I've been thinking a lot about the various exemplar races: archons, guardinals, eladrin, modrons, rilmani, slaadi, baatezu, yugoloths, and tanar'ri. These composite races have a special connection to their plane, and generally have multiple forms, etc. But I would like ideas of what that actually means.
What makes an exemplar different from another inhabitant of the same plane?
It can't only be multiple forms - the formians and gehreleths also have multiple forms/stages.
Promotability? Connection to the spirits of the dead which arrive on the plane? Something with the plane itself?
Do the various exemplar races share any common traits?
Any comments and ideas are welcome!
According to the Encyclopedia, 'exemplar' is a fan-created term not found in official literature. That would mean that a given race is labeled an exemplar by agreement, simply because it's the best known and considered the most powerful of its type.
If you wanted to use the term, I would say that experts in-game would define an exemplar as an outsider native to a plane with alignment traits, that shares those alignment traits, and is capable of propagating its type. They should not have any other alignment or elemental traits, though some might disagree with this.
Formians, then would not have been exemplars of Law, but newly born formians might well be. Gear spirits, on the other hand, don't seem to reproduce by themselves. If some measurable power attaches to being the exemplar of an alignment, then the formians might be doing battle to the death with the modrons over that power -- possibly because only one such race can exist. Peace might happen only if one race dies, becomes native to another plane, or takes on a trait other than Law.