So I've been working on a system of elemental magic for my villain protagonists to study in the eventual sequels to my WIP, and after spending weeks reading about the Magic: The Gathering Color Wheel, I've come to the conclusion that my own system isn't as thematically cohesive as I'd thought it was. I don't want it to feel complete, I want it to be one of many systems of magic in my world (and that it just happens to get the most in-depth look because my specific characters use it more than other people do), but I would enjoy writing it more if I can make it feel as internally consistent as possible. (I also think that the witch who came up with it would feel the same way about not wanting it to feel cobbled together piecemeal.) ... At the most basic level, Earth magic is based on the mage's psychological strength of Focusing on the specific path that s/he has previously committed to, Air magic is based on the mage's Flexibility in the face of changing circumstances, Fire magic is based on the mage's Passion for what s/he is trying to do, and that Water magic is based on Tranquility in the face of a crisis. The most important part is that none of these are incompatible: Focus is not the opposite of Flexibility, productive Focus is the opposite of unproductive Flexibility and vice-versa. If a mage is balanced enough as a person that she can both Focus on staying the course when changing gears would be a mistake, and be Flexible enough to change gears when staying the course would be a mistake, then she would be able to master both Earth and Air magic. (Whereas, if she gets easily stuck in a rut and easily distracted, then she would not be able to master either.) I'm thinking that each branch of elemental magic would allow the mage to conjure their element, dispel that which they have conjured, and manipulate that of their element which already exists around them. Technically, the elements of the world are Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium... but everything that the mages can conjure and manipulate is based on if they were "made of" elemental Earth, Air, Fire, or Water. Spoiler: Quick note about how easy it is to do everything Also important is that my characters are going to start out weak and gradually become stronger: my two Fire mages will eventually be able to conjure raging infernos, but start out instead as "human Zippo lighters" (to quote one of my favorite Stephen King novels). I'm also going to play with the idea of "Elemental Baggage" in that it's generally more effective for a mage to manipulate than it is for her to conjure. It takes a great deal of sustained effort to hold something in existence which does not want to exist, and anti-magic is a thing in my world: it's not a 100% nullifier, and a mage might be able to create stronger magic than the opposing anti-magic, but she could run into stronger anti-magic than her own magic can withstand, and even if the anti-magic is weaker than her magic, it would still add to the strain of sustaining the magic. Whereas, if a mage, say, sculpts existing rock into the desired shape instead of trying to create it wholesale, then it is easier for her while she is sculpting it, she requires no further effort after sculpting it, and the rock exposed to anti-magic after the fact would not revert to its original form. Furthermore, if a mage gains access to secondary magic based on which pairs of elements they have the mindsets for: Earth (Focus) + Fire (Passion) = Metal Earth (Focus) + Water (Tranquility) = Crystal Air (Flexibility) + Fire (Passion) = Lightning Air (Flexibility) + Water (Tranquility) = Ice (Earth/Air and Fire/Water are still opposites, even though the states of mind that are required for each are compatible with one another.) ... I've also come up with a handful of spells for each branch beyond conjuration and manipulation. I still like these individually, but now I'm wondering if there's a way to make the list more thematically cohesive: Spoiler: Spell list Earth (focus): resistance to damage Air (flexibility): flight Fire (passion): resistance to fire/heat Water (tranquility): surviving comfortably underwater (regardless of temperature or time spent holding one's breath) Metal Earth (passion): strength Fire (focus): stamina Combined: consume and/or conduct heat and electricity Crystal Earth (tranquility): resistance to movement. A strong Earth mage can walk in front of a moving car and bounce off instead of getting hurt; a strong Crystal mage could instead make the car crash in place. Water (focus): healing. With the side effect that it heals everything in you: wounds get sewn up, but infections become worse. Combined: dull the senses to block out the world Lightning Air (passion): speed and/or reflexes Fire (flexibility): illusory images (but no sound) Combined: teleportation Ice Air (tranquility): breathing anywhere Water (flexibility): purifying contaminated water Combined: resistance to cold I think these work just in terms of the keywords, but now I'm not sure how well some of them fit with the themes behind the keywords. For example, "The Positive Lightning Personality" revolves around a mage wanting to reach his goals so badly that he's constantly looking for new and better ways of reaching said goals – as opposed to the Negative Crystal Personality of getting stuck in a rut because he doesn't care enough to try anything new – and that seems to fit really well with speed, reflexes, flight, teleportation, and flamethrowing, but not so much illusions. Illusions seem more like Ice to me: trying something new because "why not?" Does anybody see any ways of getting around thematic issues like that one?
Wow. It seems like you have some great structure here. I don't know how much your readers will get to know but I like that you are constructing a somewhat orderly system to your elemental magic. I don't think I can offer much constructive advice other than illusions seem like they would be much more heavily influenced by light and air rather than ice unless of course your illusions take on some solidity then of course I could see the need for ice. I'm not sure I understand the differences of the positive and negative personalities though I'm sure you do. For preference sake, I like specialists more than jack of all trades when it comes to magic users and I like permanent limitations or consequences for choosing one path of study over another. It feels more natural to me but I wouldn't try to impede others creative process in the realm of magic solely based on my preferences. I find it harder to cultivate a sense of awe and interest in magic if I do not give it hardy restrictions, limitations, and/or consequences but I suppose it all really depends on the world you have created. Best wishes on your journey! I look forward to seeing what you create
And from a strictly elemental sense, that still makes the most sense to me too – you're able to conjure millions of different forms of light (fire-flexibility) instead of one big one (fire-passion) – I'm just trying to work out how the philosophy of each element fits together. Basically: Tranquility could be a strength (resilience) or a weakness (apathy), Passion could be a strength (motivation) or a weakness (anxiety), and I want it to be clear that being more apathetic than motivated does not make you more resilient or vice versa. Being an apathetic person would not make you a better Water mage, it would just make you a worse Fire mage. To be fair, my characters are going to be specializing too. Just two of them more so than the other: one of them is going to focus on Metal (Earth/Fire), one is going to focus on Crystal (Earth/Water), and the third is going to divide his attention between Lightning and Ice (Air/Fire/Water). The "permanent limitations or consequences for choosing one path of study over another" that I'm focusing on are just "amount of time:" I could spend 10,000 hours becoming an expert in professional poker, I could spend 10,000 hours becoming an expert at dirt bike racing, or I could spend 5,000 hours in each becoming a skilled amateur at both, but there's no law of nature that blocks one off if I start the other. Any of my protagonists could gain low power and high range (jack-of-all-trades) if they'd wanted or high power and low range (master of one), but they would all rather gain medium power and medium range. Thanks!
This makes a lot of sense. I like it. Thanks for the clarity on this. It sounds pretty well balanced like you have thoughtfully considered most angles.
It also occurs to me that the consequence of their specializing in elemental magic is that they won't have time to master color magic, music magic, 52-card magic, tattoo magic, plant magic, book magic (they still dabble in potions magic, but only for specific niche effects) ... Oh, holy crazy idea that's turning into a whole bunch of crazy ideas. So I've been thinking that Reflexes would be lumped in with Speed as a single Air/Fire power that could manifest in a bunch of different ways If the Lightning mage used double speed and normal reflexes, he feel that he was going twice as fast as normal and that everybody else was going at normal speed If the mage used normal speed and double reflexes, he would feel that everybody was going at half speed If the mage used double speed and double reflexes, then he would feel that he was going at normal speed and that everybody else was going at half speed If the mage used quadruple speed and double reflexes, then he would feel that he was going twice normal speed and that everybody else was going at half speed If the mage used nine times speed and triple reflexes, then he would feel that he was going three times normal and everybody else was going one-third of normal ... Then, thinking about Lightning as "reacting fast to changes" and Ice as "reacting slowly to changes" (as opposed to Metal and Crystal which don't like changing at all), I starting thinking about splitting Reflexes into a separate Ice power – replacing breathing anywhere as the Air spell powered by Tranquility – because it's about slowing everything else down rather than speeding yourself up (technically speeding up your processing of everything that's happening, hence my initially classifying it as Lightning, but still feeling like everything is slowing down instead of like you're thinking faster). Previously, I had wanted Speed and Reflexes to be two sides of the same thing because the two work well enough on their own, but are far better when you can use both: if you can speed up your actions but not your thoughts, then somebody might catch you off-guard before you have a chance to speed up, and if something's coming at you fast enough, then speeding up your thoughts won't let you get out of the way, it will just make the inevitable happen in slow motion. Realizing that if "Speed/Reflexes as an Air spell powered by Passion" was split into "Speed as an Air-Passion spell" and "Reflexes as an Air-Tranquility spell," then the two altered-Air spells together would be far better than either one on its own, made me wonder if every pair-of-pairs could have a pair of spells that synergize like this: the two Earth spells in Crystal and Metal, the two Water spells in Crystal and Ice, and the two Fire spells in Metal and Lightning. And I realized that I accidentally did that already with Crystal and Metal: Resistance to Movement (Earth powered by Tranquility) + Strength (Earth powered by Passion): if you have super-strength, but the surface you are standing on does not, then you'll push yourself down (literally the picture of Required Secondary Powers) instead of lifting the object up, but Crystal giving you the power to hold yourself still lets you use Metal's Strength in situations where you otherwise could not have. When I started writing this, I thought that this might give me a starting point for changing the Fire-Flexibility spell from "Illusions" to something that synergized with the Fire-Focus spell "Stamina." I am no longer thinking that it's going to be a straightforward "Water-focus (Crystal) synergizes with Water-flexibility (Ice), Fire-focus (Metal) synergizes with Fire-flexibility (Lightning)..." It turns out that Lightning/Metal already have fantastic synergy in Speed (Air-Passion) + Stamina (Fire-Focus), despite Speed already being "taken" by Lightning/Ice synergizing Speed + Reflexes I'm thinking that I'm going to bring back Breathing anywhere as the Air-Tranquility spell and that Reflexes will instead replace Purifying water as the Water-flexibility spell, despite still synergizing with Speed (Air-Passion) I also don't have one for Water yet but I still like the idea of overlapping pairs of elements having synergy based on the shared element (if not necessarily a completely symmetric arrangement) Earth: Resistance to Movement (Earth-Tranquility from Crystal) + Strength (Earth-Passion from Metal) Air: Speed (Air-Passion from Lightning) + Reflexes (Water-Flexibility from Ice) Fire: Speed (Air-Passion from Lightning) + Stamina (Fire-Focus from Metal) Water: TBD
I do like teleportation as a Lightning spell, and I have been thinking that my protagonists would have limited telekinesis My Metal mage can't fly the way my Lightning/Ice mage can, but she can make stone/metal objects fly and can hold on to the objects while she's doing so. My Crystal mage could do the same thing, but she doesn't normally bother, largely because she doesn't have as much interest in stone equipment as her friend has in metal. I was actually just starting to wonder if telepathy might be one of the few non-Elemental spells that my characters use (summoning would probably be one of the non-Elemental spells that their enemies use, but that they themselves do not). Thank you for bumping my thread to the top
Now I'm wondering if I've been overthinking this – I know little late for that – and should just go back to my original Lightning Air (Passion): Speed/Reflexes Fire (Flexibility): Illusions Ice Air (Tranquility): Breathing anywhere Water (Flexibility): Purifying water Instead of trying to split Speed into a Lightning spell and Reflexes into an Ice one.
I would actually like to say something about what you're comparing this to: MtG. Typically complexities like MtG are done in order to make the game interesting, it's a trading card game, not a book, obviously. Now I'm also not sure what your endgame is here, and I know you've thought about this a lot, so maybe you plan to make it a trading card game in the future, I don't know. My thing is that most readers may appreciate something well thought out, but might not want something too complex...so complex even that in may take an infodump in order to explain it at some point. MtG has such a specified following, and it takes years for people to properly understand and even longer to master. I'm not saying that what you have here is so complicated that it would take such a great deal of time to understand, but branching into such complexities as what you're aiming for may just be a bit too much, when it's the story that truly needs to be worked out on this degree, not the magic system. I'm just being honest, and not sugarcoating anything since I know you're not a newb. I also enjoy fantasy a lot, as I've stated many times, but the mechanics of magic don't need to be that great for me to enjoy it...in fact, I appreciate not having it quite so detailed so that it allows for my interest to be held in it, as well as to allow my imagination to fill in the blanks. The idea that you have here is perfectly fine, and to me it doesn't need to go much deeper than the surface, because then it still allows for combinations and different aspects to be explored later, as well as the different magic systems you mentioned before. Maybe you're wanting to explore those things now instead of later, but there might be a cart in front of your horse here. This is only my opinion, feel free to ignore me if you don't agree at all.
I'm a lifelong math and science nerd who thinks that any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science If I had just found out that Book 7 of The Dresden Files was going to feature Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden riding into battle atop a necromantic Tyrannosaurus, I might have read the series for the sheer awesome, but I might not have. The way that this spoiler got me hooked on the series – and I normally hate spoilers – was the fact that there was a specific reason why the necromantic Tyrannosaurus was such a good idea: Harry Dresden was on parole from the White Council of Wizards for self-defencing his abusive master to death (BTW, that one line is the only good thing that I remember from the SyFy adaptation of the books: the description of "self-defencing him to death"), and breaking the Laws of Magic one more time will carry a death sentence One of the villains has conjured vast amounts of necromantic energy to ascend from being a mortal to being a demigod of death. Any moral coming near him without the protection of their own necromantic energy around them will be killed, but human necromancy is illegal. If Dresden raises an army of zombies to protect himself from the villain's death-aura, the "good guys" will kill him before he has a chance to stop the bad guys Animal necromancy is technically legal, but only because an animal corpse can't store as much necromantic power as a similarly-sized, similarly-aged human corpse. Zombies are more powerful the longer they've been dead. Dresden knows where to find a natural history museum for some 65,000,000 bonus points I just love when there are reasons for everything. Yeah, I was planning on explaining bits and pieces at a time instead of just one big thing
Have you considered making the elemental types overarching philosophies and then breaking down how each philosophy does something via magic, rather than limiting what they can accomplish by element? For example, I see where the light, heat, and air of Lightning would allow someone to cast an illusion, but I wouldn't call you crazy if you told me the Tranquilly Flexible Ice mage created sub-real sheets of elemental ice to warp peoples' perceptions like a lens or funhouse mirror. The fun of this system can be that the truly powerful mages are the ones that have figured out how to use their own abilities to do stuff other people think is impossible. Take reflexes, for example. Wait, before I get into this, I want to make sure I have this right. Each element has a corresponding attribute, and then the hybrids can mix and match the element and attribute that causes the composite element, correct? So an Earth mage can use Earth(Focus), while a Metal mage can use Earth(Focus), Fire(Passion), Earth(Passion), and Fire(Focus)? Is that right?
That is actually the first rule of magic in my world "Any rule of magic you come up with, there's going to be at least one or two mages in the world powerful enough to break it." (Corollary: "You're just not one of them ") I'm just trying to keep this specific system (although others in my same world might work differently) as being about elements and philosophies as much as possible, instead of just one or the other. I don't want a system of magic that can do some stuff (including elemental), I want it to feel like An Elemental System (that can also do other stuff). Yup, you got it. Metal as a strength refers to the mindset tackling obstacles head-on to make sure that your original course of action works and that you don't have to change it, but as a weakness refers to the mindset of becoming so fixated on your original course of action that you don't realize that you should switch gears to something else Crystal as a strength refers to the mindset of keeping a cool head about continuing your original course of action without obsessing over distractions, but as a weakness refers to the mindset of getting stuck in a rut because you don't care enough to try something new that would work better Lightning as a strength refers to the mindset of constantly looking for new and better ways to get things done, but as a weakness refers to obsessing over every new little distraction that flies your way Ice as a strength refers to the mindset of taking things as they come and of being able to let go of anything that isn't working anymore, but as a weakness refers to the mindset of constantly flitting from one half-finished thing to the next because you don't care enough to finish any of them
Well, to address your original concern, it seems pretty damned thematically cohesive to me. You seem to have thought out the underlying attributes of the schools. Can we call them schools? I'm calling them schools.
Thank you for that I just feel like I've done a fantastic job of getting the philosophies, a fantastic job of getting the elements, but only a hit-or-miss job of integrating the two: Hit - metal. In terms of elements, strength and stamina fit so well with Earth-Passion and Fire-Focus that I keep forgetting which is which and philosophically, both fit in with charging at obstacles head-on. I like this. Miss - the two Fire-Passion spells are Conjuring/manipulating fire and Resistance to fire/heat. The first one fits with being a Passion spell, but the second one doesn't. Hit - Ice is all about taking things as they come, and the Ice spells (breathing anywhere, purifying water, enduring the cold, and making things colder) are all fantastic for wilderness survival (I don't even think I noticed this before). Taking this a step further, I just realized that my Lightning/Ice Mage character, a Dungeons and Dragons nerd, would probably equate Metal with Barbarians, Crystal with Clerics/Paladins, Lightning with Rogues, and now Ice with Rangers. (Unless I realized this before and just forgot about it until now, but even then, that still means that Ice works even better than I thought when I first started this... What, a year ago?) Miss - in terms of elements, Illusions works fantastically as a Fire-Flexibility spell, but I'm still not sure how it fits philosophically into the Lightning mindset of jumping full speed ahead from one thing to the next.
Maybe think of it as pitting your own passions against that of the flame, or using your passion to excite the molecules of your body to the same temp as the flame? Lightning can use illusion to represent to themselves all of the new ideas and whatnot to themselves? It actually seems quite well suited to the mindset to me.
... We need bigger LIKE buttons. Yes, yes you would. Passionate people do not get as passionate about fighting against dispassionate people as they do fighting against the differently passionate. I have been thinking too small. I've been thinking of Illusions as tricks, but I should have been thinking of them as PRESENTATION!!!!!
Wow. This is really cool, and thoroughly detailed - almost too much so. You nearly lost me around post #5, but I pushed on and got to the end. My system is kinda similar to yours, in that I have the elements and sub-elements; while mine is (almost) strictly about manipulating matter, some mages can also channel small amounts of energy - basically, giving themselves short-term enhanced speed/agility (air), agility/endurance (water), endurance/strength (earth), and strength/speed (fire). Instead of your second Fire-Passion being resistance to fire, give them enhanced stamina and power - you know, an "energy boost" (aka, "I'm all fired up now!!"). Between Fire and Air, I have Lightning and Light - I think you should stick with Fire/Air mages conjuring illusions.
Thanks! It's going to be a lot less overwhelming in the books when we're not getting the whole thing all at once Good to know What are some of your sub-elements? Yeah, but then I'd have to come up with new spells for Metal if I did Thanks again!
Originally I had Storm (weather), Ice, Blood, Plant/Wood, Metal, Shadow, Lightning, and Light. As people are fond of pointing out, Ice is just frozen Water; Shadow (Earth/Fire) was a real stretch (and it's too similar to Light), so I'm pondering new ones. I really like Crystal instead of Shadow - it would fit well in my setting, since everything is powered by elemental crystals - but I don't know what to use in place of Ice yet.
If those elements are the literal basic building blocks of all matter in your setting, then I'd be hesitant to call Crystal its own thing if you already have Blood crystals, Lightning crystals, Shadow crystals, etc... Are these metaphorical elements like in my setting, or are they supposed to be literal? What are some of the purposes of each?
... I just realized today that I basically came up with DISC: Metal = Dominant Lightning = Influencing Ice = Steady Crystal = Conscientious Which I had already realized a while back was basically the Four Humours: Dominant = Choleric Influencing = Sanguine Steady = Phlegmatic Conscientious = Melancholic I did not see this coming.
Fair enough It just caught me off guard is all. Though I did also realize last night that one of my characters, who I cannot see elementally as anything other than a Metal mage, also does not make sense to me temperamentally as anything other than Sanguine, so maybe there's more room for variation than I'd given myself credit for
The way magic works in my setting, mages (Wielders) manipulate actual matter instead of energy, but long ago it was the reverse. There's a long explanation to it, but basically magic was once one source with four elements, then it was sundered; when that happened, all the free energy in the world materialized as crystal. People later learned how to use those crystals for energy - you can use a fire crystal to power a steam engine, for instance. I was thinking that a Crystal Wielder could manipulate crystal - not just gems and minerals, but actual elemental crystals, which would make them highly prized - they could safely alter, combine, or split crystals without destroying them (you can break or cut a crystal and it won't do anything, but the smaller the crystal, the less energy it produces; plus, making larger ones is invaluable - thus, it's more desireable to have someone on hand who can do stuff like this). Oh, and I was poking around the net some time back and I ran across this site: http://powerlisting.wikia.com/wiki/Classical_Element_Manipulation. It's got a (more or less) complete list of elemental superpowers in media and literature, along with lots of examples of what they can do. It might give you some ideas.
