Water+Air=Ice?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Across editions, D&D seems to have made the assumption that the elemental essence of ice was part water and part air. From paraelemental planes to some icy elementals, Cold, Water, and Air are found together remarkably often. Why air? I've always wondered. Water is obvious—ice is just cold water—but air didn't seem to fit. I briefly wondered if it was an alchemal thing, until I remembered that water and earth are the "cool" elements; water and air are the "damp" ones.

Is there an explanation for why Gygax or whomever made this decision, or did they just have one para-elemental plane left to figure out and wanted to fit Ice in?

[LibraryOgre]

Snow, would be my guess.

[GreatWyrmGold]

That occurred to me, too. Still, something seemed...insufficient, so I decided to ask if anyone could think of something else relevant.

[Grod_The_Giant]

My guess? Because Earth and Fire are associated for lava and such, so the other two get paired up as well. It gets hot and molten if you go down far enough, so it gets cold and icy if you up high enough.

[Sian]

Air having the secondary attribute of "cold" ?

[Sith_Happens]

You have a fan nearby? Blowing air on things tends to cool them.

[hifidelity2]

Also without air ice would not float on top of water

[Lord Torath]

You have a fan nearby? Blowing air on things tends to cool them.Or heat them, if the air is warmer than the things you're blowing air at.

Also without air ice would not float on top of waterUm.... how? Ice is less dense than water because of the way the water molecules arrange themselves during the freezing process. I've never heard that air plays any part in that.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Because the Para-elemental plane of Fog/Mist doesn't sound as good? :smallamused:


Ice is less dense than water because of the way the water molecules arrange themselves during the freezing process. I've never heard that air plays any part in that.
Agreed - Europa has no appreciable atmosphere, but it's surface is several miles of ice.

IIRC, the lower density is due to Hydrogen bonds in the crystals.

[AMFV]

Or heat them, if the air is warmer than the things you're blowing air at.
Um.... how? Ice is less dense than water because of the way the water molecules arrange themselves during the freezing process. I've never heard that air plays any part in that.

If you're using the phrase "molecules" then you're using science that operates thoroughly differently than D&D, which as I understand it uses the four elements model. You can't explain that with real world modern science, you'd have to try and look at it in terms of old world naturalistic philosophy. And the Ice is between water and air, exactly fits that sort of argument, you could certainly imagine reading that in an appropriate Greek Philosophy text.

[Lord Torath]

If you're using the phrase "molecules" then you're using science that operates thoroughly differently than D&D, which as I understand it uses the four elements model. You can't explain that with real world modern science, you'd have to try and look at it in terms of old world naturalistic philosophy. And the Ice is between water and air, exactly fits that sort of argument, you could certainly imagine reading that in an appropriate Greek Philosophy text.Okay. I can go with that for a medieval/fantasy perspective.

[JoeJ]

You blow on hot things to cool them. Superman blows on things to freeze them. So water plus air must be how ice is created.

[Jay R]

Unfortunately, air is not considered cold in the theory of humorism.

Air is warm and moist.
Water is cold and moist.
Earth is cold and dry.
Fire is warm and dry.

Unless you consider ice to be the moist interface between cold and warm (which would make it warmer than water), then the theory of humorism can't justify this.


Is there an explanation for why Gygax or whomever made this decision, or did they just have one para-elemental plane left to figure out and wanted to fit Ice in?

I would guess the latter - they had to complete their system. The answer to a question that starts "Is there an explanation for why Gygax ... made this decision..." is very often, "No, there isn't."

[AMFV]

Unfortunately, air is not considered cold in the theory of humorism.

Air is warm and moist.
Water is cold and moist.
Earth is cold and dry.
Fire is warm and dry.

Unless you consider ice to be the moist interface between cold and warm (which would make it warmer than water), then the theory of humorism can't justify this.



I would guess the latter - they had to complete their system. The answer to a question that starts "Is there an explanation for why Gygax ... made this decision..." is very often, "No, there isn't."

The thing is that the theory of humorism isn't uniform, and there was a ton of debate in that sort of thing. The Presocratic philosophers probably would have had tons of arguments about air being warm or cold.

[Jay R]

The thing is that the theory of humorism isn't uniform, and there was a ton of debate in that sort of thing. The Presocratic philosophers probably would have had tons of arguments about air being warm or cold.

Unless that debate was still going on in the 1980s, it is irrelevant to decisions made in AD&D.

[AMFV]

Unless that debate was still going on in the 1980s, it is irrelevant to decisions made in AD&D.

My point is that you could make an argument that D&D cosmologists in-world, came up with different answers than one set of the ancient Greeks. Although to be fair, you're probably correct that it wasn't thought out, but that doesn't mean that we can't work backwards to develop the ways that it could have been. Which is I think always a good exercise, if you have something that works in a wonky way in-world, you can figure out why it does, and that helps to answer a lot of other questions.

If air is cold in world, air elementals will be cold, air spells will produce cooling effects. If Air and Earth are directly opposed, then Earth will likely be warm and fire will be warm, so you can have a series of different in-world effects that result from that particular theory, and why that is could be important. Maybe the Fire and Earth planes are closer to the plane of positive energy, and Air and Water are closer to the plane of negative energy. This has (ostensibly) huge impact on your campaign world, although I'm just BSing, so it can really vary.

[Jay R]

My point is that you could make an argument that D&D cosmologists in-world,....

Yes, you could. That might be a very interesting and worthwhile discussion, generating some fun ideas for a new world. It just wouldn't be an answer to the question, "How did Gygax or whoever make this decision?"

[AMFV]

Yes, you could. That might be a very interesting and worthwhile discussion, generating some fun ideas for a new world. It just wouldn't be an answer to the question, "How did Gygax or whoever make this decision?"

Well only whoever or Gygax can answer that, so it seems that we'll never know. At least not in this life.

[Vinyl Scratch]

-water in clouds as rain, plus up drafts of air makes hail

-the plane of ice is opposite to the plane of magma, which is fire and earth

[Lord Torath]

You know on Athas, the paraelemental plane of air and water is Rain.