A Couple Things I Need To Get Off My Chest

[Fallen Seraph]

I thought Greenland was called Greenland as a way to advertise? The Norse that made it there wanted more people to settle there so they called it Greenland, a better name then; "Rocky and Icey Land".

 

[Dausuul]

The problem here is the scientific definition of "desert" running up against the colloquial one. In common usage, "desert" means hot, dry, and barren, with bonus points for sand. When most people want to refer to cold deserts, they use "tundra" or "ice sheet." The Antarctic may be a desert by the scientific definition, but that's not how the word is normally used in society.

And the association of (colloquial) deserts with fire actually makes perfect sense when you think about it. Fire both produces and requires heat and dryness. Jungles are hot but not dry, hence less of a connection.

As for water = cold, that association makes less sense, but it's not entirely without merit. As a rule, for human beings, going into the water ameliorates the effects of hot weather, but exacerbates the effects of cold weather (if only because it's very rare for the weather to be so hot that the water is warmer than our body temperature). And to the extent that we rely on fire to keep warm, water makes us colder because it puts the fire out.

 

[slwoyach]

Popular usage trumps technical accuracy. And in this case the popular definition predates the scientific one.

 

[Aeolius]

In fact, aren't some parts of the ocean technically deserts...

Coral bleaching from rising temperatures leads to vast "deserts" of dead coral:

Urchin barrens on the other hand are caused by the ravenous appetites of sea urchins:

 

[Scribble]

the other hand are caused by the ravenous appetites of sea urchins:

ahhhhh urchin swarm!!!!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Fire is also "dryness".

But a glacier or a snowfield basically IS water, just frozen (even if it's also a desert).

Also, hottest place on earth:

El Azizia in Libya. In the Libyan desert. Also ranking high is Death Valley, and Dallol in Ethiopia, in the Afar Depression, in a region that are basically salt flats. Also a couple of places in Western Australia if we're looking for "inhabited" regions, hardly known for its ample rainfall. Dry desert is hot.

Meanwhile, coldest place on earth:

Check out that snow. Sure, there's also virtually no new snowfall, but there's still a LOT of water between your feet and the ground below (even if it is frozen). What actually helps it get that cold, though, isn't so much the water as it is the wind: it's so barren and so high that the stuff just whips right through.

Also ranking up there are areas in the Yukon and Russia, up in the forests, which also have FROZEN ground, and by the North Pole, which is either ice or ocean. So snow (which is made of water) is cold.

My biggest use of a jungle motif was with Aztec-style lizardfolk and kobolds and yuan-ti who worshiped feathered dinosaur-dragons as gods, which was pretty fire-heavy.

It's cool to want some variety, but don't be a hater, mang.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Blue dragons live in the desert and breathe lightning because... everything else was taken.

But blue dragons don't live in the desert anymore.

 

[Aeolius]

Blue dragons live in the desert and breathe lightning because... everything else was taken.

And I thought it was because fulgurite (lightning glass) is too cool for words:

 

[Klaus]

But blue dragons don't live in the desert anymore.

I was going to say that.

Blue dragons + lightning + coastal regions FTW.

 

[Rechan]

But blue dragons don't live in the desert anymore.

They don't!?

I also did find the Water = Cold association with 3e and Energy to be odd. I mean, I understand the Air=lightning, purely by association, but still. Also, earth=acid is another odd one.

That's one reason I liked Exalted's breakup of the elements. Water is water. Earth is earth. Granted, Air = Cold (the argument being winds being cold, and cold weather). There was nothing associated with Lightning, although there are quite a few Air elementals that are lightning-based.