I mentioned before that most fantasy campaign settings operate on the conceit that magic and nature are two different things. The fantasy world operates according to modern science while magic is haphazardly tacked on to explain any divergences. This leads to numerous bizarre contradictions which many gamers are painfully oblivious to.
Young earth creationism and evolution are assumed to be mutually true. In the backstory of fantasy settings we are given creation myths explaining how the planet was created by the gods. In the descriptions of monsters the concept of evolution is commonly brought up. The problem is that evolution takes millions of years and the planet was created only a few thousand years ago.
The classical elements and the periodic elements exist side by side. The elemental planes are introduced as the primordial origin of the material plane, inhabited by personifications of the classical elements. The material plane and its inhabitants, however, are composed of the periodic elements. This implies the elemental planes are also composed of the periodic elements. Why?
Magic is unnatural, despite being omnipresent and used to create nature. Despite magic being everywhere, used by the gods to create the world, and given to druids by the nature they worship, fantasy settings operate under a bizarre conceit that magic is separate from nature.
There are probably other contradictions, but these are the ones that sprung to mind. In my setting, these contradictions are tossed aside in favor of a holistic cosmology. Young earth creationism is true in my setting and evolution doesn't have enough time to happen. The world and humanity are composed of the four classical elements, not the periodic elements as those don't exist. Magic is part of nature or, more accurately, nature and technology and so forth is a type of magic.
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