# elemental Symbols



## Philster401 (Dec 13, 2015)

The main plot of my story has to do with an amulet/s which is/are literally the source of magic in my world. The problem is I can't seem to find the right symbols for each piece of it and the ones I have at the moment are bland, simple and poorly drawn. There is an image of what it looks like in my profile and I will post a link to it  after I wake in the morning. I am asking for recommends of sites for elemental symbols and/or ideas for the their are 11 of them: order, chaos, nature, lightning, ice, light, dark, fire, water, air and earth.

I will be extremely thankful for any help.
Thanks,
 sincerely,
Philster401


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## Brithel (Dec 13, 2015)

To use a real life example here are the alchemical symbols used in by alchemists up to the 1700's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemical_symbol Having not seen your symbols yet I cant offer any criticism but I would suggest going for abstract stylised symbols that represet the element symbolically not literally i.e. not a lightning bolt for lightning.


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## K.S. Crooks (Dec 13, 2015)

Perhaps think along the lines of cultures that us characters in their writing such as east Asian (Chinese, Japanese, etc), ancient Egyptian. In my current WIP I created a puzzle floor trap using symbols to represent different aspects of nature and people. for example my symbol for fire is an X with a small triangle above each line. I decided on 8-10 shapes to use as the basis for the combinations that make up each symbol.


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## Philster401 (Dec 13, 2015)

That is what I was thinking but I couldn't find the hieroglyph for order. In my story the people of my world are descendents of Atlantis.
Here is the current image and design change plans .


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## MineOwnKing (Dec 13, 2015)

I did some searching and mostly came up with bupkis. 

My most promising leads were found on Pinterest.

I think Pinterest will be your best bet.


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## Philster401 (Dec 13, 2015)

Yeah that's what I came up with in summary. I find it sad with at least 6 thosand years of civilization I couldn't find an helpful symbols for elements besides chaos.


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## MineOwnKing (Dec 13, 2015)

The design you posted on the bottom looks good even without symbols.

It could be used as a design for just about anything: amulets, shields, etc.

Splatter some blood across it and call it golden.


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## skip.knox (Dec 13, 2015)

I'm confused when you say you found nothing. Brithel referenced alchemical symbols, which was my first choice as well. Here are your elements: order, chaos, nature, lightning, ice, light, dark, fire, water, air and earth.

I find symbols for the last four right off the bat. In addition, there's a pretty common symbol for lightning and for ice, so that makes six out of the eleven. It would be easy to let a sun symbol represent light. Darkness is harder. Nature, order and chaos are not elements, they're abstractions, so it makes sense we don't find symbols to represent them.  Even so, on that referenced page there are quite a few miscellaneous symbols that could serve out of the box or with modification.

Obviously they did not serve, so I'm wondering why. How do they come up short for you?

Also, do you expect to use them in the text? Or in the cover art? Or merely for your own background reference? I think the answer may affect your choice.


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## Philster401 (Dec 13, 2015)

The symbols that I found for the 4 basic elements fit together well but once I started trying to the rest they didn't flow well together or were well known.


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## skip.knox (Dec 14, 2015)

Again, how do you expect to use these? I can't imagine using them in the text itself, not unless you want to drive your typesetter nuts. That leaves either having them for personal reference, or using them in some work of art. It can't be the cover because eleven symbols on one page will look cluttered no matter what you do. It might be kinda cool to use them as part of chapter headings or something, but that would be designing chapters to fit symbols, which feels backwards.

If it's for something else, like a poster for when they make the movie, I'd say let an artist make the decisions. They have deep, magical senses that let them produce order out of chaos. Not the sort of thing for sensible people like writers.


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## Philster401 (Dec 14, 2015)

It is more for personal reference at the moment, I plan on putting the images in the story, some way and I need to be able to describe them in my story


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## skip.knox (Dec 15, 2015)

Fair enough. For personal reference, I'd say just go with whatever. We use placeholders for words all the time, I reckon we can do the same for images. When you get a publisher, then maybe go looking for an artist. I still don't think you need all eleven to harmonize in some way. After all, the twelve astrological symbols do not. Even the four traditional elemental symbols don't.


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