Different Take on Elemental Planes
by DartamianI have never liked the take on the elements in D&D (and all its close relatives). This could apply to any addition or setting but I am posting it here because the Immortal Spheres is what triggered this line of thought.
Okay, now that is out of the way, we all know that there are 4 Elements - Air, Earth, Fire, Water. Of course, in some settings others have been added, such as Wood and Metal. Each Elemental Plane contains different states of each element (solid, liquid, gas), which I believe holds true in every addition. This is the part that has always bothered me. Why would air be solid, water a gas, and so on. To me Air is a Gas, Earth is a Solid, and Water is a Liquid, that gives us the three states.
But what about Fire?
In Mystara, each element corresponds to an Immortal sphere (Air - Thought, Earth - Matter, Fire - Energy, Water - Time) and of course there is Entropy which corresponds to nothing. So Fire is Energy and Entropy is Void.
So my proposal for the Elemental Planes are:
(Below: element means an element from the Periodic Table or a compound of such elements)
Air - Is a plane full of gases of all elements, no other states of matter exist. Not all gases are hospitable to all forms of life.
Earth - Is a plane full of solids of all elements, no other states of matter exist. Not all solids are hospitable to all forms of life.
Fire - Is a plane full of energy. Energy is a reaction between different elements. This includes freezing/thawing, condensation/evaporation, and
chemical reactions between elements. This replaces the Positive Energy and Negative Energy Planes from other editions/worlds of D&D.
Water - Is a plane full of liquids of all elements, no other states of matter exist. Not all liquids are hospitable to all forms of life.
Void - Is not a plane but any place that lacks any of the 4 Elements.
Guess I should have done a little google search before relying on my memory of grade school science classes on the states of matter.
After a quick google search due to the topic replies I think I need to adjust a little on Fire and Entropy.
Fire - Is a plane full of plasma of all the elements, no other states of matter exist. Not all plasma are hospitable to all forms of life Entropy - Is a plane full of super cooled elements (Bose-Einstein Condensate), a state with little or not molecular movement.
This makes Positive and Negative Energy Planes and the reaction between elements separate from the Plane of Fire and also separates the Void from Entropy.
As for the dimensional perspective I need a some time to refresh myself with the Immortal books, it's been a while. Same goes for the Entropic sphere prospective from PC1.