Avarlyn and the Nature of Reality

[aristotle]

One of the only truly consistent aspects of Avarlyn was the idea of the Firmament of Vanya, the fabric of reality that the All-Mother wrapped around the primordial Chaos and thus created the world.

Over the past couple of years, I've come to view the Firmament differently.  Instead of being a dichotomy between Chaos and Order, I have been seeing it as a prism splitting Chaos into its constituent elements. 

Now, I am wondering exactly what those elements are.  In D&D's arcana, there are Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. Feng Shui uses fire, metal, wood, earth, and water; the 5th Element denoted fire, earth, wind, water and spirit.  I am sure there are others deviations as well.

For Avarlyn, it is of course easier to start with d20's Fire, Earth, Air and Water; but I think there also must be a Spirit element as well.  Remember, these elements are the constituent components from which all existence springs.  I thought about Wood, but Wood could be seen as a derivative element of Spirit and Earth, perhaps.  But what about Metal?  Where would Metal fit in?    Or is metal merely a part of Earth?

So, possibly, the elemental basis of Avarlyn could look like:

Earth --- Water ---- Fire
   \                      /
     \                  /
      Air --- Spirit

[Lach]

Hahaha.

Hokay.
I'd set metal aside as a pure form of earth or simply some specific variety of earth.
And wood would fit whereever flesh and blood fits.

[william]

may i say that in many religions existence is broken down into five elements, each representing a direction, this is especially apparant in the use of the five card spread of the tarot, each card represents one of the four elements earth wind fire and water, and each element corresponds to a direction north south east and west, the correspondence varies from belief to belief, but the center card the within direction always corresponds to the spirit or the self. So the five element nature of reality is most likely the most appropriate. unless you want to go by the seven element where earth water fire and air correspond to east west north and south, each opposing element accross from eachother fire north water south earth west air east, then the directions up and down, corresponding to light and shadow, then the inward direction is self or spirit

[aristotle]

Hmm, interesting.  I hadn't considered the directionality idea. 

[Serenei]

In Second year science we had a lecturer who was a bit off the wall. He did how ever go over some classical views of Biology with us. In the old days before lens technology was suffeciently mobile and practical for birdwatching etc birdwatchers simply shot the specimen they were after. They took it home and studied it. Odd that in oder to study the very essence they were interested in, they first had to remove it. (Of course some fauna could be trapped but lets remember that Biology was the realm of the privileged back in the day and Ladies did not appreciate their men bringing home pens and building whole menageries of the local wildlife, unless it was to eat them).
On a fundemental level, everything is made of the building blocks we call elements. They were understood to be the 4 Elements in Ancient Greece etc and the 5th Element was kinda of a Philsophical polyfiller much like potential energy for Physics.
If each traditioanl Element can broken down into the 'elements' as in carbon, Hydrogen etc then metal and wood all come from earth which is just a pile of silicates, aluminium etc. water is just H2O and Air is O2 and N2 mostly etc Fire is nothing but the light and Heat emitted from the chemical reaction of the substrate (usually wood).
Fire is however, to my mind the most ephemeral.
When the fire goes out, to the ancient mind, where did it go? We could see water moving downstream, air we could feel moving over us, all easy to reconcile. But Fire?
Did it just disappear into the ether, ready to be summoned back again by ancient rituals invoked by Humans, by the ritual of sparking flints together? Was it hidden in the flints all the time?

Much like the 5th Element in the bird that the Victorian gentleman shoots, the fire is gone out of its gaze and we don't know where it went or how to get it back. There are no 'Life Flints'.
It would be nice if there were. (and in fact that brings up all manner of possibilties and potential cults)

To my mind if there was a fifth element (in modern science we understand particle physics so have no need for it) it would be something intangiable, something fleeting that in an instant once it leaps from flesh and blood, disappears in to the ether.

Like when the fire is gone out.
Therefore I'd say Spirit would be a more ideal 5th Element. Even from a fusion of science and Fantasy it stands as the ideal middle ground.