Living Lava

Te Kā, in all her molten, fiery glory.

The Blob Monster is dangerous because of its amorphous, shifting nature allowing easy movement and smothering the opponent. The Rock Monster is dangerous because of its hardy physiology and weight allowing it to crush the opponent. So what if you tried to mix them both? Increase the rock's temperature by a thousand degrees until molten, give it a mind of its own, and you get Living Lava.

A creature made of lava, it has the strength of rock while being amorphous due to its molten state. More importantly, as lava is incredibly hot, it'll damage anyone who'd dare try to even get close to its molten body, assuming convection is in play. The Living Lava tends to dwell in the Lethal Lava Land or an Elemental Plane of fire, magma or similarly hot substances, and is vulnerable to rapid cooling. Sometimes they'll have more solid and hard body parts to better interact with the rest of the world.

While the Magma Man is about controlling lava, Living Lava is about beings made out of the stuff. A sub-trope of Lava Adds Awesome and Elemental Embodiment. Also a sub-trope of Silicon-Based Life, which usually deals with silicates in a solid state. Sister Trope of Evil Living Flames. For other forms of Animate Inanimate Matter, see Muck Monster, Rock Monster and Sentient Sands.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• 3×3 Eyes: Chi Luo (Red Net) is the name of the last guardian of Kun Lun in a cavern somewhere deep in the Himalaya, resembling a lava lake which can send out tendrils of magma to burn to death all those trying to cross the pool without the key, but if they do have the key, it will turn into a stone bridge instead. Noticeably, Zhou Gui express mild disbelief when at his nature.
  "Are you telling me that this pool of molten goo is alive and sentient?"
• Dragon Ball Super: Auta Magetta is one of the Metalmen, Mechanical Lifeforms whose internal biology is made of lava, which they also eat. Magetta is able to spit out the lava inside him as an attack.

Comic Books

• Aquaman: The fire Trolls are an androgynous species of sentient lava mounds who once plotted to take over the world. They would often come to clash with Aquaman when they would try to cause catastrophic eruptions across the worlds fault lines.
• The Avengers occasionally fight a subterranean race of Lava Men.
• Green Lantern: The Green Lantern of Sector 315, Volk, hails from the planet Maag and is a creature made of living lava. His body is encased within a humanoid shell of rock with a volcano for a head.
• The Magma Men in The Saga of Crystar, Crystal Warrior are made of magma.

Fan Works

• Dungeon Keeper Ami: Ami's first attempts at golems involved at least one attempt at using molten rock as a material.
  I have been investigating several methods to reduce the energy consumption of my golems. The first attempt was with using a liquid base instead of a solid one. Water, mud of various consistencies and compositions, tar, even some molten rock obtained from one of Snyder's more spectacular failures.''
• Sharing the Night: As they age, dragons become vast beings of living rock. Some specifically become rock of the more liquid persuasion.
  • The ancient dragon Emberstoke the Eternal resembles a titanic mass of jagged rock and flowing lava, with only rough approximations of limbs and a face. In his sleep, his body forms an active volcano.
  • Another dragon found beneath the Everfree is composed entirely of regular rock, but ends up being melted down in its entirety by Celestia channeling the fires of the Sun into it. This does not slow it down at all, and it simply continues fighting her while composed entirely of molten lava.

Film — Animated

• Fantasia 2000: The final segment, based on Igor Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, depicts the titular Firebird first a giant bird and then a landscape-consuming Blob Monster made of lava. This sets it up as the destructive opposite to the nature spirit's powers of life and creation.
• Hercules: Hades ends up releasing the Titans, elemental beings of mass destruction. One of them, Pyros, is a hulking mass of lava and magma that smothers his victims with his molten body.
• Moana: Te Ka is a massive demon made out of fire and lava who would stop the heroes from returning the stolen heart of the goddess Te Fiti. It turns out that Te Ka is Te Fiti, transformed from the lovely goddess of life into a terrifying specter of rage by the theft of her heart. In her original form she resembled a giant, moving island shaped like a beautiful woman, bedecked with greenery and flowers. When her heart was taken and she lost the power to create life the greenery disappeared, and she began to resemble the molten lava from which the Pacific islands were created.
• Mune: Guardian of the Moon: Necross and his minions, Mox and Spleen, are humanoids made from rocks and lava, who live in a hellish Lethal Lava Land below the earth.

Film — Live-Action

• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): Rodan is depicted as a giant bird/pterosaur hybrid that's composed partially of magma. He also has magma for blood.
• Thor: Ragnarok: Surtur is an incredibly powerful demon made of lava that is fated to destroy Asgard.
• Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie: Maligore is a hulking demonic entity that rises up from, and seems to be formed out of, lava.

Literature

• Animorphs: The Howlers, Crayak's chosen race, are humanoid beings with flesh of hardened lava.
• Xanadu (Storyverse): In "Revan", the main character encounters a person transformed into a towering, stout humanoid being made out of molten rock. By the time she reaches it, it's burned most of a room to cinders and is being fought by a crowd of otherwise-transformed people using fire extinguishers. When Revan partly freezes it using ice grenades, she notices that while it can walk on molten legs just fine these simply shatter when solidified.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who: In "The Fires of Pompeii", the aliens of the week are Pyroviles, giant aliens made of molten rock somewhat resembling Roman centurions. Having an interior of magma, they're vulnerable to water and mistaken as deities by Pompeii's local soothsayers.
• Grimm: Volcanalis, from "Volcanalis", is an ancient towering, humanoid demon whose body is entirely made entirely molten magma, that burns so hot that his mere presence causes water to boil, melts the pavement he stands upon and will suffocate any being within close proximity to him. He lives inside volcano's and possesses power over the earth, able to cause earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions. A greedy beast he considers any rocks in proximity to the volcano he resides in his property and will emerge to kill anyone who takes them. He likewise carries a legacy of wiping out towns dating back to Vesuvius. His nature makes him invulnerable to conventional methods of attack, but leaves him vulnerable to extreme cold, with him being defeated by exposing his body to several tanks of liquid nitrogen.
• Monster Warriors: Astrosaurus, molten lava dinosaur, is one of the two monsters in "Astrosaurus vs. Gigantobeast".
• Star Trek: The Original Series: "The Devil in the Dark" features the Horta, aliens that look like globs of lava and lay many eggs.

Mythology and Religion

• Pacific Mythology: Pele, a volcanic goddess who embodies the main volcano, who knows when incautious visitors have taken away rocks from her sacred place and left the island with them. There are stories of the volcano goddess's vengeance manifesting in bad luck and ill-fortune to such people — until the stolen rocks are returned. The relevant authority in Hawaii testifies that it regularly receives parcels of volcanic rock, anonymously, to be returned to the volcano goddess with apologies.
• The Cherufe of Mapuche mythology is a being depicted as a monstrous man eating made entirely of rock and lava. The only way to stop it is to sacrifice a human into the volcano where the Cherufe comes from. It's also widely believed to caused volcano eruptions and earthquakes.

Tabletop Games

• Chaotic: Magmon (as in magma monster). Due to his nature, he is unable to leave his home, the Lava Pond.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Magmen (or magmins in later editions) are small humanoid creatures made of lava that occasionally leave their volcanic homes to play, including trying to set other living creatures on fire. The series also has Magma Golems.
  • The Sandstorm supplement describes lava oozes, living masses of molten rock that inhabit volcanic caverns and feed on rock and metal.
  • The Epic Level Handbook describes Phaethons, Eldritch Abominations born of fire gods and/or fire monsters. They are described as malevolent, gigantic blobs of sentient magma. They make good use of their blob-like forms to smother and burn everything they can flow over, and their forms can easily absorb other living creatures into their bodies to be easily crushed and incinerated.
• Heroscape: The Obsidian Guards are humanoid lava creatures, and their special abilities all give them bonuses from being on lava or magma tiles. They also suffer a penalty if standing on water.
• Pathfinder
  • Magma elementals are hybrids of fire and earth elementals with both their powers. They tend to take the shape of large, powerful animals such as apes or ungulates, unlike the more slender and serpentine fire elementals.
  • Thoqquas are a type of elemental being typically found deep in the corse of material worlds or where the Plane of Earth and the Plane of Fire meet. They resemble wormlike masses of semi-solid lava, with a large crystallized spike on their fronts.
  • Magma oozes are living pools of molten rock commonly found on the border regions of the Planes of Earth and Fire and volcanic regions of the world. Water turns them to stone, leaving them unharmed and immobilized until the water is gone.
  • Fellsigs are a type of undead created when several dwarves settlements were destroyed when the dormant volcano Droskar's Crag awoke and erupted disastrously. The dead dwarves arose as parodies of their old selves formed from lava behind a thin skin of volcanic rock and seek to revisit their deaths on anyone they encounter, attacking with flaming hands and by hurling balls of molten rock. Due to their superheated insides, anyone who successfully pierces their "skin" is subjected to a spray of flaming ash and fumes vented from the fellsig's volcanic interior.

Theme Parks

• Lost Island Theme Park has the fire demon Volkanu and his assorted minions trapped within the Mura Realm's volcano. Volkanu's army in his self-titled dark ride includes lava bats, three-headed dragons, snakes, scorpions, and various lava men soldiers. An additional lava monster, Rokava, can be seen emerging from the mountain as the backdrop for a Top Spin flat ride.

Video Games

• American McGee's Alice: The Lava Men in the Land of Fire and Brimstone crawl out of lava pools if Alice approaches too closely, spitting fireballs and attempting to pummel her with their stretching arms. Notably though, if they stay away from lava for too long, they harden into barely-mobile stone.
• ANNO: Mutationem: At the electroplating center of The Consortium's underground base, the Lava Pits are shown to be inhabited by fish entirely made of magma rocks.
• Asura's Wrath: The Gohma, being Gaia's Vengeance incarnate, take the form of monstrous beasts formed out of molten rock and they bleed magma. This is most noticeable with Gohma Vlitra, which is a planet-sized monster resembling a Space Whale and later an Orochi made out of volcanic rock with magma flowing through it, with the Vlitra Core looking like an even bigger, meaner version of Berserker Asura made out of lava.
• The volcano caverns from Dark Adventure have gigantic lava golems who serve as Giant Mook enemies. They lose body parts as they receive damage, the lava on their body turning into volcanic rock before crumbling, and when they're defeated they collapse into a pile of broken rocks.
• Dwarf Fortress: Magma men are elemental creatures native to the lava ocean at the bottom of each game world. They're composed of a core of liquid basalt coated in a humanoid obsidian shell and are much more dangerous than their neighboring fire men and fire imps. The latter two, being made of fire and nothing else, are extremely fragile and easily beaten to death; magma men, being made of hard rock, are much more durable and much stronger. Since the game takes temperature into account and they can still shoot fireballs, they have the dangerous tendency to set everything around them on fire if it can burn in the first place.
• Final Fantasy XIV: The monsters in the first half of Hells' Lid are a mix of animals and Youkai made of partly-solidified lava.
• God of War: The Titans are humanoids physically made up of the part of nature they embody, and Perses in particular is made up of rock and lava and has a small volcano on his back.
• Jitsu Squad has lava elementals in Infernia, armed with scythes made of flames, as large enemies the squad must battle constantly. Besides birds made of lava who tries swooping above them.
• The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon: The golem is a huge, living, crudely humanoid mass of molten and semi-molten rock.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Igneo Taluses are giant Cephalothoraxes made up of glowing, semi-molten rock that live near the lava lakes around the Death Mountain. Their weaker offspring, the Igneo Pebblits, are the same thing on a smaller scale.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Moragia is a monster formed out of lava and Gloom in the form of three worm-like heads that emerges from the caldera of Death Mountain. Link and Yunobo have to blast it to bits to go down the Death Mountain Chasm.
• Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards: The Magman, the boss of the fourth planet Neo Star, is a large Blob Monster made of magma who faces Kirby. He starts out as a Background Boss but once he Turns Red starts going into the foreground and attacks Kirby with his fire breath, summons Burnis' or causes rocks to fall.
• The Hell Levels of Majyuo have Lava Pit obstacles, and every now and then "lava snakes" with skull-like heads will emerge to attack. They turn black and collapse into a pile of volcanic rocks after they're defeated.
• Mega Man ZX: Lava Demon miniboss in Area K appears to be this. Subverted, however, in that its real body is a small drone that controls the lava to make a big body out of it
• Minecraft has Magma Cubes, which are giant cubes made of lava.
• Lava Blobs from Monster Sanctuary are made of a magma-like substance that is in a constant state of fluidity, so it requires effort to hold themselves together.
• Mortal Kombat: The character of Blaze is a fire elemental who first appeared as an Early-Bird Cameo in Mortal Kombat II as a "Liu Kang on fire" at The Pit II stage, later developed in 3D games as a humanoid made of lava. First in Deadly Alliance as a Secret Character and in Armageddon as the Hulking Out Final Boss and one of the most powerful characters of the franchise.
• The underground levels of Ninja: Shadow of Darkness have the titular ninja crossing a floating platform atop a lava river, and every now and then, giant fists made of lava will emerge and attempt to pound on him.
• Palworld has the pal Flambelle, a Ridiculously Cute Critter version of this. Their heads and arms resemble a tiny, innocent-looking candle girl, but their hair and "feet" are made of lava while their body appears to be made of cooled lava. Flambelle are very Prone to Tears and cry out lava, which gets absorbed into them and powers them up.
• Pipeworks ''Godzilla'' Trilogy: Obsidius, added in Godzilla: Unleashed, is a vaguely saurian monster made of lava, formed when one of SpaceGodzilla's crystals plunged into a volcano.
• Pokémon: A number of Pokemon have bodies of lava or magma, the most obvious of which being the Slugma family and Heatran. The former is a slug-shaped mass of lava that evolves into a snail with a shell of hardened rock. The latter is a quadruped legendary made out of lava and metal. Also, while Camerupt and Groudon aren't normally made of lava, their Mega Evolutions cause parts of their bodies to become lava.
• Quake:
  • The main game has Chthon, the boss of Episode 1: Dimension of the Doomed, a big monster resting in the big lava pool of the final level of the unit who awakens once Ranger picks the Rune of Earth Magic. Chthon uses lava balls to attack Ranger and cannot be damaged by regular weapon fire.
  • Four fire elementals also made of lava called Hephaestus appear as bosses in the level "Elemental Fury II" from the Mission-Pack Sequel Dissolution of Eternity. Like Chthon, they fire lava balls towards Ranger, however, unlike Chthon, normal weapon fire is required to bring them down, and they have quite the amount of HP.
• Skylanders: One of the first Fire Skylanders is Eruptor, a humanoid blob of lava, his hands ending in balls of lava. He is able to launch lava blobs and spread his body out like an erupting volcano.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2006): Iblis is the overpowered monster that's responsible for the Bad Future Silver the Hedgehog comes from. Originally a flame, the creature is an immortal monster made out of lava. It can make lesser monsters also made out of lava. It and Mephiles are the Literal Split Personality of Solaris, a god of time.
  • Sonic Rivals: Sonic Rivals 2 has the Ifrit, who's similar to Iblis in being a monster made out of lava that threatens to cause a Bad Future for Silver. Eggman Nega wants to release it onto the world from its own dimension.
• Super Mario Bros.: Several of these appear in video games from the franchise, most commonly in Lethal Lava Land-type levels.
  • Lava Bubbles are enemies found in almost any installment from the franchise. They're living fireballs with two black eyes who jump in and out of lava.
  • Blarggs, recurring enemies first seen in Super Mario World, first appeared as red-orange dinosaur-like creatures living inside lava, but are redesigned in later games as red-orange Blob Monsters seemingly made out of molten rock.
  • Magmaarghs, debuting in Super Mario Galaxy 2, are related creatures literally made out of molten lava, allowing them to pass directly through and around solid obstacles. They've since appeared in other games, always in the same role. They hide inside lava pools and surge out when the player passes by, attempting to devour them when they pass too close. The game also introduces the Magmaws, smaller and with more simplistic facial features to the point that they're essentially plumes of lava with gaping mouths and dot eyes.
  • Super Mario 3D World , and the fishlike Charvaarghs, which breach out of lava like jumping dolphins to try and eat Mario and his friends. They cannot be defeated by any means, and touching them spells instant death. They return in Super Mario Maker 2 in a nerfed form (they can now be defeated with the Starman powerup, and no longer kill characters upon contact unless these are not powered up to take damage).
• Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan: The last boss to hold a piece of the Haab Calendar is a giant monster made of lava, appropriately referred to by the locals as the Lava Beast. It attacks by slamming its hands on the platform, sinking and raising parts of it, and making boulders rain down on the arena. It's only vulnerable to attack when it turns green.
• A Lava elemental serves as a boss of Undead Line, emerging from a volcanic pit at the end of a Lethal Lava Land stage.
• War of the Monsters: Magmo, one the titular monsters, is a giant four-armed beast made entirely out of magma who has the power to shoot balls of molten rock as a projectile. It's revealed it was created by one of the defeated flying saucers crashing into a volcano, spilling the green fuel into a pool of lava.
• Warcraft:
  • The Molten Giants are huge creatures that can be found in the Firelands or the Molten Core of Blackrock Mountain. They are highly aggressive and serve as the Elite Mooks of Ragnaros the Firelord, who himself is a Magma Man
  • In Warcraft III, the Firelord neutral hero can summon Lava Spawns, spiky red minions made of lava that shoot fire at people. While every spawn has a timed life, it replicates itself after attacking a number of times into an identical Lava Spawn.

Web Original

• Neopets: Magma Neopets are just like normal Neopets, only their skin is magma.
• Overlord DVD: We never see them on-screen, but Doomcock talks about magma-men as being one of the many unfriendly inhabitants of the ecosystem at the center of the earth.

Western Animation

• Batman Beyond: In "Heroes", one of the Terrific Trio (a Captain Ersatz of the Fantastic Four) has this appearance and is called Magma.
• Ben 10: Heatblast is the first alien that Ben Tennyson transforms into. A living mass of flaming magma, he belongs to the Pyronites, creatures who live in a world so hot that it functions as a sun, and are weak to water.
• The Dragon Prince: Magma titans are gigantic humanoids made out of lava and volcanic rock. Its rocky body deflects most attacks against it, and when it dies its collapsing body releases a wave of molten rock that threatens to overwhelm its killers.
• Ewoks: Near the end of "Sunstar vs Shadowstone", the recurring villain Morag triggers a volcano after fusing the two titular Power Crystals together, then sinks into the lava. The Ewoks initially assume she's dead, but thanks to the power of the Sunstar-Shadowstone she emerges as a huge lava monster. Unfortunately for Morag, her new form comes with a Logical Weakness as Master Logray magically creates a geyser which sprays her with water, causing her to harden and shatter.
• Mighty Max had a race of these living underground. The Skullmaster imprisoned their king, Lava Lord, and took over upon arriving, but he breaks out during the series.
• My Little Pony 'n Friends: The antagonist of "Quest of the Princess Ponies" is Lavan, a monster made out of magma and referred to as a lava demon who has weaker underlings of the same species. They're shown to be foes with another race called ice orcs. Lavan ends up turning himself into crystal and then being blown up.
• The New Adventures of Superman: In "Lava Men", a volcano in Mexico creates living beings of lava. When Superman fights the first one, he discovers it is an Asteroids Monster that splits into identical beings every time it is struck.
• Space Ghost: In "The Heat Thing", Jace is shot down by a lava monster while flying over the surface of Jupiter. Space Ghost must save him from incineration.

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