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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 9291875" data-attributes="member: 58172">I am looking anew at the folkbelief aspects of Paracelsus, a 1500s renaissance German.When he describes "elemental spirits", these are spirits, not creatures that are made out of an element. It helps to describe them as something like the ghost of an element.For Paracelsus, the elemental spirits are:• Earth: gnomus (aka pygmaeus)• Water: undina (aka nympha)• Air: sylphes (aka sylvanus, aka sylvestris)• Fire: salamandraThe Air elementals relate to the "forest" (silva, sylva), possibly in the sense of winds thru trees, as well as the outdoors generally.While the four "elements" are forms of matter, their "elementals" are immaterial spirits. Paracelsus writes:The "elementals" are "invisible spiritual counterparts of visible nature", "many resembling human beings in shape, and inhabiting worlds of their own, unknown to humanity, because undeveloped senses were incapable of functioning beyond the limitations of the grosser [material] elements."Keep in mind the distinction between "element" which is matter, and "elemental" which is spirit.Translating into D&D 5eThe D&D tradition of Elemental Planes are "worlds unknown to humanity", thus appear to derive directly from Paracelsus himself. However, Paracelsus is describing Elementals forming invisible communities within the spirit world, namely the Ethereal Plane.In this context, the D&D Elemental Planes are also immaterial. They are planes where the "forms" of elements exist, but not the "substance". Only the Material Plane has actual matter. Matter can only exist in the Material Plane.The 5e Elemental Planes are more like regions within the Elemental Chaos. In a region, a reasonably stable form of an element persists and prevails in frequency. However all the other elemental forms are also present, the edges of the regions are porous and open, and different regions can cross into and overlap each other. All of the regions drift within the energy turbulence of the Elemental Chaos.However. Creatures can and do encounter apparitions of Elementals within the Material Plane. While Elementals can inhabit the Elemental Planes, they can also inhabit the Material Plane. These Elemental spirits exist ethereally.The "Border Ethereal" (aka "Shallow Ethereal") is the part of the Ethereal Plane that exists inside the Material Plane. The ether of the Ethereal Plane is force. The Ethereal Plane and the Material Plane overlap in the sense of gravity of atomic forces. But also this overlap includes Ethereal creatures and Material creatures coexisting alongside each other and able to observe each other. Generally speaking, those in the Ethereal can plainly see the Material creatures and Material world. Those in the Material require magic to detect the creatures made out of subtle Ethereal forces, unless the Ethereal creatures are themselves using magic to manifest apparitions within matter. These manifestations are force constructs, made out of forces but behaving as if solid matter, or merely as visual or audio phenomena.Possibly the Elemental spirits originate in the Material Plane, such as the Water Elementals forming ethereally where there are Material pools of water, rivers, lakes, seas, oceans, and rains. The fact these Elemental spirits can adopt human shapes, suggests learning from Human neighbors who are coexisting alongside them.The Water Elemental spirit can remain in the Material Plane, or else travel via the Deep Ether to the Elemental Chaos and the Water Elemental Plane. The affinity of the Water element, and the sensory detection, can navigate the Deep Ethereal easily to their watery destinations on each side of it.Where there is an Ethereal Border within the Material Plane, there is also a Fey Border and a Shadow Border. The Feywild is ether that Positive Energy energizes and enlivens. The Shadowfell is ether than Negative Void unravels and entropies.There can be Elemental spirits with Positive Fey affinity, oppositely Negative Shadow affinity, in addition to the natural mix of Positive and Negative for an overall neutral Ethereal affinity.</blockquote>

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