Mirage

Xav disappeared nearly three days before. We'd just about given up until a figure was spotted atop a nearby dune. I hurried ahead, desperate that he might still be alive. Our guide, a bloody sand mage, told me to wait, but I didn't listen. I swear it was him, the shoulders, the hair, same walk even. There was no mistaking the man I'd followed halfway across Telus. But, when I finally reached him, he. . .crumbled. Blew away like he was just part of the sands. 
-excerpt from the diary of Risoth Herald, explorer and Elysian historian

Classification: Dual Elemental
Major Elements: Air
Minor Elements: Earth (sand)
Habitat: Elysian Desert

Once a land of prosperity and unmatched scholarly wisdom, Elysia and most of its inhabitants met a sudden catastrophic end less than two decades ago. The verdant land was engulfed in an elemental storm magnitudes larger than anything previously documented. Once the Land of Prosperity, Elysia is now nothing but a desert haunted by memories.

The ruins of Elysia are often sought out by adventurers daring enough to brave the endlessly shifting sands. Those that return speak of whispers on the wind and bleak forms roaming the desert. Forms that, when approached, seem to dissolve into the wind.

Sometimes called sand spectres, the mirage is a creature of sand and air. The elemental stirs the sand, gathering it into a central mass that is then shaped into a solid form, mimicking a human. The spectre inhabits this new form much like a crab living within a discarded shell, utilizing it for anchorage, protection, and possibly hunting.

It is the belief of many of the local sand magi--the nomadic remnants of the people that once prospered in Elysia--that the mirages are the spirits of their dead civilization. Lingering souls lost in a cataclysm even their preeminent scholars could not have foretold. Or perhaps guarding secrets best left buried.

More likely, however, the mirages are feral elementals. The Elysians were well known for their mastery of communion with the elements, even to the great envy of the mages of Ordin. These orphaned elementals now roam the sands, taking the forms of the masters they once protected and served. While there is no documentation of mirages attacking humans, many an adventuring party has been lost to the desert, with some found years later, desiccated, with the skin flayed from their bodies.