Editing Element (section)

==Real Life==
The list of chemical elements has 118 members in it and keeps growing as more atoms get smashed together, although only the first 94 exist in nature. [http://xkcd.com/965/ This would not make for a very fun system of magic]. The list of elementary particles isn't much better -- the standard model has 17 of them, and that's before we start getting into antiparticles, colors, gravity, string theory, and supersymmetry. There are only four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force), which is a manageable number, but they're ludicrously imbalanced -- it's easy to think of gravity as being the dominant force on planetary scales, but even a simple fridge magnet is strong enough to hold onto the wall with the whole 6.580 sextillion tons of Earth pulling down on it. EM is important from stellar down to atomic sizes, and the strong and weak nuclear forces only matter at the subatomic scale. Never mind the question of what a strong-nuclear-force elemental would look like.

[[File:Greek elements.jpg|right|200px]]
===Greek Elements===
The most familiar system of elements to Western audiences is probably the classical Greek system of fire, air, water, and earth. Almost all elemental magic systems include at least these four. If the elements are arranged in that order around a square, then they will naturally form pairs of opposing (and thus balancing) elements, as well as transitions between neighboring elements, which might be manipulated by two elemental mages working together (for example: earth + water = mud) or fought over by two opposing elemental mages. Sometimes there will be a fifth element thrown into the mix, like "quintessence" (which is just Greek for "fifth element" and refer to ether/aether) or "heart" (if you're trying to summon Captain Planet).

These four elements match up to four natural states of mater: solid Earth, liquid Water, gaseous Air, plasma Fire.

[[File:Wu Xing elements.png|left|200px]]
===Wu Xing===
The Chinese elements or "changes" are probably the other major system which inspires magic systems today. The five elements are, in order, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood. Each element "creates" the next in the sequence, "destroys" the element two steps over, and "insults" the element three steps over. The [[Wu jen]] from [[3e]]'s Complete Arcane is a spellcaster based on these elements, complete with their own set of themed spells.

===Japanese Elements===
Settings that feel like doing things differently may use the Japanese elements of Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Void (or "spirit"). The [[Legend of the Five Rings]] uses them.
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