Nonstandard elemental magics!

I'm making a fantasy comic, and I feel a need to classify different magics or use Elemental Powers, but I can't see the classical Greek four elements working. At all. None of the other "elemental sets" seem to work, either, so I've decided to make my own! I've been thinking about doing Light, Void, Sound, and Self, but that doesn't feel satisfying or run the full gamut of powers that can be used in the comic, so... ideas?

Everyone is Kay-fam.

First of all:

Why so, and could you clarify what you mean, please?

I do believe that having Magic A be Magic A can be important, and if that's what you mean by "classifying different magics", then fair enough—but Elemental Powers can "be Magic A", so it then doesn't seem to stand apart from "classifying magic". One way or another, there are more magic systems than the elemental sort.

If you're just looking for a way of dividing up magic into subsets, then there are non-elemental options. For example, look at D&D's "schools" of (arcane) magic, including things like "evocation", "transmutation", "illusion", and so on.

However, if you do want elemental magic, then my next question is this: You say that the elemental sets that you've looked at don't cover the gamut of powers that you have in mind. Given this, what powers do you have in mind? Knowing this might help us to come up with suggestions for elemental sets that cover them.

Ultimately, what do you have in mind in this magic system?

edited 23rd May '16 6:48:11 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

I think you're approaching this kind of wrong. The basis behind four classical elements is that everything that exist is made from one or more of them, so that you can classify all that is with those four terms - for example, if I remember correctly, coal is earth+fire, storm is fire+air+water, human is air+fire+earth+water, etc. Void/spirit was added in later ages not just to round up the Five-Man Band, but also "access" more spiritual powers, like telepathy and the like. This way, all five powers enable you to manipulate pretty much everything in existence - of course, magic systems water it down to "pure" earth, "pure" fire etc, because otherwise it'd be a story-breaker.

So if you're figuring out a magic system similar to Elemental Magic, I'm guessing you have to figure out how to make all powers complimentary, so that what one can't do, something other can - but without overlap between powers. Sound/Light could be an example (though I'd classify both as Waves or something of the kind). Self as "spirit" could be paired with something like Flesh, which would cover manipulation of bodies the same way Self covers manipulation of souls. Not sure about Void, though, I never understood that element.

It's also nice to have some sort of a theme- basic elements are about powers of nature, but you could also create a system based around manipulating human body (Soul/Flesh, Breath/Water, Blood/Bone?) or organic matter (Soul/Senses, Flesh/Plant).

Rejoice!

Well the first thing you need to establish is your themes here.

As someone else has already mentioned, the Greek elements were based off what was around them, a general way to describe the things that made up everything. But your themes seem to be going more for the abstract, which means that you need some central point to anchor them to.

Their "grounding points", so to speak, are in whether they're focused on the internal or external, and whether they're static or fluid (whatever that was supposed to mean.) Sound was internal and fluid, Self was internal and static, Void was external and fluid, and Light was external and static. I could probably apply these concepts to other elements or elemental categories if I should go in that direction.

Everyone is Kay-fam.

Much like the traditional elements, where realistically water was the only wet element and fire was the only hot element, I find your dichotomies interesting.

For example, light feels more static than sound to me, and sound is an external phenomena in my book.

I use as a base a pair of trichotomies to create a set of nine elements for my theoretical magic system.

I think you are on the right track there. Find some categorization scheme for phenomena, then apply a magic type to each category.

Sounds like it'd work. Though I understand that you don't yet have the definitions for "static" and "fluid" qualities and you want to have some wide gamut of powers.

For an idea: how about "static" being something that a magic user can only perceive, not change, while "fluid" is something he or she can manipulate? This way, Self could, for example, cover all stuff connected with divination, while Light would be concerned with perceiving distant objects, night vision, mind-reading, all that. In turn, Sound, as internal and fluid, would be energy generated by the magic user (magic missile, Make Me Wanna Shout), while Void would be about manipulation of things around the magic user - think Firebending versus Waterbending. Granted, this makes "elements" more symbolic than physical, but I think it could work.

Rejoice!

The Sword Of Truth series had Additive versus Subtractive magic. Additive magic alters physical reality by adding magic to it, to multiply something that's already there, or alter its properties to transform it into something different.

Subtractive magic, on the other hand, removes elements of physical reality from the target, to reduce it to a simpler form of matter, or destroy it altogether.

edited 24th May '16 4:59:19 PM by pwiegle

This Space Intentionally Left Blank.

Void might be just another name for Nether, the sixth element that represents the connection between life and death. It's a stygian element that is commonly associated with the underworld and thus has a connection to death and the bonds between living beings. It can also represent darkness in opposition to something like aether and light.

Not quite 'elemental', but you could theoretically do a form of magic revolving around the four fundamental forces of the universe: Gravity, Electromagnetism, and the Strong and Weak Nuclear Forces. Though, I imagine the problem is that the exact utility of each force is non-equal and not all forces interact with us equally.

For example, the vast majority of material interactions that we observe are caused by electromagnetism or gravity. The Nuclear Forces are...important, but we seldom see them at work, so it's hard to say what the Strong Nuclear Force would help with except for causing nuclear explosions. Also, there's the issue of them not being equally 'strong', though you can handwave that away pretty simply.

"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"

If I were to write elements, I would make a differentiation between elements and domains. The four domains would be earth, ocean, sky, and heaven. The four elements would be ice (and water), steam, plasma, and air. The domains are more powerful than the elements. Humans can control the elements only.

Elements

• Air: Generation of wind. Useful for sailing.
• Plasma: Ionization and heating of air, and manipulation of plasma. Has the greatest offensive power and used for air travel via hot-air balloons.
• Steam: Generation of steam. Also, Steampunk!
• Ice: Generation of ice and water. Can switch between liquid and gas phases. Has the greatest defensive power.

Domains

• Heaven: Based on stars and space. Generation of heat and light.
• Sky: Has not only the power of air and plasma but also generation of clouds and lightning. All flying creatures have an affinity to this domain.
• Ocean: Has the power of ice and steam. All marine creatures have an affinity to this domain.
• Earth: Generation of sand, rocks, and lava. Associated with death (since dead bodies return to it).

Edited by shiro_okami on Dec 6th 2020 at 3:47:03 PM

I'd say it depends heavily on what kind of powers you want and how much sense it needs to make. There's nothing wrong with just assigning people random powers that have no correlation, if Magic is supposed to be this weird and wonderful thing. Harry potter and LOTR don't have elemental magic like this.

As an alternative to the greek elements, you could go for Wuxia or the five asian ones. Fire feeds the earth, Earth feeds Metal, Metal feeds Water, Water feeds Wood, Wood feeds Fire.

You could also go for Body Magic. Blood is rare and powerful, Bone is common and strong, Flesh is abundant and flexible.

Or you can classify in schools. Internal, External, Self-powered or Other-powered. An Internal Self-powered mage would have his own energy stockpile that he uses to empower himself (super strength, super speed, turning to stone). An Internal Other-powered mage would absorb Earth to empower themselves. An external mage could coat themselves in stone but underneath is still human, and could manipulate the material around them. Self-powered means they need their own internal stamina to move it, whereas other-powered means they would have to absorb fire and then re-emit it. But then you are completely free to chose whatever, such as controlling Oil or Paper or plastic.

EDIT: the issue with nonstandard elemental magic is that elements are supposed to be elementary, IE the most basic form of existence. It's a fundamental power of the universe. So it says something about the universe if your elemental magic is sound or gummybears.

EDIT 2: also see Elemental Powers and Bizarro Elements

Edited by devak on Dec 7th 2020 at 10:36:35 AM

Upon further deliberation, I would do five.

• sun (hydrogen & helium)
• air (nitrogen & oxygen)
• earth (silica)
• iron
• H 2 O: broken into four sub-elements
  • steam
  • cloud (& lightning)
  • water
  • ice

Edited by shiro_okami on Oct 8th 2022 at 10:20:54 AM

I feel like I should add by first definining what counts as "standard" here. I feel like in addition to the classical four, five other elements also qualify as standard. Those being Lightning, Ice, Metal, Light and Dark. The latter two get more screen time (they the other 2 attributes in Yugioh besides the classical ones, though conversely Lighting is repped among the respective elemental types as Thunder) and I'm certain FF had used Ice and Lighting a lot instead of or with Light/Dark.

that said the former three could be seen as byproducts of the classical elements (Ice is obvious, Avatar had lighting as a Fire subset and metal is basically harder shinier rock, even musically)

The argument could be made for plants to count as ane elemnt even though it is an earth subset (Pokemon in fact has a lot of types that could be traced back to an aspect of an earth). Time, Space, "soul" and psychokinesis are more original but uncommon enough to be considered nonstandard.

Now that we have a basic blacklist. Regarding your "grounding points" I will suguess the following.

• the concept of Stasis would work for one of the static types (its even the root for static)
• I'd say Time as we know it might likewise work for fluid as its antithesis, with Space also slotting it as its own opposite (you likely covered that as "Void")

I'm not sure on what you define "self" as here. The human mind could be stalwart as stone or as changing as the tides, and the body is basically a Ship Of Theseus

EDIT: turns out the post was old enough that the OP might not even be around anymore...orz

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 8th 2022 at 8:34:39 AM

Making yet another revision. This one has six elements.

• Heat
• Light
• Air
• Ice & Snow
• Water & Rain
• Vapor (steam & lightning)

Edited by shiro_okami on Oct 25th 2023 at 10:27:19 AM

I'm really intrigued by your ideas for elements! Honestly, I think your proposed concept could work on its own. But if you are looking to change it, I have an idea.

Maybe you could add another dimension to your classifications. Instead of a square, it could be a cube. The "grounding points" could be internal/external, static/fluid and presence/absence. Sound, Light, and Self could be presence, alongside a new external fluid thing. Void can be absence of this new external fluid thing, while the others have the corresponding absences Silence, Darkness, Alone (or No One or Stranger or something that actually sounds intimidating). Presence spells are for creating. Absence spells are for destroying. And maybe there has to be an equilibrium between creation and destruction. If there have been more presence spells cast lately, there's a bunch of potential energy that can make an absence spell more powerful, as the natural state of things seeks to right itself.

But this does kind of go against what I believe to be your original idea of manipulating what is already there, channeling its power that way. To be honest, my whole concept is just trying to balance out Void, which doesn't quite gel with the other elements. Sound, Light, and Self work wonderfully together. Void is the absence of those things, and seems like it fits more as a "quintessence" bonus element than a part of the neat square. But it could totally work with some further clarification.

Who let the dogs out? Mark Antony.

Your elements seem to divide themselves into forms of energy and matter, which makes sense. I am curious, though, as to why ice, water and vapor are elements and not stone or earth? Or for that matter organic living things.

Edited by DeMarquis on Nov 22nd 2023 at 3:54:49 PM

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

I wanted to do like for like.

So the "classical" set is earth, fire, wind, and water.

Water is a particular type of matter: H 2 O. Air is particular types of matter: nitrogen and oxygen together make up 99% of it.

Earth can't be narrowed down to a few types of matter, it is made up of many, many, many different physical elements and minerals. Fire is neither wholly matter or energy, but a chemical reaction.

So earth and fire don't match up with air and water. I decided to stick with air and water since they are both common and important to life. I replaced fire with aspects of the electromagnetic spectrum: heat (infrared spectrum) and light (visible spectrum with the closest parts of IR and UV). Those types of EM radiation are also important to life (thermo-regulation and photosynthesis). Replacing fire with radiation also has the side effect of making the element less blatantly destructive and more utilitarian, while still being dangerous to some extent. I don't think there is any single "earth" mineral that is both extremely common and important to life, so I left it out.

My elements are based on the juxtaposition of matter and electromagnetism (for most of it, moisture and radiation). If I had left water whole, it would just be two opposing broad elements that each have multiple integral parts. So it made more sense to break water up into its different phases.

I didn't go into this in the previous post, but the six elements actually contain more than what I listed, as each element contains both creative and destructive aspects (elemental powers are based less on manipulation and more on the temporary creation or destruction of matter or energy, averting Elemental Baggage). I think this is my best iteration that allows all the elements to relate to and counteract each other.

• Heat
  • Color: red
  • Creates: infrared
  • Destroys: ice
• Light
  • Color: yellow
  • Creates: visible light, with parts of IR and UV
  • Destroys: water (dry element)
• Air
  • Color: green
  • Creates: air
  • Destroys: clouds and rain (dry element), electrons in air (positively charged plasma)
• Ice & Snow
  • Color: cyan
  • Creates: ice crystals (mass ice, snow, and hail)
  • Destroys: infrared (cold element)
• Water
  • Color: blue
  • Creates: water
  • Destroys: light (darkness element)
• Cloud & Rain
  • Color: magenta
  • Creates: clouds, rain, lightning (negatively charged plasma)
  • Destroys: air (vacuum element)

Edited by shiro_okami on Dec 31st 2023 at 8:33:57 AM

I think your system works better if you replace "creates" with "projects"; and "destroys" with "absorbs", because that more closely approximates in magic form what science describes energy and matter doing. Heat does, in fact, project infrared, and absorbs ice, in the sense of filling the ice with energy. Now you can start developing spell effects based on discoveries in science. Think about action and reaction, entropy, "an object in motion tends to stay in motion" and so forth.

Here's another idea: "Gravity". Absorbs matter and projects energy.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

I decided to do a bit more tweaking. This latest iteration is based on a balance of three different aspects rather than a juxtaposition of two, which are heat, moisture, and air.

• Heat
  • Color: black
  • Creates: visible light and infrared
  • Biome: tropical dry forest
• Desert
  • Color: red
  • Creates: hot air
  • Destroys: water
  • Biome: tropical/arid desert
• Air
  • Color: yellow
  • Creates: air (moderate temperature)
  • Biome: temperate/boreal desert
• Storm
  • Color: green
  • Creates: clouds, rain, lightning, and hot air
  • Biome: tropical rainforest
• Frost
  • Color: white
  • Creates: ice crystals (mass ice, snow, and hail) and cold air
  • Destroys: infrared
  • Biome: polar desert and alpine tundra
• Cloud
  • Color: cyan
  • Creates: clouds and rain/snow
  • Biome: temperate/boreal rainforest
• Water
  • Color: blue
  • Creates: hot water
  • Destroys: air
  • Biome: ocean, lakes, and rivers
• Void
  • Color: magenta
  • Destroys: heat, air, and moisture
  • Anti-biome: outer space

Edited by shiro_okami on Mar 18th 2024 at 8:34:39 AM

Here is an idea. You have base elements: water, heat, and air. Then you have their negatives: dry, cold, and void. Then you have combinations: water and cold = ice, water and air = cloud.

The idea of having gravity as a element gave me this idea:

Let's have powers for each of the fundamental forces! So gravity powers, electromagnetic powers, the weak interaction, and the strong interaction

"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory Doctorow

Sounds like a cool idea, but the elementals could end up extremely overpowered.

Also, gravity is not really in the same league as the other forces. Unlike the others, no boson (force carrier) has been identified for it, and some theories consider it a part of spacetime instead a force. On the flip side, the weak interaction uses two different bosons, so you could possibly split it across two "elements".

This sounds also a bit like damage types. Electricity, Fire, Ice, Light, Dark and force.

How about adding "directions" to the elements?

Such as the elementals only being able to go in one specific direction when summoned, making summoning them a strategic art to get the most out of them while knowing they can only go one way and not change path once summoned.

"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."