One of the most useful ways to think of new elements is to look at the kind of spells that have been thought up.
Building on the western four earth, fire, wind, and water, there are actually a lot of ideas that can be played around with.
Life and Death are elements that are rarely mentioned, however they are fundimentally powerful.
Spirit for another. Spirit can take many forms. It could be considered similar to life and death, but it could also be the principal foundation for mind control and compulsion, and any other mind effecting spells. Also it might be similar in nature to magic, and be the fundimental power involved with antimagic fields and magic enhancing powers. Spirit could also be the thread that allows for sight into the future.
Luck. Luck usually gets overlooked as an element because people do not see how it can be used in a spell or ability, however, even if that were true, it would still be a fundimental element, primary in all things.
Chaos and Order. These could be considered the elemental equivalents to Luck, but they don't have to be. Order could be used for divination (giving one the ability to see the natural order of the world before it happens) or any other form of increased mental function, allowing one's mind to organize itself more efficiently. Chaos is used a lot in literature, allowing the improbable to happen.
Time is a good one. Everybody can see how time is a fundamental element of the world, as well as its usefullness in practical situations.
If you wanted to, you could say that the five senses were the elements of the world. After all, what exists without the fundimental elements of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell.
Air has sound and touch, but not smell, taste or sight.
Fire has sight, and touch, but not smell, taste or sound.
These are just a few suggestions off of the top of my head, hence the reason that they are not organized or written out very well. I suggest that you play around with them to see what works for you.
The Six Arcane Elements
These are the strange forces that govern the flow of magic, psionics and some say even the fundamental stuff that everything is created of. Most scoff at such notions, but the powers of the rare mages who learn to harness the purified forces of even a single arcane element are enough to leave disbelievers scoffing quietly.
Montez is the arcane force of positive seperation, the force that drives birds into the sky and the clouds to tower above even the mountains. It is not to be confused with ideals such as lift and bouyancy, but these are actually different expressions of Montez.
Eloiv is the seperating force, the thing that forms the boundaries of things, from the often indistinct boundary between water and soil, to the more concrete boundary between flesh and air. Eloiv can be reinforced to make brittle things strong, or to rupture things completely.
Etran is the force of inexplicability, which some foolishly call the power of chaos, though while it is certainly the master of chaos, Etran is also the force that drives emotion, intellectual thought and aspects of the soul and other things that defy any attempt at explanation or prediction.
The arcane force of attraction, this is the force that bonds fire to things that burn and the air to the surface of the water. More mundane aspects of Armech include magnetism, gravity, and inertia.
Ane is the 'good' force, but to call it good, attractive, positive or the like is to only name single facets of its potential. Ane is the force of attraction between base and noble, the difinitor between have and have not, and the name of the boundary between light and shadow, shadow and darkness. There is no corresponding anti-force to Ane, it is, or it is defined by it's absence.
The arcane force of self, Tevat is self definition, mass, ego, and denial. Of the arcane forces Tevat is considered to be the easist to comprehend as many consider creation to be primarily composed of Tevat and given order, purpose, and objective definition by the other arcane forces. Go to Comment
Not to be all "look at me" or anything, but I did some research regarding Tarot for Mister Smeed's little card tricks, and sort of came up with my own suits... They correspond to the elements, but they also have a sort of basic idea or concept that they stand for.
Sabres - Air - Freedom and nobility Towers - Earth - Vigilance and solidity Masks - Water - Deception and confuson Torches - Fire - Violence and destruction Stars - Light - Wisdom and knowledge Vaults - Darkness - Seclusion and imprisonment
Not exactly new and original elements, but a world based on suits instead of elements could be interesting... Go to Comment
Updated: Even though I never actually submitted this myself, instead making a whimsical and badly-designed sleeping-gas trap for a door-trap thread in the old forums, I finally noticed it was around and commented on.
I move over 1000 submissions (and comments on said submissions) from the old forum over. There were some others moved too. We let everyone know we were doing it, and you were around at the time (not during one of your hibernations).
But then again, the "rush of submissions" in the new Citadel seemed to cause many a person to have their eyes gloss over.
Some things were not "perfect", but they were there, useful, and "good enough". And they were used to fill out new categories that occured in Citadel v2. Go to Comment