Dark Flame

[hcobb]

Is a fire elemental carrying a Darkness item invisible?

[Shostak]

I would question a fire elemental's ability to carry anything.

Only tangentially related, Interestingly, I've been working on a new monster called Black Fire. When I read your thread title I thought for a moment that we had somehow tuned into the same wavelength of the zeitgeist.

[Helborn]

As per ITL 19, Darkness only "Extinguishes all artificial lights (including
Light spells) within its range". Light is intrinsic to the flames of a Fire Elemental and so should not be affected by Darkness...

[hcobb]

Spell specifically mentions torches, which are just flames.

[Skarg]

If elementals are really creatures of the essence of their element, then one might think they're the least artificial of all fires. So not affected by things that only affect artificial light propagation.

I agree with Shostak that I don't think they can carry anything.

[hcobb]

How much ST of a Fire Elemental does it take to lift and control a sky lantern?

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Is a fire elemental carrying a Darkness item invisible?

At night all fire elementals are grey. It might not technically be invisible, in the sense that a submarine doesn't swim. But it's dark so you can't see it. Is this mostly a semantic argument?

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

How much ST of a Fire Elemental does it take to lift and control a sky lantern?

ST 1 to lift, N/A to control.

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

At night all fire elementals are grey. It might not technically be invisible, in the sense that a submarine doesn't swim. But it's dark so you can't see it. Is this mostly a semantic argument?

I don't follow any of that. Are you trying to communicate in Cobbese?

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Skarg

I don't follow any of that. Are you trying to communicate in Cobbese?

"At night all cats are grey" is a C18 saying attributed to Benjamin Franklin meaning that when it's dark it doesn't matter what something looks like.

"The question of whether machines can think is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim." is an Edsger Dijkstra aphorism.

I'm saying it doesn't matter whether the fire elemental is invisible or not. It's dark. We can't see it. Does that make it invisible? Does a submarine swim? Who knows? More importantly, who cares?

I could have thrown in "a tree falls in the forest", maybe that would have made it clearer.

[Skarg]

Wow, ok, thanks.

Though I'm sticking with: elementals aren't artificial so aren't affected by Darkness.