yep, and we pretty much stuck to that.
CR-wise, we kept them on the lower end of the BoVD/BoED examplar scale. It might make more sense to use those stats as avatars, depending on your campaign.
That makes sense with what I've heard earlier, thank you.
But then there's an error in the gods list I downloaded here. It lists Ben-Hadar, Sunnis, Zaaman Rul, and Chan as demigods. Since that's from Warriors of Heaven, is it something best ignored? Or is there an error in this gods list document?
The God's List covers *all* published material, Planescape and non-Planescape. It's not an error for what the god's list is.
well, if anyone here has the issue, feel free to ask away.
Hopefully I'll be getting my hands on it any day now. I'm more excited for this one than probably any other recently. Once I digest it a bit, I'll see if any questions pop up. Congrats on the article, by the way!
I thought that the Good Archomental of Earth was named Entemoch and was a guy (he appeared in one of the Drizzit novels). Does Entemoch exist in Planescape or anywhere out side that novel?
thanks, and you too for your modrons.
not that i'm aware of, sorry.
hey there. i just want to talk about the article, so i will. i'll repost some of the stuff that came out on the ENworld thread.
when asked if Andrew Hou illustrated the article as he did with the elemental princes of evil article:
Chan's art basically shows a rather pretty female face in a sparkling cloud.
The art for Sunnis depicts her as quite svelte for an earth elemental, being tall and thin. Her humanoid figure is noticeably feminine, having the basic hourglass shape, as well as small but distinct breasts, and has one hand on her hip. The back of her head is also shaped as if she had a short but full head of hair.
Zaaman Rul, by contrast, seems a bit stocky in his portrayal. Unlike Sunnis, he's clothed, though only in a leather kilt. He actually has hair, and his wielding a sword of fire over his shoulder in his right hand.
and of course, one of people's favorite parts of the article seems to be the numerous references to major figures of the planes:
And the Charon reference is very nice, and again, very fitting for the beings involved in many ways, but you have to wonder how long the deal will last, or if the archomental is naive to the nature and reputation of the Marraenoloth Lord. Lots of potential there.
Speaking of strange bedfellows, did the link between Chan and Ehkahk survive editing?
And I have to say, listing the relationships that the archomentals have to various other planar powers really made the article shine. Excellent work!
the ENWorld thread was pretty much swallowed up with discussing Malcanthet and modrons, so i figured i'd see if anyone here wants to talk about this one.
i have to ask, how much detail is there about the origins and early years of the archomentals? we put some stuff in, but no idea how much was retained.
Quite a lot. We learned that they were created by the Inner Planes in response to the elemental princes of evil. We learned that all four original archomentals originally decided to side with Law during the war against Chaos, but that Chan withdrew rather than ally with Yan-C-Bin (this fits with the proposition that someone made on the Wizards boards that Chan and Yan-C-Bin are the same, very confused person). Ehkahk and Chilimbia (they're that old, even though Chilimbia is a hybrid and Ehkahk is a mephit?) sided with Law initially, but betrayed the princes of Good, killing the archomental princess of fire (but it doesn't say they then decided to side with Chaos, only that they betrayed their archomental allies). The princess of fire was named, but I don't remember it just now. Ben-Hadar switched sides at that point, siding with Chaos for the duration of the war. Only Sunnis remained with Law until the battle at Pesh, fighting Ogremoch to a standstill (and almost dying) while the Captains of Law defeated Miska.
There's also a suggestion that Zaaman Rul is the son of Imix and the (now dead) archomental princess of fire. For this reason, Chan has appointed herself as a replacement maternal figure for Zaaman.
While it says Ehkahk is primarily interested in self-preservation, he does act as a go-between between Zaaman Rul and Chan. Chan abandoned the war against Chaos before Ehkahk betrayed them, so it's possible she doesn't feel the same hatred that the others do, despite her apparent fondness for their victim. It's also possible that Ehkahk has partially reformed and is no longer the being of utter evil he began as (which would fit with his almost innocuous presentation in Planescape, although it's still said that he's a "tyrant").
All in all, it's a fine background and I have no problems with it. I'll probably add in my timeline that the archomentals of good began to become disenchanted with the forces of Law when they witnessed the atrocities of their outer planar allies - Asmodeus and his followers, who were not in the beginning considered "evil," but who rapidly became so.
Great! Looks like it was all retained. and now I can talk about it all, like I’ve been itching to all along.
We named the original good fire archomental Bristia Pel (Brigit, Hestia, Pele), does that sound like the same name from the article? (can’t see why it would have been changed, especially with all the other details kept, but you never know.)
As far as Ehkahk and Chilimbia killing her, well in all honesty I just wanted to give them something important to be remembered by. are they the same lords as the current ones? who knows – we already have a Bwimb who is not the original Bwimb – and I had heard that Bwimb I was associated with the Chaos side, so I figured why leave them out? Shade wanted to have Ehkahk be Zaaman’s lookout, and I figured why not? It’s odd but it could work. Other than that, we left their stories open for further development down the line (by us, or by other people, who knows). Perhaps Chan forgave Ehkahk for the role in the death of her friend – but that’s a story for another day.
As far as the good archomentals' role during the war… that came about as a result of an e-mail conversation I had with Erik Mona. He didn’t agree with our assertion in the first article (although he still did let it get into print) that all of the good archos had joined the Law side, and that they should have been more mixed. We thought about it, and we agreed that it made sense that they could work for both sides (as the evil ones did), so we retconned our own story, and thus the narrative you posted above.
We left the question of Zaaman’s parentage open, and threw Bristia in there to make the story more intriguing. perhaps Chan feels guilty for leaving Bristia in peril, and looks after Zaaman to make up for her earlier failure.
I felt that we needed an explanation for why Ben-hadar was so detached from the cause of goodness, so the role we gave him in his early days took care of that well. Similarly, with Chan’s aloofness. Their dealings with evil beings have definitely cramped the optimistic doo-gooder attitudes that might have made them more like Sunnis or Zaaman.
The good archomentals at first made the same mistake as the gods in the Pact Primeval story of FC2 (which, of course, we didn’t have access to); they assumed that Law and Goodness equated with each other. They learned otherwise, to their detriment.
We were purposefully vague with the timeline of events, so I’d be curious to see where you think things fit in. I don’t know how long the War lasted, but I can’t see Chan sticking around for long after discovering Yan-C-Bin (months or years, who knows, the war probably involved so many people that they could have missed each other for awhile – and I don’t assume the goodies and evilies knew about each other before they met in person). It was probably a number of years before Bristia was killed – Ben would have left the side of Law immediately, and might not have taken long to join with Chaos. I’d say it was quite a while between his joining the other side and the end of the war.
One thing that I realized recently is that we really didn’t mention how Ben-hadar has incited wrath from Chan and Zaaman Rul (as per the Planescape sources). I wish we had said something about that! Probably forgot, or maybe decided to focus on other aspects.
Does the article still mention a certain alliance that Ben-hadar has as a result of joining the Chaos side? I think Shade came up with that one, and it’s a good one. another one I think I can attribute to Shade was a certain Mystaran race that has joined forces with Zaaman Rul.
I don’t want to get into the million references though, as I’d like to leave a few dozen surprises or so for everyone else.
Yes.
A worthy goal. Chilimba was supposedly trained by a pit fiend, which means he has to be somewhat late in the cosmic scheme (after the fall of Asmodeus). It could work perfectly well with my timeline, though.
I agree with Erik, so I'm glad you made the decision you did. The way you did it, it fit very well with their personalities as given in Planescape, and explains a lot.
From the moment the obyriths, Wind Dukes, and proto-baatezu discovered that one another existed until the battle at Pesh (and it still continues in the form of the Blood War). Millions of years, probably. I decided the archomentals were recruited during the period Hellbound called "the Exploration of the Planes." Chilimbia wouldn't have been recruited until after the creation of the baatezu much, much later, but still could have been involved with the forces of Law (trained by a pit fiend, remember, so that part worked really well) for thousands of years.
Why did the para-elemental lords betray them? My guess is that Chilimba was really fanatical and thought the princes of Good weren't being zealous enough in their missions (pit fiend training), and he strong-armed Ehkahk into helping him.
Rennbuu, yes.
another one I think I can attribute to Shade was a certain Mystaran race that has joined forces with Zaaman Rul.The sollux! I was really happy to see that. Also called the Sun Brothers, and originally the seraphs.
Unless, of course, it wasn't a pit fiend at all, but one of the angelic progenitors. I decided to put Chilimba and Ehkahk's betrayal under the "assorted treacheries" part of the Hellbound timeline.
Assorted Treacheries
Some of the most famous Blood War ploys are first devised during this period. The Mask of the Pit strategy involves obyriths disguising themselves as minions of Law, although this fails. One of the generals of Law - some say it was the pit fiend Bel, currently the Warlord of Avernus - executes his legendary Four-Cross, seeming to betray his own side, then the side of Chaos, then his own side, and finally betraying Chaos again.
The archomental of magma Chilimba, convinced that the archomentals of good were not prosecuting the war with sufficient zeal, murders Bristia Pel with the aid of Ehkahk. Horrified at the deeds of the side he was supporting, Ben Hadar defects to the side of Chaos.
sweet. i like that very much.
Rennbuu, yes.
hmm, close, but not the one i meant... try again. if you don't see it, the reference was cut. which would really suck. 
another one I think I can attribute to Shade was a certain Mystaran race that has joined forces with Zaaman Rul.The sollux! I was really happy to see that. Also called the Sun Brothers, and originally the seraphs.
great! very glad that one was kept.
oh, yeah, and as far as Imix, Ohlydra, and Cryonax's roles in the Law/Chaos war (Bwimb, i'm told, was part of the Chaos side), we left those intentionally open for others to decide. we felt it was more important to start the tales of those who are perhaps less well-known, regarding that conflict.
Do you mean Charon? Yugoloths didn't belong to the Chaos side, though (by definition, they were neutral, sending mercenaries to both sides of the war).
(discretion is the better part of valor)
Oh! You meant the bit about Morwel and Ben Hadar being lovers in the early days. I gotcha.
And that supports my idea that the eladrins originally fought on the side of Chaos, even though they turned against the obyriths as soon as the war was over.
ah, whew! glad that one stayed in. all my "favorites" made it in then. i forget if we came up with that as a result of FC1, but i'm pretty sure shade and i figured that the eladrins would have been working on the Chaos side. i'm fairly sure that on ENWorld we had even stealthily asked you, Rip, if you figured the eladrins would have been around at that point, and since you said yes we felt "safer" in going that route. or maybe Shem said so, or both of you. we decided that making them occasional lovers was a pretty cool/unique idea.
Did the bit about the tarrasque survive editing?
Yes, it did.
that's cool. that's one that i found while browsing the WotC forums - someone said that the evil princes were mentioned under the tarrasque entry in the Monstrous Manual as possible creators of the beast, so i went and looked it up, and sure enough! i actually discovered that reference after finishing up the evil article, thus we figured why not toss it in here.
reposted from ENWorld: http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3358726&postcount=152
much as i did with the evil archomentals article, i decided to page through and see what was cut. a lot more was cut from this one, but looking at what was cut i can kind of see why at least some of it went. it's nothing that's a major loss, but here are the cut parts. of course, none of it is official at all, but feel free to use any of it as you will, from our original manuscript.
from the first paragraph: "While the fury of the Elemental Princes of Evil has shaken the multiverse for millennia, many mortals don’t realize that nonevil archomentals exist. In fact, each Elemental Plane has several archomentals with differing alignments and goals."
BEN-HADAR
these parts were trimmed from the Wall of Water ability: "The entire wall must be completely submerged when formed." "It does not deal cold damage."
from the second paragraph of text: "Ben-hadar’s purity freshens any water he moves through."
"A squad of ocean striders (MM II 163) aid any ships sucked through vortices into the Plane of Water to find their way back, while destroying those that come seeking to plunder its riches."
CHAN
these two full paragraphs:
"Long ago, Chan discovered a strange multi-colored pool on a flying rock at the heart of an eternal thunderstorm. Tied to this pool are four primal elemental weirds, one of each element. These ancient beings form an oracular consciousness, always answering any questions presented in unison. Their lore of the multiverse is nearly unmatched, yet they refuse to reveal their own origins."
"Chan stays on good terms with the djinn, who treat her more as a revered guest than a leader. She occasionally visits the Citadel of Ice and Steel to consult with their grand caliphs, and rumors suggest that she has a particular interest in the enigmatic prisoner held within the citadel's heart."
SUNNIS
"As Sunnis walks, fragrant flowers bloom from the earth in her footprints."
this paragraph:
"When traveling the plane of Earth, Sunnis seeks out items and people of great worth. She collects unique and exotic treasures, and shows her gratitude to anyone who finds them for her. Gem collectors (especially gnomes) hold her up to a high ideal, saying "if Sunnis would not value this, neither would I!" Sunnis also collects powerful individuals in a sense, by making friends with true heroes and making allies of good-hearted beings. She has much in common with the guardinal paragon Bharri, her most potent ally."
regarding a certain lord of minerals: "he seeks to become the ruler of the Plane of Earth, and hoards gems of all sorts, both of which make him a nuisance to Sunnis."
ZAAMAN RUL
"In his wake, Zaaman Rul leaves twin trails of bright flame which glow brightly like torches before burning out."
the Abyssal lord Alzrius was mentioned in our submission as one of his adversaries, but was replaced by a certain Archdevil.
this sentence explains who the sollux are, for people unfamiliar: "Zaaman Rul has also gained the allegiance of the sollux—tall, crimson skinned beings claiming to be cousins of the efreet."
this paragraph:
"Rumors hint that Zaaman Rul armed himself with a mysterious artifact of untold goodness during his assault on Imix, though it was lost in the waves of the Blazing Sea before he had the chance to use it."
and this sidebar:
AVATARS OF ELEMENTAL GOOD
Monster Manual IV introduced the avatars of Elemental Evil, each the living will of a Prince of Elemental Evil that contains a tiny fragment of the corresponding prince's essence and exists solely to advance its creator's cause on the Material Plane. To counteract these powerful elemental servants, the good archomentals have created avatars of their own. Ben-Hadar has spawned the Seaborn Sentinel; Chan created the Guardian Zephyr; Sunnis' spawn is known as the Brightgem Colossus; and Zaaman Rul has formed the Truefire Liberator. These avatars sometimes aid powerful nonevil druids and clerics with elemental domains.
Hello!
I'd certainly want to hear about that. Is it Istishia & Company we're talking about or some new personages? Did you rely on anything in the 1E Manual of the Planes? And who is this 'we' you're referring to? Are you the avatar of some conclave of Higher Deities at Dragon magazine?