D&D General other possible elements?

[Charlaquin]

You could go with Paracelsus‘ tria prima: salt, sulphur, and mercury.

 

[ilgatto]

I am bored of the four elements but I have all the inspiration of a brick and do not want to make the elemental planes of the periodic table regardless of how entertaining it would be.

does anyone know any other options that could add on to water, rock, air and fire that would be great both from old myths and more modern tales?

Well, there's always this (and more) in The Dragon 27 (1979):

Boring? Perhaps.
Off the wall? Certainly.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Maybe go with elemental planes based on the ranger/druid terrains:

• Mountain
• Desert
• Sea
• Caverns
• Forest
• Plains
• Arctic

 

[Voadam]

From 1e Oriental Adventures there is a five elemental split if you want to stick to a D&D elemental tradition.

"The spells of a wu jen are divided into five elemental groups—earth/metal, water, fire, wind, and wood/nature."

 

[cbwjm]

Custard.

Earth, Air, Fire and Custard (J. W. Wells & Co., #3)

 

[Voadam]

3.0 D&D Rokugan added void to the classic greek four for its fantasy samurai setting.

 

[Voadam]

You could go with the Green Lantern corps color spectrum and associated attributes.

 

[TwoSix]

My personal favorite element system, from the webserial Beneath the Dragoneye Moons:

8 base elements: fire, earth, wind, water, wood, metal, light, dark. 36 composite elements, from the combination of the 8 basic elements.

List is here:

Interlude - The Magic Elements Explained! - Beneath the Dragoneye Moons [Book 11 going KU March 12th]

The elements! We can see the 8 basic elements forming a circle around the edge - Fire, Dark, Earth, Wood, Water, Light, Wind, and Metal. Around those, (...)

www.royalroad.com

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

You could go with the Green Lantern corps color spectrum and associated attributes.

Rot Lop Fan is here and would like a word.

 

[Yaarel]

I like the mystic elements, including Hellenistic states of matter and Daoist motions of matter.

Even here, I count eight elements.

Darkness (empty space, negative void) (≈ Dao Soil, Space)
Light (energy, positive energy, consciousness)
Ether (forces, including gravity, electromagnetic, atomic, plus telekinesis)
Fire (plasma)
Air (gas) (≈ Dao Tree, Wind)
Water (liquid)
Earth (solid) (≈ Dao Metal, Crystal)
Tree (combining the four into a living, expanding, element)


Tree can be understood as its own element, a special combination of "the four" elements, or an aspect of Air, or an aspect of Earth.


For D&D purposes, I split the "electromagnetic" forces of ether, between "Fire" with Light and Radiant, and "Air" with Lightning and Thunder.

The Acid damage type is weird, but ultimately I decided it is part of the "Elemental Chaos" and represents an unstable primordial aspect of "Earth". There are a number of Evocation spells that are multi-elemental (Chromatic Orb, Prismatic Spray, etcetera), and I group all of these as "primordial" and corresponding to the Elemental Chaos, rather than any of the four elemental planes.

The Ethereal Plane is the "Fifth Elemental Plane".

The 5e Transmutation groups together themes of Earth, Plant, and Beast, plus shapeshifting and fabricating objects, which works well enough as aspects of "Earth".