Religious Discussions, cont.

((Disclaimer: a lot of the information below was ganked from various websites. None of which were porn. Maybe.))

Okay, so I said before I liked the idea of the twelve signs being aspects derived from the four elements, each being the cardinal, fixed, or mutable aspects... So for review:

1) Cardinal - all about change and movement
2) Fixed - all about stability, determination, dependability
3) Mutable - adaptable

So that kinda sounds like Cardinal = Chaotic, Fixed = Lawful, Mutable = Neutral... So dividing the elements along those lines, the signs come out:

Fire: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius
Earth: Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo
Air: Libra, Aquarius, Gemini
Water: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces

... I don't like that as a strict rule. I mean, just from certain ideas I'd already come up with for certain signs, e.g. Virgo is described as organized, analytical, and perfectionist, which made me think perfect for detectives, inspectors, etc, and screamed lawful at me anyway. Maybe I can do something like combine the CFM law/chaos association with an inherent association from the elements... But wait, if I look at air, and the inherent traits associated:

Libra - Refined, social, artistic, intellectual
Aquarius - Detached, progressive, humane, intellectual, sympathetic, unpredictable
Gemini - Multi-talented, thinker, talkative, social, needs variety

... If anything there, Libra doesn't seem at all chaotic, and Aquarius' "unpredictable" seems the opposite of lawful.... Okay, I'm gonna toss the CFM thing. It coulda been cool, but it just didn't work out. I actually don't entirely see how they apply the quarternaries, anyway. Probably just typical astrology mumbo-jumbo that they use to supplement and reinforce their BS. Back to just straight-up elemental affiliations.

Now, each of the signs also have masculine/feminine associations:
MAN - Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, Aquarius
WOMAN - Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, Pisces

OH HAI ELEMENTS. Apparently, earth and water are feminine, and fire and air are masculine. I actually like that more than the Robert Jordan division of the elements. Though when it comes to perceived genders of the deities, I don't think I'll stick completely to the official traits. I'll more just use it as guidelines. I mean, female bull doesn't make sense. Unless you're into that stuff.

So let's look at the other three elements:

Fire:
Aries - Determined, leader, loyal, opinionated, ambitious
Leo - Original, imposing, inflexible, ambitious, loyal, physical, majestic
Sagittarius - Honest, generous, free, reckless, extroverted

Earth:
Capricorn - Responsible, patient, loyal, ambitious, careful, good judge of character
Taurus - Secure, resolute, faithful, proud, sensual
Virgo - Organized, perfectionist, analytical, OCD

Water:
Cancer - Loving, susceptible, faithful, instinctive, overreactive, moody
Scorpio - Secretive, passionate, insensitive, painstaking, spiritual
Pisces - Loving, sensitive, intuitive, spiritual, idealist

Aaaaaaah information overload. Okay, little by little. And I like how it seems like fire/water are both passionate (respectively male and female, kinda aggression v. love), whereas air/earth seem a little more withdrawn in comparison. Ish. Okay, not necessarily the best idea, but I'll log that aside for now. Another idea that's interesting but I don't want to play with yet, but you know how the classes are generally split among arcane/divine/warrior/rogue? Those kinda, from the descriptions, correspond with air/water/fire/earth. Not entirely, though. Almost wanna switch earth and water there. "Loving assassin" sounds oddly right to me. Plus stable clerics compared to liquid thieves... Anyway.

((FYI - I'll save you a minute - I just looked through all the signs' ruling planets, and compared to the respective Greco-Roman deities. Didn't like where that went. Trashed it. MOVING ON.))

So that's all I'm saying for this post, next (which I'm starting right now anyway) is the 12 signs and my general thoughts/feelings for each one's divine entity.