Elements

Everything in reality consists of four fundamental essences: heat, cold, life and the debatable pseudoelement, matter.

Spread evenly over the Worldplane are located three colossal trees, which spread fire, frost and ether (the purest forms of the first three elements) across the worlds.

Some humanoids are born with an affinity towards a certain element. These individuals are able to manipulate, generate, or even merge with the element, depending on their level of attunement and/or practice. This trait is inherited by the grey elves all mortals descend from, who all possessed it.

Life

Every living creature with a soul contains traces of this element.

Ether is the element in its purest form.

Considered the highest and most powerful element, it has the most wide-ranging applications and is capable of absorbing and mimicking the effects of the others.

Elementals with more than marginal affinity are extremely rare even among elves, and nearly unheard of among humans (with one notable exception).

Heat

Everything that moves, contains traces this element.

Fire is the element in its purest form.

Fire elementals tend to have outgoing and passionate personalities.

Frost

Also known as 'cold'.

Everything that is motionless, contains traces of this element.

Ice and harsh, frostbiting air are the element in its most pure form.

Frost elementals tend to have reserved and calculating personalities.

Fghn (rock, sand, etc)

Also known as 'earth' or 'matter'.

Often not considered a true element, as it differs significantly from the others in various ways.

It doesn't appear to have any special properties apart from existing. It also doesn't seem to have a 'pure' form.

There is also no recorded case of a humanoid with an elemental affinity for it, and it's unclear what abilities such an individual would have.

An alternative view is that it is a 'dead' element, that should be considered ether's polar opposite, giving the two a similar dynamic to the one between frost and fire, rendering a four-element model more acceptable.

An additional hypothesis is that fghn elementals are possible, but even rarer than ether elementals. Possibly the associated abilities might only become noticeable at a higher elemental affinity level than with the other elements, further lowering the chances of a case being discovered. Such an elemental might theoretically have telekinetic control over all matter, however this is purely speculation as no such instance has ever been recorded.

Sometimes, the other three elements are called 'active' elements while fghn is considered 'passive'.