What can an Elemental be made of?

I know there are the typical things (Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Light, Dark, Lightning, Ice, etc), but what else can an elemental be made of? From the description of how an elemental is born, it sounds as if they can possess anything. So, will there be things like Cheese Elementals wandering around Felarya at some point, shouting, "BEHOLD THE POWER OF CHEESE!"?

well the wiki says that

Quote :

Elementals can roughly be defined as spirits inhabiting nonliving matter

so I guess there could be, though since some cheeses are made of still living microbes you might have some trouble.... but hey now all fear the candy corn Elemental!

I would really have to wonder about the intelligence of a spirit that chooses to inhabit a food...

Though there has been the accidental lab creation of a bubblegum elemental...

I could see power-tripping mages making food elementals to feel more like a pred. Though at that level of power, they could just use shrinking magic if they wanted to feel something wriggling in their stomach...

In theory the nature of the elemental depend on their environnment.
A elemental from a jungle: water,nature,earth.
Akaptor desert, great rocky field:sand,earth and wind, and lightening.
Pyrale mountains or Ascarlin: fire, lava,earth
Frost Peak:ice, wind, water
A river or an ocean:water, wind or ice

When they have one element they can not change, a fire elemental can not become a water elemental.

They can be made in ash, nature,mist or maybe metal because in eastern countries metal is an element. I see in a game there is elemental made of flesh.

But I think it's not a good idea to add more elements, it can look "Too much"

"Metal" Elemental could be a "sub-specie" of Earth Elemental, as minerals of metal are often found underground.

Hmm, good points here, as I suppose elementals are naturally created, there's only so much that an elemental can be...

While an earth elemental may be very rich in iron ore and become partially metalized in the process, a "metal elemental" would imply that the metal has been purified from the ore. Which would be much more indicative of a metal golem.

In fact, I don't think it would be much likely to find a flesh elemental except where many many bodies have been piled. Anything that has been stitched together would fall back under the category of flesh golem.

Granted, a golem is still pretty much an elemental. The only difference seems to be that its body was made by a human, and it therefore owes that human a debt in return.

Well, for a metal elemental, the spirit would have to be lucky and find a node or something rich in iron or whatever metal. Since the creation of its body, it would probably become a body made of very malleable metal. Such elementals might be very resistant to physical assault, but might be weak to fire to melt the metal, or water, to rust it.

The way I see golems is closer to a robot or automaton. The golem isn't living, simply animated by someone else, while an elemental is alive, and not animated by someone else, unless someone binds a soul to an element to create a new body.

There is big differences between a Felaryan elemental and a golem. While it seems at first to work the same, the spirit of an Elemental will really make the mass of matter its own, creating a complex and evoluting body from it.

Feign wrote:

Hmm, good points here, as I suppose elementals are naturally created, there's only so much that an elemental can be...

While an earth elemental may be very rich in iron ore and become partially metalized in the process, a "metal elemental" would imply that the metal has been purified from the ore. Which would be much more indicative of a metal golem.

Not really. Edit: In addition, an elemental does not need someone else to process the material of their physical bodies for them. If an earth elemental decides to manifest as a metal elemental, it is capable of refining metal from raw ore and creating a body out of it. In contrast, someone wanting to make an Iron Golem will actually have to do all that hard work themselves.

Feign wrote:

In fact, I don't think it would be much likely to find a flesh elemental except where many many bodies have been piled. Anything that has been stitched together would fall back under the category of flesh golem.

Granted, a golem is still pretty much an elemental. The only difference seems to be that its body was made by a human, and it therefore owes that human a debt in return.

That isn't what a golem is; legends are rife with tales of them turning on humans. The only real similiarity between Golems and Elementals is that physically, they are both types of constructs. That's it; they are different in every other way.

An elemental is animated by a primal nature spirit, which uses its own power to construct a shell for itself to inhabit. The actual "elemental creature" is the spirit, not the physical form you see.

A golem of any sort is a physical construct seperately built and animated by some external means. Regardless of whether or not they are "programmed" to be intelligent, used to contain a soul or spirit, or simply manually controlled with magic; like Sean said, any type of golem is more like an automaton. It doesn't matter if they're made out of stone, wood, or dead bodies, a golem is a completely different type of creature than an elemental.

They're also different from undead, even if the golem happens to be made out of somebody's bones or bodies stitched together. But that's a discussion for another time.

Hmm, I suppose I got things a little mixed up there then... So would it be possible for an elemental spirit to be summoned into a manmade form?

Not saying it's smart, just asking if it's possible.

Feign wrote:

Hmm, I suppose I got things a little mixed up there then... So would it be possible for an elemental spirit to be summoned into a manmade form?

Not saying it's smart, just asking if it's possible.

Yeah, that would be possible. Typically, though, it never "just happens"; something like that is practically always the result of a deliberate action. It's possible to magically bind an elemental spirit into just about anything. Most of the time, the binding is in such a form that the spirit is severely restricted on what it can do while inhabiting the object, however.

As you already surmised, this isn't always a good idea. It tends to piss them off, a lot.

I was just about ready to post an old idea of mine that's somewhat based on that concept, guess I'll rush it up and finish it...

[quote]I would really have to wonder about the intelligence of a spirit that chooses to inhabit a food...

yeah it wouldn't really do much good, unless it WANTED to be eaten XD

I'm just thinking, let's say a elemental spirit found it's way into a technologicaly advanced place, a electronic elemental, a binary elemental.

so one fine day a Miratans tec switches on that new fusion coil and suddenly the energy stream comes to life.... check... check... check... gaurdian isle #2