Theory of Elements

'As is well known to any educated person with even the barest knowledge of the classics, the ancient Atavines and Variscans believed that the world was made up of four elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Some philosophers also postulated the existence of a fifth element, Spirit, but its existence remained tenuous and controversial.

With the renewed interest in natural philosophy occasioned by the so-called Age of Reawakening, it became apparent that other substances, including Glass, Mist and Sand could be considered as elements. Whether or not these new elements were as fundamental as Earth, Air, Fire and Water was the cause of much debate throughout most of the eighteenth century; however, the discovery in 1783 of the Primordial Slime elementals in the caverns of the Mappel Deilora, followed shortly after by our encounters with the Sand Shamans of the Mareisch tribes of Kaznaristan, seemed to establish these new substances as fundamental elements beyond all reasonable doubt.

There the matter rested; however, during the first half of this century, the number of fundamental elements has multiplied disturbingly. Lightning, Mud and Phlogiston have all been determined to be elements, as have the newly discovered substances of Caloric and Vital Essence. The experiment performed last year by Michelson and Morley, in which the movement of the Earth with respect to the Ether was successfully measured, has only compounded the problem by adding yet another member to the list of so-called 'fundamental' elements. The seemingly unending proliferation of this 'element zoo' is one of the most pressing questions in natural philosphy and thaumatics, for it is now the considered opinion of the majority of experts in the field that any theory in which the universe requires so many fundamental elements is deeply unsatisfactory.

My colleagues and I would, therefore, like to propose a new theory of the elements, though in some ways it could be said that we are merely reformulating the oldest theories of all. Through a number of experiments involving combining the quintessence of Earth, Air, Fire and Water, we have succeeded in creating a number of the other elements; specifically, Glass, Caloric and Slime, or Primordial Slime as it is perhaps more commonly known. Clearly, these latter three, despite their appearance, cannot be truly fundamental. We have thus theorised that a four level heirarchy of elements exists.

Firstly, there are the four primary elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. These are the only elements that can be considered truly fundamental.

Secondly, there are the six secondary elements, each formed by the fusion, in equal parts, of the quintessence of two primary elements. These are Sand, from the fusion of Earth and Air, Mud (Earth and Water), Glass (Earth and Fire), Primordial Slime (Fire and Water), Lightning (Fire and Air) and Mist (Air and Water.

Thirdly come the four tertiary elements, the great fluids that permeate all things. These are each formed by the fusion, in equal parts, of the quintessence of three primary elements. They are Caloric (Earth, Water, Fire), Ether (Air, Water, Fire), Phlogiston (Fire, Earth, Air) and Vital Essence or Vitality (Water, Earth, Air).

Finally, the combination of all four of the primary elements gives us the single quarternary element, Spirit.'
From The Annals of the Imperial Society of Natural Philosophy and Thaumatics, 1878. 'A New Elemental Theory', by R.A. Blenkinsop, G. Wainwright and L.L.K. Janovsky'

Application
I view this system as being in place in quite a modern, scientific setting. (Note that by 'modern' I mean 18th-19th century Europe, not current day). This would be a world which knows of gravity and the printing press, where natural philosophers are just beginning to explore the strange phenomena or electricity, of geology, of evolution, of magnetism and so on. Magic also falls within their area of enquiry: whilst wizards have begun casting spells for centuries (just as seafarers had been using compasses), it is now that the mechanisms of how magic works and functions, how it relates to the natural world, is being studied and teased out. Magic is just one more force - mysterious, certainly, but no more so than magnetism.

The fact that the secondary and tertiary elements appear to be 'fundamental' is significant. Not only will you get Mist Elementals and so forth, it is crucial to the performance of magic. A mage (for example, in more 'savage' parts of the world) could learn how to perform, for example, Sand magic, and become devastatingly powerful at such; however, without a true understanding of the heirarchy of elements he would be unable to transfer this knowledge to manipulate other elements. Each element must be learnd from scratch. On the other hand, a 'classically trained' wizard will learn how to manipulate the four primary elements - Earth, Air, Fire and Water - and how to combine them: he than then manipulate all the elements with only a little more knowledge. Whilst initially slower, this approach is ultimately far more powerful. In addition, the knowledge of how to combine elements could perhaps make elements that were formerly difficult to manipulate, for example Glass, far more pliable and easier to work with.

Brief Mechanistic Suggestion
I haven't really thought out mechanics for such a system, but one thing that immediately springs to mind is that a classically trained mage could have four innate stats, one for Fire, Earth, Air and Water and could also learn the skill of how to combine them. Thus to cast a Mud spell would depend on his Earth and Water stats and his combining skill. A non-classically trained mage would have to learn each element separately.

What Does Each Element Do?
These are merely suggestions as to what areas of magic might fall under the domain of each element.

Primary
Fire, Earth, Air and Water are all fairly self-explanatory.

Secondary
Mist: Concealment, Silence, Cloaking, Stealth.
Slime: Corrosion, Decay, Rot, Disease
Sand: Desert, Sandstorm, Erosion, Thirst
Glass:: Beauty, Illusion, Imagery, Fragility, Reflection
Lightning: Storms, Lightning, Electricity, Shocks, Speed.
Mud: Weather, Strengthening, Practical uses, Engineering.

Tertiary
Vitality: Healing, Life, Shape-Changing
Phlogiston: Burning, Quenching, Forging, Alloying, Destruction, Chemistry
Ether: Scrying, Farseeing, Spirit Travelling, Dreams.
Caloric: Heat, Emotions, Energy,

Quaternary
Spirit: The highest magics. The Mind, Prophecy, Oaths, The Soul.

Scientific Footnote
This system was inspired by a number of things. One is the proliferation of chemical elements in the 17th-19th centuries, followed by Mendeleev's creation of the periodic table which rationalised them and the discovery of protons, neutrons and electrons which made clear that atoms were not fundamental. Another is the 'particle zoo' (kaons, pions, etc.) of subatomic particles which multiplied alarming in the latter half of the 20th century. This has been resolved by the quark model, which shows that they are all made out of 6 quarks (and 6 antiquarks).

The Michelson-Morley experiment (1887) referred to in the summary was a genuine experiment; however, in our world it was unsuccesful in detecting any movement of the Earth relative to the ether and was thus arguable the key experiment in disproving ether theory. Clearly, the world described here is different (but then it has magic, so why not ether). Similary, caloric, phlogiston and vital essence are all fictitious substances that were once central to mainstream scientific thinking but have since been shown to be incorrect.

I have made this a scroll so people can add ideas as to the nature of the elements; for example, a fleshing out of a type of elemental magic (e.g. Mist Magic) or a description of an elemental (for example a Sand, Slime or even a Caloric elemental).