New Elemental Planes

[Nellisir]

I came up with this concept while trying to squeeze Cold into the elemental planes. I like its balance, though it doesn't strictly follow the medieval "4 Elements" philosophy and dances all over elemental opposition.

(It's been a long time since high school geometry, so bear with me if I misuse a geometric term).

There are 5 primary planes - Water, Earth, & Air (elemental); Fire & Cold (energy). They are arranged in a hexahedron - a six-sided polyhedron (like two pointy d4s glued together.

This gives us 5 vertices, or points - Fire is "up"; Cold is "down"; Earth, Air, and Water around the middle.

The 9 edges connecting the primary planes are the para-elemental planes, each made up of 2 primary planes.

The 6 faces are the intersection of three primary planes - 2 elemental, 1 energy (akin to the quasi-elemental planes of yore).

And so we get the following:
Energy: Fire, Cold
Elemental: Air, Earth, Water

Elemental Edges (Paraelemental planes):
Air + Earth = Dust
Air + Water = Mist
Earth + Water = Ooze

Elemental Energy Edges (Paraelemental planes):
Cold + Air = Glass
Cold + Earth = Metal
Cold + Water = Ice
Fire + Air = Electricity
Fire + Earth = Ash (Coal?)
Fire + Water = Acid

Bielemental Energy Faces (Quasi-elemental planes):
Cold + Air + Earth = Mirror
Cold + Air + Water = (Frost?)
Cold + Earth + Water = Crystal
Fire + Air + Earth = Smoke (Ash?)
Fire + Air + Water = Steam
Fire + Earth + Water = Magma

*To be complete there's 1 interior edge -
Bienergy edge:
fire + cold = (light/radiance)?

4 additional interior faces -
Elemental + Bienergy Faces:
fire + cold + earth = (force)?
fire + cold + air = (sound)?
fire + cold + water = (salt) ?
earth + air + water = (magnetism) ?

and 1 additional vertex where they all come together: The Material Plane (or The Plane of Salt?)

Salt was a very valuable commodity in ancient times....

Thoughts?
Nell.

 

[Crothian]

wow, that's really cool.

Why does fire and water equal acid? I would have thought steam would be better.

 

[Sniktch]

That is nice, though I'm drawing a blank on ones you could round out the list with. I think you should definitely have the plane of salt somewhere - killer DMs love to have salt elementals dehydrating hapless adventurers. Would a plane of radiance work in somewhere?

 

[Nellisir]

wow, that's really cool.

Why does fire and water equal acid? I would have thought steam would be better.

I've thought about steam, but I went with acid for a few reasons 1) I tried to keep the "elemental energy" (aka paraelemental) planes pretty basic in terms of d20 energies & attacks -- most (but not all) popular damage spells use some kind of paraelemental energy; 2) I wanted acid in there somewhere; 3) acid is a liquid, steam is a vapor & Air is part of most vapors; 4) steam works better in the Air + Water + Fire slot than in the Fire + Water slot; 5) acid is usually described as "burning" - acid scars are "burns".

There's a mixture of real-life physics, fantasy physics, and weird logic jumps here -- acid isn't hot, but it burns. Glass isn't cold, but it's not a "warm" substance (at least not decorating-wise). That said, I'm all up for better suggestions*

Oh, knew I had forgotten something:
earth + fire + cold = (magnetism?)

Cheers
Nell.

* But the para-elemental plane of glass still makes me all tingly inside -- I've already got a site planned where an extrusion of the plane of glass infected the Material World...the town of Everglass, site of Glass Mountain (whereupon sits the princess); everyone gets the "glass template"....

 

[Nellisir]

That is nice, though I'm drawing a blank on ones you could round out the list with. I think you should definitely have the plane of salt somewhere - killer DMs love to have salt elementals dehydrating hapless adventurers. Would a plane of radiance work in somewhere?

Fire + Cold = light/radiance?

Light attacks often involve fire damage, but snow blindness is all about cold, so I figured it was a draw.

Off to sleep now,
Nell.

 

[Sledge]

(Actually snow blindness has nothing to do with "cold" It is simply the reflecting light on an all white surface is so bright that it blinds. This is of course easily countered with the slit goggles.)

 

[Nellisir]

(Actually snow blindness has nothing to do with "cold" It is simply the reflecting light on an all white surface is so bright that it blinds. This is of course easily countered with the slit goggles.)

It was an example to illustrate that intense light doesn't always involve flames and blatant heat. Whether the light comes off a snowfield, a salt plain, or a high-gloss white parking lot, it's still a valid example for my purposes.

Cheers
Nell.

 

[Alchemist]

Very interesting. I like it.

and 1 additional vertice where they all come together: The Material Plane (The Plane of Salt?)

Singluar of vertices is vertex.

As for a useful suggestion, perhaps instead of fire/cold summing to produce radiance, they should subtract for an "entropy" effect. That's the way it works out here IRL, anyways. Heat is vibrational kinetic energy and cold is merely the lack of such vibrations. As the energy (and lack thereof) approach, they should modulate and go to a happy medium, nullifying each other. This works out perfectly if you are placing the prime material at the core of your cosmology, where fire and cold are a balanced mix with the elements.

On the whole, though, I have a problem with this bienergy edge. I'm imagining this whole setup as something of a gradient-as one travels away from air towards earth along the dust edge, it becomes dustier and dustier until you reach the earth plane and it is all earth. Similarly, your interior bienergy edge is always walking the line between either of the 2 energies and and equal proportion of all 3 of the elemental planes. In this way, you will always have contribution from the 3 elements and you would never "see" a pure radiance (or entropy, as I have proposed) line. Unless the 3 elemental planes cancel out, of course.

I would consider making the fire+cold+earth or fire+cold+water edge the salt edge. Earth and water are both good choices, the fcw edge is unallocated but traditionally salt is an earth product I believe. You've already tied up all the earth components pretty well though, and ocean water is a major source of salt.

Good luck, and I'll keep dropping in!

 

[Prothall]

Actually, you're closer to a sort of classical greek philosophy than you think. The whole "4 elements" thing was one in a long line of theories; one that was postulated said that everything existed at some scale on two axes -
Warm/Cold
Dry/Wet
Hence, ice is cold/wet, while fire is warm/dry. Living things could be called warm/wet, while rocks, stones, and earth would be (mostly) cold/dry or something like that. Air covers the tepid/slightly damp category.

 

[Cheiromancer]

IIRC the theory about the qualities of the four elements went like this:

Earth was cold and dry,
Water was cold and wet,
Air was hot and wet,
Fire was hot and dry.

So there aren't any elements or planes based on hot, dry, cold or wet, but these concepts/principals are lurking in the background, so to speak.

There is another theory (based on hebrew mysticism, I think), that postulated only three elements: fire, air and water. All fluids, you'll note. Earth is basically a composite. In that theory you'd need another principle to explain why some things are inert and passive (like earth) and others are active.

I'm wondering if you could have three basic kinds of energy (air, water and heat),which combine pairwise to form the energy types familiar to DnD, and then several kinds of matter (earth): e.g.

heat/water: acid
water/air: cold
air/heat: lightning
heat/heat: fire
air/air: sonic
water/water: force

The last could use some explaining; perhaps that solidity is due to force. Of the three "energy elements," only water is capable of taking on a solid state. And generally only when cold is applied; but that is diluted water (water mixed with air).

"Earth" instead of being one solid (and non-energetic) element, might also be three: In medieval alchemy they recognized sulphur, salt and quicksilver as being the fundamental building blocks of most solids. Again you would probably combine these pair-wise to produce various planes. Varying degrees of energy might produce others; the geometry of the planes might only allow certain combinations. Let's see:

salt/salt= salt
quicksilver/quicksilver= metal
sulphur/sulphur= wood (?)
salt/quicksilver= stone
salt/sulphur = ash (?)
quicksilver/sulphur = magnetism

These have associated energy effects, too; drawing from above.

Metal; electricity and acid (rust?)
Magnetism: electricity and force
Wood: ? and ?
ash: fire and cold
salt: sonic and force?
stone: fire (magma) and acid?


I'm basically picturing two discs, one over the other. The upper disc consists of the "energy planes"- fire, air and water. Energy effects (fire, cold, acid, etc.) are common here. Evokers tap into these energy effects.

Below are the "solid" planes of salt, stone, metal, magnetism, wood and ash. They attract energy effects from the upper disc, but are basically stable.