THE
ELEMENT
OF FIRE |
Fire, together with Wind, Earth and Water is one of the four known basic Elements, which represent the substance of the world - at least this is the common belief among many races and tribes throughout Caelereth. Fire in its physical appearance can do for you what the sun itself does for the whole world - it provides you with light and warmth and can serve you as heat source to cook upon. Fire is also an impulsive and a dangerous element, that can smoulder and suddenly burst. Fire can give wings of courage, compassion and devotion. Fire is obstinate and heady and absolutely not subtle. It is seen as the force burning inside us, giving us an iron willpower to go for our goals, bestowing upon us the passion to do it with all of ourself, resulting in the honour and freedom to do it without backstabbing and with an open face.
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Appearance.
Let's take a look on an example by describing a painting, where we see the power
of Fire demonstrated: On the picture to the right (a famous image by the great
Isilhir) you see a Volkek Oshra orc
with a fireball he has generated in his hand. You can see from his face that he
is concentrated, telling us that you can hold Fire in your hands, but if you
stop focussing on it for just one moment, it will burn you. Further, can you see
the fire burning in its eyes? I do. It seems the orc
looks (doesn’t matter if he can actually see it or not) at his goal, with an
almost holy willpower. He just thinks about one thing, showing
determination to achieve that goal, no matter what the concequences would be...
He will walk with pride and dignity to his enemy trusting his willpower, and
destroy his foe, burning everything on his path. He has a beard, he is not just
some inexperienced young adventurer with a new little plan, no, he is going to
his goal in live. And realize it. You can see passion, he will give anything
to archieve his goal, and does that, you can see willpower and courage. Emotions
of desire and strength are burning in his heart and he will change everything by
doing the thing he must do.
Physical
Fire. Fire is in physical form, just as in spirital form, a
dangerous thing. You can use it to cook on, but you’ll have to watch it
otherwise it will get out of hand and destroy your home. You can use it as a
weapon, but it always will be a
sword with blades pointing at both sides. An
axe can be used against you if the enemy gets
it in hands, Fire can be used against you at the time you have it ‘in your
hand’. Fire is a thing without borders, once released it will go on destroying
until it is destroyed. If you want to use it, you have to keep it in a cage. If
you have Fire for a campfire, you have to put stones around it so it won’t
become so big it isn’t warming you, but burning you. Fire mostly overdoes its
job if you don’t put a limit at it. You can use it to prepare a meal, which you
need for living, but if you don’t get the food away from the Fire it will burn.
According to the elves and their myths
surrounding this Element, it is inherent in the nature of Fire, to try to
overcome the earthen boundaries of singularity of things
and to reach back to the Winds, to the multitudes of the
Thoughts of the Dreamer of the world - to the
elves this is why Fire spreads whenever it can
and tries to infect everything with its rebellion against the boundaries of
existence, as it wants to destroy, only to return to the love of the
One.
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Fire is mostly seen as a red, yellow or orange force and it
is hot with the tendency to expand and enkindle things nearby. You can use it as
your private
sun, for light and warmth and to
cook on. It destroyes everything, except stone, it can reach. If you can make it
hot enough you can use it to make iron soft for a while, so you can give it
another form.
Spiritual Fire. Fire stands for
unbridled emotions, hatred and anger, but also love and happiness. Fire stands
for changings, as it means the changeover between Earth,
Water and Wind (Air). Fire stands
for fighting in the open field, without mean tricks and ambushes. Fire is the
thing burning in your soul, moving you to fight for the things you believe in.
Even if there is just a tiny chance to survive. Fire represents a dream, a
virtue, a belief, and never means your commitment only, but its realization. If
the Fire has caught something, it fights for it until it has consumed it or has
burned it down, destroyed it. It extinguishes by itself or is extinguished. Fire
doesn’t know fear or doubt. But it doesn’t know mercy or shame either. If it
wants something, it will get over everything on its path to get it. Fire also
stands for inspiration, compassion, love, longing and lust.
Symbols of Fire. The most common
symbols of Fire are, of course, the flame and the sun.
Also a man who fights without defense and with great courage is dedicated to
Fire. A triangle is the alchemist's symbol of Fire. The stirring up music of a
drum, which can give a man courage by letting his blood flow faster through his
veins if a cleric of Armeros is playing
it, or bring a Foirosan cleric in trance,
which helps him in his search for the truth, is the instrument of the Fire. Red,
orange and yellow are the colours of the element. The symbolic animal of Fire is
the phoenix, the "Bird of Flames". The
phoenix is a legendary immortal beast, an
incarnation of the Burning God Foiros it
is said, which rises again and again from its own ashes, whose eternal flame can
never be extinguishged.
Religious Meanings of Fire. As all
elements, Fire is represented by three gods
in common Santharian religion:
Armeros, the
God of War,
Etherus,
God of Excess, and
finally Foiros,
God of the Sun.
The meaning of the Element
of Fire in relation to these Gods can be described as follows - each God
focusses on a certain aspect of the Element:
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The Fire of
Armeros: Conflict and Balance
Armeros, God of
Conflict and Balance, teaches his followers a
militant life without wealth to be
prepared for the conflicts the world offers. But
conflict doesn't mean only the Fire of rage, aggression, hatred, revenge and
war, but quite to the contrary. The knowledge of conflict also implies the
knowledge of restoring the balance of peace. Temples of
Armeros take boys of seven years
of age and train them until they are adults.
One group is trained to clerics
and the second to walk the path of warrior, though the
training is almost the same. The boys sleep in beds of stone and get just enough
food to survive. It’s not a sin to steal
extra food from farms in the village, but being caught
is. Armeros is the part of the
Fire that fights and, together with
Etherus,
destroys. Armeros gives
followers of the Fire a backbone as hard as the
beds they sleep on. Armeros
is the passion, the courage and the honour
of the Fire ny keeping it in its
confines. Additional virtues of
Armeros are justice,
resistance and valour, learnt by understanding and mastering the way of Fire.
The Fire of
Etherus: Love and Compassion
In the eyes of outsiders,
followers of Etherus
seem to live an easy life.
The offers of the people to Etherus
can be used by his priests
and no one ever had too less wine to get drunk.
Clerics enjoy the effects of the Ethelian weed to transcend their current
existence and reach a new kind of consciousness to which the lust of the body is
a gate - Ethelians can have as many bedmates as
they want. But
Etherus teaches more than just
amusing one's self. Etherus
tells us that the flame of Lust and Love is something to be looked after,
something, which needs to be rekindled and tended always anew, only then it can
grow as is the nature of Fire. Etherus
stands for the emotions, the change, the desire,
the transcending as such, but also the mortality of the
Fire, which makes lust to passion
and compassion. Followers of Etherus
say that the fact that nothing will stay forever is
the truth Foirosian clerics seek so
desperatly.
The Fire of
Foiros: Will and Virtue
Foiros represents
the part of the Fire that stands for pureness,
willpower, the never-give-up spirit and the way people of the
Fire live for a dream and to make that dream reality.
Foiros teaches
determination and virtue through this determination, he is also the guide and
the key to the Compassion and Balance the other Fire Gods stand for.
Myth/Lore. There are many explanations about the nature of the Element of Fire by different tribes and cultures, where the Elements are of religious, mythical or even historical importance. One of the most interesting concepts perhaps is the common elven myth derived from the passage of Chapter II called Aér’aí’chanía (“Elements”), contained in the Cárpa’dosía, the legendary “Books of the Beginnings”. While the first chapter deals with the High Goddess Avá and her Dream of the world, where the Winds come into existence, only to produce their counterpart, the Earth, Chapter II deals with the Elements Fire and Water. These two elements are described in complicated, at times seemingly esoteric lines as antagonistic, inseparable forces of nature, filling the gap between the principle of the eternal (Wind) and its realisation (Earth) with what appears as “life”:
Cárpa’dosía, Of the Elements.
II, 14. And out of the Earth for the first time só Efér arose, the
Earthfire: In its blaze lurks the passion of the substance [of the Earth]
itself, its flame salivates longingly towards the Wind, eager, to permeate
its essence, to devour and to convert it to the Unmoved – so that the sky
would freeze and yield to the Earth’s command. This solely is what the
essence of Earth desires. Hence sá Mód [the Earth] not only seeks to
allure the Wind, but wants to annihilate it – as it has been a Thought in
the Dream of Avá that the relationship between the Earth and the Wind
includes both: destruction and sympathy, separation and reconciliation,
hatred and love, all in one and one in all. And it is just this primordial
relation, which is nothing else than the antagonism of the universe
itself, that still should later and perpetually yield fruit, the fruit of
Being in the elemental cooperation and conflict of the genders, as an
apparition in the mirror of the World’s Game. And as it was then at the
Beginning of Times, so it is today that sá María, the Waters, come down
from the skies down to the Earth, to fight the Flame: Out of the eternal
spheres the multitude of lifegivers sprouts, the Celestial Rain, to create
the New, the Great, the Mighty and the Beautiful. The Water, it is a
fleeting thing – as it is spirit, and though it is nothing without the
Earth, from where it sprang; however, the Earth is at the mercy of the
Rain, and the Earthen covetousness against all things celestial is damned.
This is why Water and Fire are foes right from the Beginning: While the
one nurtures life, the other takes it. Never the Burning will be
victorious over that which floats, but the same is true the other way
round, as the desire of the Flame will never expire. But the conflict of
the Elements should constitute what we know as Being, and it is the
conflict of the Elements, which should be the unrest of the Xeuaía [the
Connecting Principles]. |
This of course is just one
prominent example of mythology related to the Element of Fire. It is of special
interest though, as it not only represents elven
belief and thus culture and way of living, but also constitutes to a noteable
degree the basis for Ximaxian interpretation
of Fire Magic.
It's also interesting
to note that in elven mythology Fire is seen as
a male power (só efér), in opposition to the female counterpart,
Water (sá már). This also reflects in the fact the Gods
related to the Element of Fire are all male, while the Water Gods are all
female.
Information provided by
Maglor Grubb
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