To-do list:
- Rename Elements of Nature to Natural Elements and convert the page from an index into a supertrope for the concept of elements, with information about the elements in Elemental Powers' description (as opposed to text that's specific to powers) being moved to Elements of Nature. The rewrite is being done using Sandbox.Natural Elements.
Original post
Note: This thread was proposed by Berrenta.
Elemental Powers is a super trope for powers that are attuned with the elements. I did a wick check as I noticed many cases of illegal subbullets (as in, subbulleting tropes, which is not allowed), and I wondered how bad it was. I also noticed in the check that it was used when a trope for the individual element could have been used instead.
The results:
- Inline/no subbullets, yet valid: 20.83/67 = 31.1%
- Subbullets that abide with policy: 7/67 = 10.4%
- Subbullets that violate policy: 13.17/67 = 19.7%
- Not enough context or other misuse: 19/67 = 28.4%
- Single element: 7/67 = 10.4%
One suggestion is to make it an index, though a rename will help on top of that; otherwise, the misuse/bad subbullets will crop up again.
Elemental Powers wick check:
Wick check for Elemental PowersThe issue: Just like Five-Man Band before, this trope is often followed by subbulleted tropes, which is an example-writing violation. This check serves to see how widespread the problem is.
Checked: 67/67
No subbullets, but still valid ( 20 5/ 6 out of 67)
- It Runs on Nonsensoleum: Fighter survives a freefall by using his Knight abilities to block the ground. Fighter's "explanation" is that since he can block all sorts of elemental attacks, it's natural that he'd be able to block Earth.
- Anime.Samurai Pizza Cats: The Samurai Pizza Cats Rescue Team each represented one of these. Meowzma (Gotton) was earth, General Catton (Rikinoshin) was fire, Bat Cat (Mietoru) was wind, and Spritz T. Cat (Nekkii) was water. Similarly, the three of the four Rude Noise members each represent the elements: Cannonball Battery (Bonkaa) represents fire, Ronnie Geissmuller (Wokkaa) represent water, and Mojo Rojo (Rekkaa) represents wind. The lone exception is Bad Max (Zankaa), who represents the darkness.
- Characters.A Game Of Chance: The Promethians are an ancient magical race known for attaining absolute mastery over fire and lightning-based magics. Not so normal now, huh?
- Characters.A Geeks Guide Corporation Of Occult Research And Extermination: Mainly attacks using magic circles that blast opponents with fire, ice, or lightning.
- Characters.Bloodstained Ritual Of The Night (1/3): Her sub-weapons allow her to use a variety of elemental abilities, such as lightning orbs that cling to the ceiling, and wind funnels that shoot forward and then climb up. She can also fire seeds that sprout from the ground to give health powerups.
- Characters.Encantadia: Four-Element Ensemble: The four of them are the keepers of the Gems of Air, Fire, Water and Earth, and have powers related to their respective element.
- Characters.Fire Emblem Warriors:
- Like Robin, Leo is able to use many spells of different elements, be they fire, thunder, wind, light, or darkness.
- The tome he carries for this game allows him to use more than one element this time around, Thunder, Fire, Wind, Darkness, and Light, and he can even combine them together to form a giant ball in his Pair Up Special. He still favors Thunder Magic, however.
- Linde can use light, wind, ice, lightning, and fire in her attacks.
- In her special attacks, where she tends to use more elements than just light, including fire, thunder, and wind.
- Like every magic user confirmed to use a tome, Validar has access to any element and spell that he could possibly want.
- Characters.Hecksing Ulumate Crconikals: It can shoot fire, electricity, poison, and... water. It later adds explosives after merging itself with Alucard's tank.
- Characters.Maken Ki Protagonists: Kagezuchi (her fire elemental) and Igazuchi (lightning elemental) are the two she most relies on in battle. But, if need be, she can also summon Nozuchi (her earth elemental) who has power over trees, plants, and has the ability to heal her. Himegami is so adept with them that she's rarely ever had to use her Maken.
- Characters.Okami: Each head has its own element: fire, water, wind, earth, lightning, poison, light, and darkness.
- Characters.Pokemon The Series Team Rocket Trio: Among the many Pokémon he has owned, his three most common types are Grass, Poison and Psychic.
- Characters.Ralph Breaks The Internet: During the climax, Moana and Ariel demonstrate some control over water, Pocahontas has some control over wind, and Elsa has her ice powers.
- Characters.Twitch Plays Pokemon Fire Red (1/2): Tri Attack, a mashup of Fire, Ice and Electricity (which results in a Normal attack, somehow).
- GranblueFantasy.Tropes D To H: Characters come in one of six elements, Fire, Wind, Earth, Water, Light and Dark.
- Literature.Iron Widow: The mecha each have specialties based on the five Chinese elements: fire, earth, metal, water, and wood. Wood types are the most conductive of qi and have the highest transformation potential, fire types can channel qi into powerful blasts, etc. Different pilots have different specialties too, with Zetian specializing in metal (control and precision), and Shimin in fire (power and destruction).
- Literature.Roll Over And Die: Most people in this world are born with an affinity for magic of one of the six elements: water, fire, earth, air, light and darkness. Some people, however, are born with rare affinities that grant them different kinds of magic.
- Manga.Omamori Himari: Besides Shizuku, there's also Yuuto and Kuesu, and some (though not all) other demon slayer clans have elemental powers as well.
- Myth.Beti Pahuin Mythology: Nkoum Akok Ndong Bibang of the thorn tribe fought against Engouang Ondo with sunlight, rain, and fire as weapons.
- NoodleIncident.Webcomics: Sleepless Domain: The members of Team Alchemical can all use their respective Elemental Powers to achieve something close enough to flight — with the exception of Alchemical Fire. The alt text at one point notes that she had once tried using her fire abilities as a jetboot, but "never again."
- Recap.Charmed S 1 E 15 Is There A Woogy In The House: (re: Early-Installment Weirdness) The Nexus is revealed to be equidistant from five elements, but they use the five Taoist elements (water, fire, wood, metal and earth). Any time Elemental Powers show up in the series, it's the four classical ones (earth, air, fire and water).
- Roleplay.You Won A Mansion: Each of the masters have a sort of associated element. Nick is Lightning, Crowley's main is Fire, Kiven is Wind, Masters is Chaos, and Jason is Star.
- Series.Eastwick: So far, Kat has electrocuted her husband with a lightning strike and frozen a swimming pool solid. She then also almost kills her ex's date with a gust of wind.
Legal subbullets ( 7 out of 67)
To preserve space, just display the first level item.
- Characters.Carnival Mirror: Each character with a Persona or Marionette specializes in a particular element. Three distinct examples that are aided by potholes to denote tropes
- JustForFun.Sonic And The Imperial Regalia: Tropes are listed, but they follow the characters being listed. They could use more context, though.
- Manga.Angel Sanctuary
- Manhwa.Witch Hunter: Two distinct examples that do not rely on tropes
- MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic.Tropes E To K: Two distinct examples that do not rely on tropes
- Pokemon.Tropes A To I: 18 of them! Tropes are listed, but they follow the types being listed
- VideoGame.Disciples: All factions tend to focus on 1 or 2 of the following: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Death, Life, Mind and Weapon (the last is less an Element than it is the absence of an element, it is used for most Unit's melee/archery attacks). The following subbullets do not rely on trope wicks.
Illegal subbullets ( 13 1/ 6 out of 67)
To preserve space, just display the first level item (if any). If there are multiple wicks, say how many would fit under this category.
- Characters.Astral Disaster
- Characters.Bloodstained Ritual Of The Night: 2 instances (out of 3)
- Characters.Delicious In Dungeon Monsters: Overlaps with Breath Weapon:
- Characters.Dragons Crown: 2 instances (out of 2)
- Characters.The Saints: More so than anyone else.
- Characters.Twitch Plays Pokemon Fire Red: 1 instance (out of 2)
- LetsPlay.Versus: The starter pokemon that were chosen.
- Manga.Zatch Bell: Plenty of variety across the demons shown:
- Manga.Zettai Shoujo Seiiki Amnesian: Commented out
- Roleplay.Personifications
- TabletopGame.Axiom Campaign: King Van'Derrick's sisters.
- VideoGame.Bomberman: Done liberally in The Second Attack!, Generation, and Jetters.
- VideoGame.Eitr: Certain items during the demo had elemental effects.
- Webcomic.Panthera: Duh?
ZCE/misuse ( 19 out of 67)
- Body Horror.Webcomics: In Pacificators, this is Nozomi's preferred method of attacks. She uses her powers to do things such as: tearing a man's heart in half, sucking the air out of another man's lungs, and her special favorite, bursting a man's testicles. Does not explain what powers
- Characters.Dragonlance: Commented out ZCE
- Characters.Final Fantasy 1: See All Your Powers Combined. "See X" ZCE
- Characters.Friendship Is Magic Twilight Sparkle: She has several of them thanks to her status as a Red Mage but most of them are non-weaponized spell versions. Does not explain what powers
- Characters.I Left The A Rank Party: As an elementor, she wields element based magic. Does not explain what powers
- Characters.Namco X Capcom: None of them have adequate context.
- Both cover almost the entire spectrum.
- She can use magic on foes too far off for Gil to hit.
- Both cover almost the entire spectrum.
- Characters.Super Smash Bros 456 To 59: The tomes allow them to invoke several elemental magic attacks. Partial context
- ComicBook.Ythaq: Commented out ZCE
- Literature.Please Bully Me Miss Villainess: Elsa is considered a prodigy because she can use all five elements, while the average magic user can only use one. Just "someone uses elements" with no explanation
- Literature.Exhuman: Athan, obviously, but it is hinted that this is fairly common among Exhumans, such as in chapter 13, Blackett pulling up a file on a hydrokinetic or Athan mentioning a dynakinetic in chapter 10. Barely any context
- Literature.The Riddle Master Trilogy: Hereditary in humans and highly developed in the Shape-changers. Magic doesn't seem to be limited to one particular element, but some characters specialize. Barely any context
- Literature.Zodiac Academy: All Fae possess the ability to control at least one element. Partial context
- MorphicResonance.Anime And Manga: Digimon Frontier has Susanoomon, the combined form and Mind Hive of all ten Legendary Warriors. It has Agunimon's blue eyes and red Facial Markings. Chained sinkhole
- Pinball.Flash: Just lists the trope
- Roleplay.Aradis Chronicles: Gaians and Half-Gaians are naturals at this. Commented out
- Roleplay.Crystalwatchers Magical Girl Quest: Very common, and previously believed by the other races to be the basis of all magic, until humanity showed otherwise.Commented out ZCE
- Series.Every Witch Way: Curb-Stomp Battle: Andi trying to take on Mia by herself results in this: Being a Badass Normal does not automatically make you a match for someone who has been training her whole life to master her Elemental Powers. Andi ends up frozen in a block of ice. Context does not say whether there were other elements
- VideoGame.Arcana Heart: In addition to the characters' standard attacks, the Arcana grant additional powers to the Maidens, and can be used interchangeably by anyone.note Partial context
- WesternAnimation.The Mask: Tempest in "Rain of Terror" and "Convention of Evil". ZCE
Only one element ( 7 out of 67)
They should probably be moved to the appropriate trope...
- Characters.Axe Cop: Fire Slicer can control...well, guess.
- Characters.Frozen Elsa: Cope by Creating: After Elsa escapes Arendelle, she creates a beautiful ice palace both to test her Elemental Powers and to release her pent-up emotions. She is singing "Let It Go" as it forms around her.
- Characters.Kid Icarus The Forces Of Nature: Rock and melted rock
- Literature.The Crocodile God: Insistent Terminology: Haik is adamant on this, implied to be because gods are sensitive to what things mean. He notes that while some sources call him "sea-god" and "god of the sea" as if it's the same thing, he insists that there is only one "god of the sea" as the Anthropomorphic Personification of the Pacific Ocean. He emphasizes that he's a "sea-god," which means he's one of many deities with sea-based Elemental Powers. Likewise, he can't "see the future," but thanks to his and Mirasol's Reincarnation Romance, he "sees patterns."
- NegimaMagisterNegiMagi.Tropes D To F (re: Dark Is Not Evil): Shadow magic is the manipulation of shadows, no relationship to alignment. The three prominent users shown so far have included an antagonist that quickly became the protagonist's best friend, a friendly character mostly known for ending up embarrassedly disrobed and a Punch-Clock Villain bounty hunter who was simply doing his job.
- Recap.Mob Psycho 100 S 3 E 11 Mob 3: (re: MacGuffin) ???% spins up a tornado to deter anyone else from attacking the bouquet.
- Webcomic.Off White: The white spirit snow leopard summoned a snowstorm on a whim.
Unclassifiable
None.
Elements of Nature wick check:
Wicks Checked - 50- Linked to as an index: 1
- Linked to as a trope to refer to the classical elements: 49
- No mention of Elemental Powers or abilities: 28
- Linked to characters using Elemental Powers or abilities: 16
- ZCE but still being used as a trope to give an example of: 5
Linked to as an index
Used as a trope to refer to the classical elements
Elemental Powersnot mentioned or alluded to
- Ask Twixie Genies - Elemental Embodiment: The djinn look like this in their true forms, embodying the four classical elements.
- Token Aquatic Race - The Dragon Prince has a subspecies of elf and dragon for each of the Primal Sources, one of which is Ocean. The Ocean elves are called Tidebound Elves.
- Shadowchasers Shadowchaser, Dante - Elements of Nature: Dante has six decks, one for each attribute/element in the game of Duel Monsters, plus one more.
- Tokunation Sentai Modranger - Elements of Nature: Each one represents an element:
- Mod Bronze: Water
- Mod Cyan: Wind
- Mod White: Thunder/Lightning/Electricity
- Mod Hunter: Earth
- Mod Yellow: Fire
- Mod Navy: Metal.
- Monica's Gang - Big Bad Ensemble: In "An Adventure in Time", the gang travels to different time periods to retrieve canisters containing essences of the four Elements of Nature, though they soon face opposition in the form of four different villains
- August Derleth: Another very controversial and contested change Derleth promoted to the Cthulhu Mythos was a system where each of the Elder Gods were attached to a classical element.
- Varian, Harmony, and the Seven Kingdoms - Elements of Nature: The Seven Kingdoms each represent a particular element. So far, the elements for three kingdoms, Bayangor, Koto and Neserdnia are confirmed (Fire, Sky/Air, and Water, respectively).
- Kirby: Right Back at Ya! Odyssey of Dreams - Star Scraper: The fifth Dream Stone is found in Skyline Tower, a miles-tall building with rooms based on the Elements of Nature and believed to be the first structure ever built on Popstar.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming/Literature - Anne Cleves' Jimmy Perez novels (the inspiration for Shetland). The first four (the "Four Seasons" series) all have a colour in them (Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, Blue Lightning), and apart from the first are all "[colour] [noun]". The next four (the "Four Elements" series) are all "[adjective] [Elements of Nature]" (Dead Water, Thin Air, Cold Earth, Wild Fire). (Blue Lightning could be considered an overlap, depending on what element system you're using.)
- Rihannsu - Memetic Mutation: In-Universe example in The Romulan Way. The main Romulan religion of the series present (a form of animism focused on the Four Elements of Nature, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, crossed with a karma-like concept) began life as a meme on the Vulcan version of the Internet while the Rihannsu were planning their future society. It reached the point where idioms began to derive from it, such as that a particularly stubborn person "had too much Earth in him", and its origin as a joke was gradually forgotten.
- Everybody Edits - Fire [moderator] explanation
- Memes/Literature - Star Trek: The Next Generation Relaunch: The Borg. They EAT. FUCKING. PLUTO.:
- An In-Universe example in The Romulan Way, where the main Romulan religion of the series' present (a form of animism focused on the Four Elements of Nature, mixed with a concept similar to karma) began life as a memetic joke on the Vulcan version of the Internet thousands of years ago while the proto-Romulans were still planning things out. The meme proved so popular that idioms based on it developed among the proto-Romulans, e.g. that a particularly stubborn person "had too much Earth in him", and the fact that it was a joke was gradually forgotten.
- Cellar Darling - Elements of Nature: Well, they do have one song called "Water" and another called "Fire, Wind, and Earth"...
- Music/Mastodon - Elements of Nature: The band's first four albums are meant to correspond with one of them. Remission represents fire; Leviathan (naturally) represents water; Blood Mountain represents earth; Crack the Skye represents aether. Air is the only classical element for which Mastodon has yet to create a corresponding album. The Hunter as a whole was not intended to correspond with an element, but many of the songs represent wood, which is a Chinese classical element; Once More 'Round the Sun does not correspond with the elements theme, as it is said to have a theme of "death".
- Charmed S1E15 Is There A Woogy In The House? - Elements of Nature: Prue and Piper figure out that the Manor is located on a spiritual Nexus by noticing that it is equidistant from five elements: water, fire, wood, metal and earth.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2012 S 3 E 8 Vision Quest - Elements of Nature: Each turtle is assigned one by Splinter for purposes of their individual vision quest themes. Leo is Air, Raph is Fire, Don is Mountain, and Mike is Forest. Each one correlates to how they need to improve and perfect themselves.
- Star Trek The Next Generation S 7 E 15 Thine Own Self - Elements of Nature: The Barkonians' natural philosophy believes there are four elements, like the Greek conception, but slightly different: their four elements are rock, water, sky and fire.
- Same Difference Chapter 49 "Enter the Spirit World" - Elements of Nature: Like in the original episode, each one of the Hamatos are assigned a Elemental Motif quest by Yoshi for purposes of their individual vision quest themes. While Leo is the wind, Raph the fire, Donnie the mountain and Mikey the forest, Miwa is told that due to her fears making her too rigid and unyielding, she must learn to be "as fluid and as versatile as the river".
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2015) S 1 E 14 "Don't Stop Believin'" - Elements of Nature: The security traps have glyphes representing Fire, Wind, Earth and Water, and are dealt with by Drax, Gamora, Groot and Rocket respectively.
- Tak and the Guardians of Gross: It was initially supposed to be a direct successor to the first three games, being a much more open-ended 3D platformer, the Big Gs and their respective Juju guardians were going to be more directly based on the classical elements (earth
◊, fire◊, air and water◊) instead of gross Bizarro Elements, and Tlaloc was going to make an appearance (at what role is unknown).
- Final Fantasy III - Lost in Translation: Western players are very unlikely to fall for the Red Herring of the Gold Crystal; after all, even though gold is an element, it isn't a classical element. In Japan, however, Gold—or more broadly "Metal"—is one of their classical Elements of Nature, so a player might be excused if they believe one of the elemental crystals was just destroyed. They might also expect there to be a Wood Crystal in the game somewhere.
- This Starry Midnight We Make - Elements of Nature: Fire, wood, earth, metal and water, which are all part of yin and yang.
- Tree of Savior - Elements of Nature: Here, Water, Earth, Wind, and Fire. They are explicitly considered "the simplest forms of all things," and under the purview of the Goddesses.
- Beauty and the War: X Playing Pieces - Theme Naming: The Imugi are named after Elements of Nature.
- Webcomic/Xkcd - Parodic Table of the Elements: Noting that periodic tables become outdated as new elements are discovered, Randall brings us one from half an hour after the Big Bang, which features only the four elements that existed at the time.note
- Frozen II - Elements of Nature: The classical elements (earth, fire, water, air) are associated with the Enchanted Forest and have elemental spirits associated with each one.
- Elemental Shapeshifter: An Elemental Shapeshifter is a Shapeshifting character who can turn into one of the Elements of Nature (typically air, earth, water, and fire, though this might vary according to the work).
- A Kind of One: The same can be said of the planet Earth, which just means "dirt" or "the ground", though this hasn't stopped the perception of Orphaned Etymology situations in fantasy works that use the classical Elements of Nature.
Tied to characters using Elemental Powers or abilities
- Boxing Lessons for Superman - Gate: The world beyond the Gate is still working with Elements of Nature, with mages using them in their magical theory. Lelei studies several Earth books on modern Physics and Chemistry, which makes her magic much more potent.
- Shapeshifter Baggage: In Dungeons & Dragons, the various Voluntary Shapeshifting and Forced Transformation spells and abilities ignore conservation of mass, as demonstrated by 125-ton dragons Humanshifting into standard-size humanoids. Some editions explain this as magic drawing energy and material from the elemental Planes to fuel their effects.
- Jade Armor: Starting in late 2022, Jade Armor (L'armure de Jade in France) is a French superhero show made by TeamTO based on Chinese mythology and legends, featuring a young teenage heroine who uses the powers of the elements of nature to save her town of Ban Tang from the villainous Crimson Lord and his armor's Shards from utter chaos.
- Nabe Universe - Elemental Powers: The Guardians and their Dark counterparts have elemental powers. Flem has fire powers, Aire has air powers, and so on.
- Jacksmith - Elements of Nature: Most enemies each hold one of the 8 elements: Water, fire, ice, stone, wind, lightning, plant, and shadow. Weapon parts can be used to increase a weapon's effectiveness against a certain element.
- Golden Treasure: The Great Green: There are some RPG elements in that the player's Draak-Kin grows stronger through mastery of the four Elements of Nature, and may accumulate treasure and artifacts.
- Factory Town - Elements of Nature: Magic works with the four basics: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. There's research on the elements, elements become components of items that get crafted, etc.
- Gloomhaven Unlockable Classes, Savaas - All Your Powers Combined: Elementalist manages to juggle four basic Elements of Nature even better than Spellweaver does, with many of his attacks charging or using two or more at once. He is able to wield Light and Dark too, although much less proficiently; there is a lore-based reason for that, listed below.
- Find The Path Ventures, Sakira - Elements of Nature: As a Suli, Sagira has a Jann parent and is powered by all four of the main elemental planes.
- Maple Story Two, Lara - Elements of Nature: She can summon spirits of fire, water, wind, and earth to deal damage.
- Elemental Embodiment: Living incarnations of the elements.
- Elemental Fusion: Ability Mixing the Elements of Nature.
- By the Grace of the Gods - Elements of Nature: Much of the magic of the series is based on the elements, subdivided into various schools. Most people are only able to master one or two schools and even those that can harness all of them are prone to becoming a Master of None.
- I'm In Love With the Villainess - Elements of Nature: The four classical elements (called attributes): Fire, Water, Air, and Earth are a key factor in the story, magic ushering the in-universe game's titular Magic Revolution and the societal upheaval that followed. Most individuals have one or no attribute, the exceedingly rare exceptions labeled dual, tri-, and quad-casters respectively.
- Tabletop Games - Res Arcana: Most Dragons are big, spiked creatures. There is one for each of the four classical Elements of Nature, with only the Fire Dragon actually breathing fire. There's also the Bone Dragon, the Sea Serpent (which counts as a dragon), the Prismatic Dragon (the only dragon who can't attack, instead preferring to deal with essences) and the huge, expensive Ancient Dragon. The Dragons are implied to hoard gold, as the Dragon's Lair is very centred on the gold essence.
- Mind Zero - Elements of Nature: Like many RPGs it sports its own elemental magic:
ZCE, still used as a trope in an example list
- Avalon: Web of Magic: Elements of Nature: Become a big deal when hitting Level Two.
- I Do Not Want To Do This - Elements of Nature: The theme of The Motionless Caverns, the local dungeon that the team visits. Brad comments on how cliché and commercialized the whole thing is.
- The Riddle Master Trilogy - Elements of Nature: Earth, Fire, Water and Wind.
- The Agonist - Elements of Nature: "The Moment".
- Planeta Absurdo - Elements of Nature: According to Flowder, they are water, fire, propane, butane and Bill Murray.
Edited by GastonRabbit on May 31st 2023 at 10:01:04 AM
WarJay77
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
(Troper Knight)
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
#52: May 23rd 2023 at 1:31:42 AM
The thing is, I'm not positive that Elemental Powers has any examples that couldn't just be moved to the other tropes we've already been discussing. Like I said, there's nothing inherently unique about it and if we have to keep it as a super-trope I'd rather it be exampleless, as I don't foresee many, or any, situations where the subtropes couldn't just be used to describe the situation... and if they absolutely can't, well, we have so many power tropes that could.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
the Retromancer
#53: May 23rd 2023 at 1:41:49 AM
"leaving a lot of valid examples (that don't fit a subtrope) with nowhere to go"
Which?
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
amathieu13
Since: Aug, 2013
#54: May 23rd 2023 at 3:15:16 AM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
yeah, this is my question. what kinds of examples would have no place to go if we removed the supertrope?
We already discussed "1 person being able to use multiple elemental powers"[1] and "setting in which everyone (for various reasons) can use elemental powers"[2]. What other ones would we be missing?
Edited by amathieu13 on May 23rd 2023 at 6:16:20 AM
GastonRabbit
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
from Robinson, Illinois, USA
(General of TV Troops)
Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#55: May 23rd 2023 at 4:14:17 AM
I'm not changing my vote unless the claim that some examples would be orphaned is elaborated on by showing us specific examples that would be orphaned. The examples in that post were brought up because of bad indentation for the first folder and only one element being covered in the second, but I don't see any examples in the second folder that couldn't be moved to a more specific element-based subtrope and/or one of the other power-based tropes mentioned in this thread, so I'm not sure why they were brought up.
Edited by GastonRabbit on May 23rd 2023 at 6:18:24 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
GastonRabbit
MOD
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
from Robinson, Illinois, USA
(General of TV Troops)
Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#56: May 23rd 2023 at 4:27:46 AM
On the subject of voting, I went ahead and made a crowner since we seem to have decided on our options.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Twiddler
(On A Trope Odyssey)
#57: May 23rd 2023 at 5:57:25 AM
(Work in progress)
From the on-page examples, examples that
- have enough context
- show multiple elements
- don't appear to fit Elemental Embodiment, Four-Element Ensemble (or other groupings like Fire, Ice, Lightning) or Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors
- show a unifying factor, i.e. aren't just "characters with different elemental powers happen to exist in the same setting"
characters with multiple elemental powers
- The titular hero of BoBoiBoy has elemental powers, initially manifesting as only Lightning, Wind and Earth before others, such as Fire, Water, Leaf and Light were unlocked, making a total of 7. Each one can manifest as a split duplicate of himself, each with a particular personality and unlockable upgraded forms. From the 2nd movie onwards, he can join two elemental forms into one to use different attacks, an ability called Elemental Fusion.
- The elemental heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe include:
- Earth: Avalanche (X-Men)
- Fire: Human Torch (Fantastic Four), Pyro (X-Men)
- Air: Wind Dancer (X-Men)
- Water: Hydroman (Spider-Man)
- Crystal of The Inhumans can manipulate all four. [bolding mine]
- A Posse Ad Esse contains an odd variation in the form of Dolly. She doesn't summon or control the elements directly; rather, they are always present and influenced by her current emotional state. Anger creates fire, sadness creates rain, cold and ice are pain, etc. It doesn't help that Dolly has a severe mood disorder, running over a vast emotional gamut but mostly anger and depression, so the elements are liable to change at any time.
- Jaune Arc: The Elemental Swordsman: Jaune wields five elemental powers and swords which is Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Lightning.
- The Twilight Saga: In Breaking Dawn, the vampire Benjamin can manipulate earth, air, fire and water — his ability is unique in that it involves physical manipulation, while all other vampire talents affect the mind.
group of characters with different elemental powers
- Pretty Cure Perfume Preppy: The Five-Man Band comprises Heart (Cure Rosa), Sound (Cure Vanilla), Lightning (Cure Jasmine), Air (Cure Tangerine), and Earth (Cure Cardamomo), though this changes a little with the power-up attacks. On the other hand, Dark Magical Girl Leather Ashes uses the elements of Darkness and Blood.
- Futari Wa Pretty Cure Flash Fire: Cures Ember and Glaicer wield the powers of fire and ice, respectively, and in Pretty Cure Full Color, the main heroines wield the elements of Air (Cure Autumn), Ice (Cure Winter), Fire/Heat (Cure Summer), and Earth (Cure Spring).
- Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron: Each lion is themed after an element detailed under Divergent Character Evolution, and these powers have been demonstrated in several chapters:
- Aka, the Red Lion, has a flamethrower.
- Polaris, the Blue Lion, has a Freeze Ray.
- Maeraka, the Yellow Lion, can release blinding light to disable enemies.
- Yoru can generate an Unrealistic Black Hole.
- The Powers of Harmony: Each Element of Harmony has been attributed to a natural element:
- The Loud Awakening: Lincoln and ten of his sisters are transformed by ancient orbs into superpowered beings, each controlling an element:
- Tales of Blaze and Artemis's major divergence from canon is the introduction of a set of elemental Miraculous with their associated kwamis, starting with Fire, Ice, and Earth.
- Godzilla Neo: The Orochi Spawn have elemental-based powers with Varan (Air), Manda (Water), Baragon (Earth), Barugaron (Fire), Shiigan (Lightning), Vagnosaurus (Poison), Jyarumu (Dark) and Balkzardan (Light)
- Uchuu Sentai Kyuranger: While the team as a whole is empowered by Star Power (with Sun and Moon powerups), each also has an elemental special attack and/or motif: Fire (Red and Houou Soldier), Beast (Blue), Earth (Black), Plants (Green), Water (Yellow), Poison (Orange), Electricity (Gold), Psychic (Silver), Sky (Pink), Dragon (Ryu Commander), and Ice (Skyblue).
- Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger: The Zyuohgers' special attacks are charged with an element that in most cases is related to their Animal Motifs: Fire (Red, eagle/gorilla), Water (Blue, shark), Lightning (Yellow, lion), Earth (Green, elephant), and Snow (White, tiger). Sixth Ranger Zyuoh TheWorld, originally created as a pawn of the villains, has Shadow.
- Wu Assassins: The Chosen One protagonist has to hunt down the five Wu, whose powers are based on the Chinese elementals: fire, earth, water, metal, and wood.
- EXO bestowed elemental powers to members D.O, Chanyeol, Se Hun, Su Ho, Chen, Xiumin, Baek Hyun, Lay (More on the Life side), and former member Tao as part of the group's ongoing "story" (The powers for the rest of the formerly 12-member group may not be considered elemental).
- Several characters from Andrew's party in Rise of the Heroes have elemental magic. That being:
- Andrew uses fire magic.
- Cress uses plant/forest magic.
- Enzios uses lightning magic.
- Akros uses earth/rock magic.
- Shendu's family of demons from Jackie Chan Adventures each possessed an element from which they derived their magic: Fire, Earth, Thunder, Sky, Wind, Mountain, Moon, and Water. Once the demons were sealed away for good, traces of their powers remained, leaving them vunerable to absorption by nearly anyone. In Season 5, seemingly everyone had a crack at one of the powers before Drago eventually claimed them all for himself.
- Winx Club: Bloom (Fire), Stella (Light), Musa (Sound), Flora (Earth/Air), Tecna (Metal/Electricity), Aisha (Water/Plasma), Roxy (Animals), Icy (Ice), Darcy (Darkness), and Stormy (Wind/Lightning). There is a bit of a subversion in that Flora seems to manipulate both earth and air.
- In Air Gear, all the top riders are called Kings (or Queen depending on gender obviously) and these guys' skills are all based on the air element, but for certain (shonen manga) purposes these are different elements: Wind King (Wind), Flame King (Fire/Time), Thunder King (Lightning/Ice), Thorn Queen (Plant), Pledge King (Sound), Gem King (Earth), Water King (Water).
- In the Bakugan first season, each of the main characters has a favored element.
- Pyrus (fire) — Favored element of Dan, tends to be displayed in fireballs destroying opponents.
- Aquos (water) — Favored element of Marucho, has many elements of changing the rules and defense.
- Ventus (wind) — Favored element of Shun, shown in blowing opponents attacks back at them.
- Subterra (earth) — Favored element of Julie, Mira, and Jake.
- Haos (light) — Favored element of Runo, Baron, and Fabia.
- Darkus (dark) — Favored element of the Big Bad of each season (with the exception of King Zenohold), Maskerade and thus also his alternate personality Alice. Also the favored element of Ace and Ren.
- The Hakkeshu of Hades Project Zeorymer have their mechas based on the elements of Wind, Fire, Water, Earth, Mountain, Moon, Thunder and Sky/Heaven... although the last one ended up falling into the protagonist due to the machinations of a certain traitor.
- The Devas in Popcorn Avatar each represent a specific element, and this is reflected in the abilities of their chosen avatars.
- Given how the franchise is the love child of Sentai and Magical Girl Warrior, Pretty Cure comes back to this trope often.
- [Four-Element Ensemble]
- Smile Pretty Cure! has another elemental-based five-man band, this time with Holy, Fire, Lightning, Wind, and Ice.
- In HeartCatch Pretty Cure!, we have the two heroines representing Earth (given the series' flower theme, Petal Power, to be precise) and Water, with two Sixth Rangers with the powers of the Sun and the Moon.
- [Four-Element Ensemble]
- In a rare villainous example of this trope, Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star had the Quirky Miniboss Squad have the Chinese elemental table of Wood, Fire, Earth, Water, and Metal.
- Given the fact that the series involves the elements, the Cures of Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure represent four elements: Flora, Water, Light, and in the case of the Sixth Ranger, Wind.
- Sailor Moon: The assignment of magical powers and Senshi names comes from a mix of European and Chinese astrology and alchemy that sometimes seems almost random. (Mercury gets fresh-water ice powers from Asian symbolism, while Neptune gets ocean-themed water powers from Western... Mars as Fire may have to do with the fact that in Japanese, Mars is "Kasei" (Literally Fire Star or Fire Planet. Meanwhile, Jupiter gets powers from both sides, with an elemental affiliation to Wood that shows up in later seasons and manga issues, but she started out with lightning powers from her Roman god namesake). Venus has an easily missed Metal affiliation with her "Love-Me Chain". Neptune gets ocean-themed water powers because of the Japanese word for Neptune: "Sea king star/planet". Same goes for Uranus ("Sky king star") and Pluto ("Dark ruler star"). Saturn's meaning might be a bit more obscure ("Soil star") but it's related to the whole idea of dying, while Sailor Moon is her opposite (rebirth) in the S arc.
- Moon = Light/Love (or just Power of Friendship)
- Mercury = Ice/Water
- Venus = Love/Metal/Light
- Mars = Fire
- Jupiter = Electricity/Wood
- Saturn = Destruction (a Person of Mass Destruction for that matter)
- Uranus = Sky/Space (except World Shaking is very much like an Earth attack for some reason)
- Neptune = Sea/Water
- Pluto = Time/Underworld
- In Saint Beast Goh is Fire, Rey is Ice (/Water), Shin is Wind and Gai is Earth, most of which run against expectation. Judas and Luca appear to have powers involving light and darkness respectively, a theme which comes out in their personalities too.
- Waccha PriMagi! has Elements Coord worn by the PriMagiSta that matches their personality/talent:
- Flare (Fire): Hina Yayoi, for her passion to win over Jennifer.
- Aqua (Water): Amane Sumeragi, for her calm personality.
- Flash (Electricity): Auru Omega, for her talent of technology.
- Brightness (Light): Miruki Amauri, for her willingness to shine when she likes the most.
- Darkness (Dark): Lemon Kokoa, for her shy personality pre-Character Development.
- Sunshine (Sun): Jennifer Sumire Sol, for her confident but hiding her sadness of losing her partner.
- Love (Heart): Matsuri Hibino, for being the protagonist and uniting others together.
different types/schools of magic
- Fairy Dance Of Death: The VR MMORPG Alfheim Online (ALO) has seven schools of Elemental Magic — the basic four, plus Holy and Dark. And there's Illusion, which works more-or-less like the others. Any player character can learn any of them, but six of the nine races have elemental affinities which give them big advantages in doing so.
- Ars Magica
- Aquam (water), Auram (air), Herbam (plant), Ignem (fire/light) and Terram (earth) spells.
- Elementalists, as described in Hedge Magic, are another (more limited) example. Their spells concentrate on affecting the elements.
- The Dark Eye has six elements: Water, Fire, Air, Ore, Humus, and Ice. Ore is the "dead" part of the more common element Earth: Anything from sand to gemstones and refined metals, and one aspect is gravity; the opposite of air. Humus is the "living" part, from fertile topsoil to plants and animals, and associated with growth. Its opposite Ice includes cold and darkness, and is also associated with logic. The magic system is not limited to elemental spells, but any magic user specialising in elemental magic must chose one element as their main one, which makes spells based on it easier to learn, gives a slight bonus in negotiations with elementals, etc. There are corresponding penalties when dealing with the opposite element.
- Dragon Dice uses magic of the four classical elements — Air, Water, Earth, and Fire — and a fifth, Death. The dice representing units in the game have access to magic based on the colors of plastic that compose the die with blue representing Air, green representing Water, gold representing Earth, red representing Fire, and Black representing Death. There are two additional colors — white, which represents an affinity for all elements, dependent upon the terrain that the white die is located at, and ivory, which represents and affinity for life, though there are no ivory exclusive spells.
- Similar to its entry in the "Literature" section, The Dresden Files RPG classically distinguishes between air, earth, fire, water, and spirit (alternatively force). It's explained that this is more a matter of tradition and wizard psychology than necessarily cold hard scientific "fact", that there is room for overlap in achievable effects by applying one's elemental mastery in creative ways, and that wizards more used to thinking in terms of other "elemental" schemes — such as Ancient Mai, presumably — can work with those just as easily. Wizard characters usually start out familiar with only three elements (in Harry's case, those would be air, fire [naturally] and spirit) and specialized in one of them, but can add more elements and/or specialization bonuses later by spending refresh on Refinements.
- Exalted
- Creation is defined by the interactions of five basic elements — Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Wood — each with associated elementals and Dragon-Blooded Exalted. The Aspect of a particular Dragon-Blooded determines their favored attributes (such as Craft for Earth, Sail for Water, Thrown for Air, etc.), and one Charm (Elemental Bolt) lets them produce a blast attack of their particular element. Each element also has an Elemental Pole in Creation (Air in the North, a frozen waste; Fire in the South, a vast desert; Wood in the East, a dense mass of forests and jungles; Water in the West, a vast ocean; and Earth in the center, a massive mountain).
- Other planes of reality in Exalted all possess certain elements that dominate the makeup of that place, corresponding to the elements of Creation. Autochthonia has the peculiar elements of Steam and Smoke (Air), Electricity (Fire), Crystal (Wood), Oil (Water) and Metal (Earth) all with corresponding elementals and mechanical dragons (the Lesser Elemental Dragon of Smoke is lovingly titled the Shogun of Genocide). The Underworld has the ghostly "Corpse Elements" of Prayer (Air), Pyreflame (Fire), Bone (Wood), Blood (Water) and Void (Earth)note . Malfeas has Vitriol — and that's it. It kind of sucks to live there.
- Of the five magic systems given as examples in the Fate System Toolkit, two draw upon the same five elemental "Great Storms" — Earthquake, Flood, Glacier, Inferno, and Thunder. (That these terms give each element, even the traditionally more "passive" ones, a decidedly dynamic aspect is probably not a coincidence.) One system models channeling their power directly, somewhat bender-style, while the other deals with summoning elemental spirits from the same Storms; either can be used standalone in a given campaign, but they can also just as easily be combined and then potentially used by a single character given suitable investment.
- Ironclaw has Elementalists as one of the five basic types of mage, and the only ones whose spells inflict physical damage. Elementalists are further divided by the four standard Western elements (lightning is air) plus "star", which can only be learned after mastering the other four.
- The Wuxia-themed Jadeclaw has Daoist mages casting spells based on the five Chinese elements of fire, water, earth, wood, and metal.
- The Japanese-themed RPG Legend of the Five Rings, which places great significance in the Five Elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Void) — all spellcasters in that system work by controlling one of the four (other than Void).
- Elemental Powers are divvied up among the spheres of magic Mages can learn in Mage: The Ascension and Mage: The Awakening (Air, Earth and Water are Matter, while Fire is Forces).
- Notably, in Mage: The Awakening, there's the collection of legacies known as the Elemental Masteries, which allow a mage to develop powers based on a specific element. The five best known Masteries are Void, Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, with rumors of various others. Most notable in that they are focused around controlling both the physical and conceptual element (Tamers of Fire can control fire and inspire willpower for instance, or Tamers of Water can control water and heal).
- The New World of Darkness version, Changeling: The Lost, has the 'Elemental' Seeming as standard, which comes in the usual fire, water, earth, air and so on, but also covers most Changelings who took on a physical aspect of Arcadia. In first edition, they get a buy-in with the Contracts of Elements (which allow for control over a specific element) and Communion (which allow for communication and influence with a specific element); they can buy up the classical elements, but could also buy power over Wood, Metal, Ice, Electricity, Glass, even Shadow or Light if you've got a permissive enough Storyteller. In second edition, they can act from a short distance away as long as they're touching or surrounded by their element, and have a buy-in with the Sword Regalia, which includes Contracts of elemental fury.
- Pathfinder: The kineticist class is all about manipulating the elements and doesn't use spells or any system close to it, instead giving an attack form usable at will called the kinetic blast and a variety of utility abilities and enhancements to the kinetic blast that may inflict nonlethal damage to the user for the strongest ones. Elements include the four classic elements of fire, water, earth and air, and are added to the list aether (pure psychic powers to manipulate matter), void (manipulates gravity and negative energy) and wood (power over plants and plant-based abilities). A kineticist can focus on a single element or extend their study to harness a maximum of three of them, and possibly combine the power of two elements in a single kinetic blast.
- Savage Worlds: In the 50 Fathoms setting, magic is based on elemental mastery. Most mages possess mastery over only one of the four classical elements. However, player characters can buy dominion over each element, leading up to buying the "Elemental Mastery" edge, with which your mage can sucessfully balance all four elements.
- Warhammer Fantasy: The core lores of magic are based on this, and both High Magic and Dark Magic can be tied to this as well. Other forms of magic are not such good fits. Some of the Lores are straightforward, others more complicated.
- The Lore of Fire is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
- The Lore of Shadow covers both literal manipulation of darkness, but is also the school of magic that specialises in creating illusions and Psychic Powers (of the "you hallucinate something so terrifying you die of fear" style).
- The Lore of Death is similar to Necromancy, in that it can contact souls and attack the life essence of the living, but it's not "conventional" Night of the Living Mooks style necromancy, and confusing the two is guaranteed to make an imperial practitioner very cross. Necromancy of the "classic" style, in this setting, is a form of Dark Magic powered by/focused through Death magic because human straight up using Dark magic cause very very bad Chaos juju and not even Necromancers (or at least those who aren't completely Drunk on the Dark Side or just plain insane) dare mess with that.
- The Lore of Metal covers the manipulation and creation of metal. It's very good at wrecking (or enhancing) warmachines and armor, but it can also attack by creating metal projectiles or gouts of molten metal.
- The Lore of Beasts is the odd one out of the eight; it allows a caster to control animals and monsters, to turn into one himself, or to imbue allies with bestial traits (literally or metaphorically) to aid them in combat.
- The Lore of Life is the most diversely elemental of the lores; it combines manipulation of earth and water and plants and it covers healing as well.
- The Lore of the Heavens draws from all "celestial" aspects, meaning it mixes Star Power (in both the "divine the future" sense and the "hit your enemies with meteorite barrages" sense) with wind and lightning magic.
- The Lore of Light can conjure beams of radiance to burn and destroy, but also specialises in exorcising evil spirits (making its attacks particularly potent against The Legions of Hell and The Undead) and defensive conjurations.
- High Magic and Dark Magic, meanwhile, are All Your Powers Combined versions of these eight forms; High Magic painstakingly weaves different magical energies together into a single coherent whole, making it roughly analogous to the Pure Magic element, whilst Dark Magic brutally crushes and mashes them together to create a highly unstable but very destructive form of Black Magic. In addition to being a distinct lore of its own, Dark Magic also fuels the various Necromancy lores and its congealed form powers Skaven magic and technology.
- Ice Magic also exists. It's not really part of the eight winds of magic and is only practiced in Kislev by the Ice Witches.
- In Angel Moxie, Alex's magical ability is centered around the magical elements. The 6 magical elements are Water, Fire, Earth, Lightning, Pearl, and Shadow. Every lesser demon is aligned with a particular element, and as Alex slays demons of an element, she gains more power to cast spells of that element.
- Magic in the world of Bideogamu, setting of Fetch Quest: Saga of the Twelve Artifacts is divided into eight elements, each with a patron Seraph: Light, Shadow, Fire, Water, Wind, Earth/Nature, Ice, and Lightning. Furthermore, each person in Bideogamu has an affinity for one of the eight, although Light and Shadow are very rare.
- In Harkovast there are fourteen (count em) magical elements! They are Fire, Ice, Water, Earth, Metal, Mind, Nature, Technology, Dark, Light, Life, Death, Thunder and Water. Every race that appears is gifted with the magic of two of these elements, each race receiving a different combination. The combination they get determines both the special powers and often aspects of the culture of that race.
- Mages in Leif & Thorn come in magical domains (with corresponding spirits). Mentioned so far: water, nature, fire, and stars. Almost anything appears to fall under that last category, under the more science-based logic that all matter was originally star stuff.
- In My Impossible Soulmate, every human or demi-human has the ability of wielding magic that corresponds to the one of the 7 magical elements (Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Frost, Light, and Spirit) they are aligned with at birth.
- In the Web Serial Engines of Creation, the various forms of magi utilize control over various elements.
- In Impractical Magic The Magic School, Istima, has several courts. Each court has it's own magic system and culture. The Winter Court teaches sufficiently analyzed elemental magic that has some elements of wonder and vagueness that prevent that part of the story from becoming rationalist fiction.
- Salamander: Magic is divided along elemental axes. It's noted, however, that one can also divide magic along functional (weaving, shaping, refining, tempering) or humorous (hot, cold, wet, dry) axes.
- Every Seldnac'Rae knows at least one type of magic, which can range from classic elements like water or fire all the way to rarer seen magics like Ethereal Walker or Possession.
- In Shadows of the Limelight, many of the domains are elemental powers like water, light, shadow, wood, metal, and sound.
- In Void Domain, most people have an affinity for one of the four classical elements and can't cast with the opposed element. In addition, there is Order and Chaos magic.
- The Dragon Prince has the Primal Sources of Magic, which basically fit the same role. They include the sun (which seems to include fire and light), the moon (illusions), the stars (divination), the ocean, the earth and the sky (which seems to including air, ice and lightning). Elves and dragons are naturally tied to a Source, as are some animals, while human mages have a harder time. There's also Dark Magic, which draws on the Life Energy of magical creatures; it's easier for humans to use, but controversial even among them.
- Most mages' magic attributes in Black Clover are these. There are the four main elements –- flame, water, earth and wind. Rarer ones include light, ice/snow, lightning, dark, plant, mineral, steel, poison, and ash, to name some.
- A Certain Magical Index: While most magic is not elemental in nature, spells associated with one of the four Archangels tend to be tied to a single element: Uriel for Wind, Raphael for Earth, Gabriel for Water, and Michael for Fire. Each of the Archangels themselves naturally have near perfect control over that element.
- Three of the protagonists in Day Break Illusion have elemental powers. Akari's element is fire (as her tarot card is the Sun), Seira's is ice, and Luna's is plants. Ginka is the exception, as she uses magical coins to fight.
- Fairy Tail has:
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- Jellal Fernandes and God Serena of Ishgal's Wizard Saints and Alvarez's Spriggan 12 are notable in that they are confirmed to have knowledge of how to use magic of all four of the classical elements (Water, Earth, Fire, Air), with Jellal adding on Heavenly Body and Darkness Magic while Serena has Lightning, Diamond, Light, and Darkness as part of his eight Dragon Slaying Magics.
- Erza is unique in that she doesn't know elemental magic herself, but rather she has magic armors and weapons that have said properties, including fire, water, lightning, and wind.
- The Dragon Slayers, God Slayers, and Devil Slayers have the special ability to eat their respective element and regain energy.
- Magic in The Familiar Of Zero is divided into the 5 classic Japanese elements: earth, water, fire, air and void.
- Flame of Recca — All of the Madogu have domain over a particular Element. This includes the classical 5 Eastern Elements, but also things like Sound, Hair, Paper, Gravity...
- Kaze no Stigma has fire, wind, earth, and water. Fire is good at raw power and purification, wind is good at reconnaissance and concealment, and earth can detect people touching the ground and cause earthquakes. Water mages don't appear in the anime.
- Certain mages, knights, and unison devices in Lyrical Nanoha specialize in spells of a specific element, such as Lightning, Fire, or Ice. Also, in full defiance of the main text of this article, the "calm and collected guy who can shoot fire" that "you're not likely to find" describes the Blazing General Signum perfectly... well, except for the "guy" part.
- In Magi: Labyrinth of Magic, in Magnoshutatt, magic is divided into 8 elements: Fire, Water, Light, Lightning, Wind, Sound, Power, Life. According to the explanations and imagining the elements disposed in an eight-pointed star, each element works well in tandem with the opposite element (Fire and Wind, or Life and Lightning) but has a more rough relationship with neighbouring elements.
- Magic in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! is broken up into the standard "Classical Elements plus Light" set, with the latter being the rarest. There's also dark magic, though it's very existance is a state secret due to the fact that it is earned via Human Sacrifice rather than available at birth.
- In Rave Master, there are eight different types of elements in the world with related magic and affinity; Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth, Darkness, Ocean, Thunder and Light. Furthermore, there are Non-Elemental affinities and magic that are seemingly outside the eight mentioned above such as Sieghart's Space Magic and Poison Magic. Finally, each member of the Oracion Six wield Dark Brings powered with elemental magic, such as Shuda (Explosions), Beryl (Earth), Reina (Silver), Jegan (Trees) and Deep Snow (Flow, which allows him to control Wind, Water or blood).
- In Sorcerer Stabber Orphen, magic is divided into Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Light and Dark elements, but is pretty similar in nature to the magic of Slayers, to the point there's an official crossover between the two settings.
- Air Awakens: The magic system is based on elemental Affinities, so there are Firebearers, Waterwalkers, Groundbreakers and Windwalkers, each having power over one element.
- In Anthologies of Ullord elemental magic is a norm of destructive, combat-oriented mages.
- The elemental motif is long-winded a complicated including divine magic being sound.
- There are a lot of hot-headed fire mages including Samaya and Eneco.
- There is a trend of chipper, happy characters who use water magic like Tirtha and Mykolas.
- Impulsive characters like Ariana and Lucas who resort to using lightning magic.
- Intellectual characters like Riki and Rurik use chthonic (dark) magic while Izar who is also an intellectual uses aether (light)magic.
- The above list also only includes conjuring magic as an attack and not the umpteen ways to use magic and different sorts of magical weapons.
- The Chaos Knight: Magic and religion are based around four elemental goddesses. They follow the typical air-earth-fire-water pattern, and the distinction between them is supposed to be strong and absolute. The protagonist's ability to ignore this is a plot point.
- The Wheel of Time: The Five Powers are Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Spirit. Male channelers are more skilled with Earth and Fire, and women with Water and Air.
- The Witchlands: The six Origin Wells are dedicated to Air, Water, Earth, Fire, Aether and Void, and witches drawing on them have appropriate powers.
- Anvil of Dawn has seven schools of magic: the usual four, plus Lightning, Flesh, and Void.
- Might and Magic VI to VIII has nine schools of magic (split into three categories). Four of them are explicitly categorised as Elemental magic (Fire, Earth, Water and Air). The Self-Magic schools (Body, Spirit, Mind) contain supportive spells and status effects, though they have occasional damaging spells as well. Finally, there is advanced Dark and Light magic. In VI the spels dealt one of 5 types of damage (Fire, Poison, Cold, Electricity, Magic) and only in later games they would deal the elemental damage of school they're in (though there is occasional exception such as Dark Magic's Shrapmetal, which does physical damage instead). There is also an Energy element that does not have a magic school but is available to you in VI and VII via Ancient Weapons and is usually the damage typing of strongest monsters in the game.
unsorted or multiple
- Chaotic has Fire, Air, Earthnote and Water. What elements a creature has on their card governs what elemental attack cards they can use. Some creatures have more than one element, usually only going up to three elements. Heptadd is the only creature who can naturally use all four.
- Holo-Chronicles: Amongst the various trait abilities there are Elemental Traits that give these sorts of powers, with the most notable one as of writing this being Lamy's Elemental Trait of Ice and Snow. Gura and Kiara are exceptions... because as far as it is currently known, their water and fire powers aren't tied to traits (they both possess the Predator Trait instead), but to their status as an Atlantean and a phoenix respectively.
- Kamen Rider:
- Early seasons would sometimes base the heroes' powers on single elements in no consistent pattern. The very first one used wind, and Stronger would be the first lightning one — but later ones like Super-1 could switch between several at will. More so for the Heisei (2000-onward) seasons, as changing colors and forms to shift the Multiform Balance and enable different elemental abilities became the standard.
- In Kamen Rider Blade, each of the Riders has a set of Cards of Power (based on playing cards) that they can use in tandem to activate special attacks, and the Sixes are all elemental. They're used in nearly every Finishing Move, and at one point all four Riders pool their Six cards so Blade can use a Four-Of-A-Kind elemental attack. Blade's card is lightning, Garren's is fire, Chalice's is wind, and Leangle's is ice.
- Kamen Rider Wizard is more direct about this, being a magic-user and all. His primary forms (Styles) are Flame, Water, Hurricane, and Land; his Mid-Season Upgrade Dragon Styles get special attacks using laterally-releated elements, like ice for Water Dragon, lightning for Hurricane Dragon, and gravity for Land Dragon. Finally, his Infinity Style is All Your Powers Combined, but primarily looks like light element.
- The Riders of Kamen Rider Saber all wield different elements. Saber has fire, Blades has water, Espada has lightning, Buster has earth, Kenzan has wind, Slash has sound, Calibur has darkness, Saikou has light, Sabela has smoke, Durendal has time, and Falchion has nothingness. In Mid Season Upgrades, Blades goes from water to ice and Saber's upgrades are All Your Powers Combined. Averted by Big Bads Kamen Rider Solomon and later Kamen Rider Storius, who are Non-Elemental.
- Shadow and Bone: As in the books, Etherealki Grisha can manipulate the classical elements. Squallers can control the air, Inferni can control fire, and Tidemakers can control water. In the Materialki order, Durasts can manipulate glass, steel, wood, plants, stone, or anything solid on a molecular level.
- Nearly every example has been featured more than once in the Ultra Series, but there are a few series that use it as a specific theme:
- Ultraman Orb is the first where it plays a significant role in both the hero and his monster foes. The show's kaiju include six King Demon Beasts associated with one of six elements (Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Light, and Shadow). All other Ultra monsters are also classified under the same elements by the series' Ultra Cards. Ultraman Orb himself in his long-lost true form Super Mode Orb Origin wields the Orbcalibur, a sword that possesses the power of the four classic elements — Fire creates a spherical prison of flame, Water conjures a whirlpool, Earth summons explosive shockwaves, and Wind forms a tornado.
- Ultraman R/B: Ultraman Rosso and Blu possess different forms that are based around controlling the four classical elements. While they can switch between any of the four, they usually default to Rosso using the Fire form and Blu using Water. Fittingly enough, one of their major enemies turns himself into an Evil Knockoff of Orb Origin and uses the Orbcalibur's elemental attacks against them.
- BIONICLE: Most characters have an element associated with them. The main ones that the various heroes wield are Fire, Ice, Water, Air, Stone, and Earth; while the Big Bads have Shadow and the Sixth Ranger has Light. Time, Life and Creation are considered Infinity Plus One Elements; no person wields those naturally and the relics with those powers (one each) are dangerous to use. Occasionally some other elements are mentioned, from not-so-unusual ones like Lightning, Iron, and Plant Life; to offbeat ones like Sonics (sound), Magnetism, Gravity, Plasma, and Psionics (Psychic Powers). On top of that, some characters' powers like Acid and Vacuum are considered quasi-elements, mostly due to being part of a group whose other members use actual elements.
- RWBY: Dust is the energy resource of the world of Remnant, mined from the ground in crystalline form. It exists in several natural forms, as well as several naturally occuring combinations. Humans have also been able to create artificial combinations as well. Every form of Dust, whether natural or artificial, raw or combined, has its own elemental power. When used in its raw form, Dust can even produce elemental effects such as summoning thunderstorms and lightning. Other forms of Dust can produce fire, ice, rock, and even gravity. The rarest form of Dust produces Hard Light.
- Drowtales: Most drow and elves have an elemental affinity, meaning the innate ability to manipulate and control a certain element, including fire, air, earth, water, ice, wood, blood and bone. It's noted at one point that in the past, magic-users would study and specialize in the manipulation of their element and use it as their main combat magic, but this ended when the invention of magic foci (gemstones implanted in armor) attuned to various elements gave anyone who wore the right focus the ability to control that focus' element.
- Homestuck has the twelve Aspects that form half of a Hero's role (along with Class): Breath (traditional Air powers with light emphasis on freedom and movement as well), Light (includes knowledge and luck, which all adds up to powers over definition, existence and truth; actual light may be involved as well), Time (seemingly also related to death and destruction, or entropy), Space (seemingly also related to creation), Life (shown to be healing; may include powers over life other than healing, and has light emphasis on energy and power), Void (invisibility, elusiveness and Anti-Magic; it all adds up to lies, non-existence and obfuscation), Heart (emotions and Soul Power), Hope (nature unknown but possibly related to belief), Mind (telepathy, mind reading, prediction), Blood (possibly related to unity, Dishing Out Dirt, and bonds), Doom (related to death, sacrifice, and destruction, with light emphasis on law and fate), and Rage (related to negative emotions like anger and fear, with a heavy emphasis on restriction).
- The abilities of the protagonists of M9 Girls! are the result of channeling the universe's elemental energies thru their bodies.
- In Pacificators, there are people with "powers," however they're a bit rare. The main characters include Daryl, Cinna, Muneca, Taffe, and Larima. So far, the powers we've seen are light, fire, water (including ice), air (wind and sound), earth (including metal), lightning, and gravity. More are to come!
- The magi human subspecies in Royal have a very common chance at being born with Elemental Powers. A good example is the Schmitt brothers who can be considered a Four-Element Ensemble of Fire, Ice, Lightning and Water.
- In the webcomic Slightly Damned, angels, demons, and mortals are attuned to the four elements: Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. In addition, Angels can use Holy magic, while demons can use Dark magic. It should also be noted that angels are generally better at spells than demons, and demons better at them than mortals.
- Ghosts in Undead Friend each get control over a elemental power after joining the game. The elements they have are: fire, lightning, water, wind, earth and metal.
- Chaos Fighters is rife with this. Without counting the Power Levels, there are around 23 elements including non-elemental, which is counted as one. Their weakness depends on the nature of the elemental attacks/spells and the caster. This is not even count the sub-elements under non-elemental, such as subatomic particles and their antimatter counterparts and photons.
- In Elcenia, kyma can learn elemental kamai, which allows them control over all four classical elements — earth, air, water, and fire. This is in contrast to magic native to Elcenia, where a mage can only control one type of elemental magic, and has to "die" by it first. For instance, someone with the ability to become a water mage would have to drown, but would be alive afterwards.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- The Avatar franchise has the four Bending Arts, namely Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. Indeed, all four nations are themed around their respective elements — the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads, with a certain percentage of people born within those countries manifesting their respective signature elemental power. Normally, a bender can only use the element they're born with, but there is one exception in the titular Avatar, a reincarnated figure who can (with training and time) harness the powers of all four elements, and serves more or less as the resident Superhero. Note that the cycle of Avatar reincarnation corresponds with the ancient Greek order: Air (warm and wet) to Water (cold and wet) to Earth (cold and dry) to Fire (hot and dry) to Air to etc.
- There is also Pure Energy in the form of chi, which tends to be related to the Spirit World, granting abilities like locating things far away, seeing the future, and reading auras. It is also the metaphysical basis of Bending (done by manipulating chi within one's body via muscle or breath control) and the ability to invoke the Avatar State at will (via opening one's chakras). In the Grand Finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender, another discipline of Bending, called Energybending, is revealed. It is an ancient style said to predate the Bending of the elements (and the first incarnation of the Avatar) and was used by beings to manipulate the energy within themselves. Bending the energy of another is shown to be capable of both bestowing knowledge and removing the ability to Bend, at the risk of having one's own spirit overwhelmed by the target.
- Each of the Bending styles also has specialized substyles, some which require a great amount of skill and special training, or are stronger in certain bloodlines. Some Firebenders can fire explosive beams from their forehead (referred to as "Combustionbending") or generate lightning, some Waterbenders can heal, calm spirits, or bend the blood of others, select Earthbenders can bend metal or even lava, and a few Airbenders can perform Astral Projection or outright fly. There are also a few odd groups with their own takes on bending, like swampbenders and sandbenders; these are not separate elements, but specific disciplines of Waterbending and Earthbending developed by some tribes to better suit the areas they live in (swamps and deserts, respectively). Similarly, Waterbending is shown to include ice and snow by default since both Water Tribes are located near the poles.
- The benders' temperaments often follow the traditional associations with those elements, but there are exceptions. Uncle Iroh is one of the most skilled firebenders in the world, and is a fat, philosophical and laid back (many would say "lazy", and many do). Of course, push him too far, and you will learn why he is known as the Dragon of the West. Meanwhile, King Bumi, one of the most skilled Earthbenders, is probably entirely insane, in contrast to the calm Implacable Man association you'd expect.
- Bending is so integral that it's even incorporated into major technologies; in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Ba Sing Se's transit system is powered by Earth Benders, while in The Legend of Korra, Republic City's power plants are staffed by lightingbenders.
- The Avatar franchise has the four Bending Arts
- Many of the aliens in the Ben 10 series have these kind of powers. Most notably however is in Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Ben obtains the forms of five aliens who each possess one of these: Water, Fire, Wind, Earth, and Lightning. When Big Bad Aggregor absorbs the powers of all five aliens, he ends up being virtually unstoppable.
- Luz from The Owl House cast spells using glyphs which she learns from observing the natural world, i.e. snowflakes are in the shape of the ice glyph. Her powers are light, ice, plant and fire. All other spells appears to be constructed from combinations of the four elemental glyphs.
- Ninjago: The four ninja have the powers of Fire (Kai), Earth (Cole), Lightning (Jay), and Ice (Zane) — all of which are considered the four main elements in Ninjago that make up the power of Creation. The latter is utilised in the "Tornado of Creation" technique, in which the ninja combine their Spinjitzu together to create something out of nothing.
- As the prophesied Green Ninja, Lloyd possesses Golden Power, which is a mixture of the aforementioned main elements and Pure Energy. He later loses most of the Golden Power to the Overlord and shares the rest of it with the other ninja, leaving him with just Energy.
- Season 4 reveals the existence of secondary elements as well as their current masters: Metal (Karlof), Amber (Skylor), Light (Paleman), Speed (Griffin Turner), Smoke (Ash), Mind (Neuro), Gravity (Gravis), Nature (Bolobo), Sound (Jacob Pevsner), Poison (Tox), Shadow (Shade) and Form (Chamille). Apparently, elemental powers are passed down through generations tracing back to the First Elemental Masters. They, along with Kai, Cole, Jay and Lloyd, take part in the titular Tournament of Elements that pits them into battle with each other.
- Two more elements are introduced in Season 5: Wind (Morro) and Water (Nya). Unusually for this trope, the Wind user is a villainous ghost, and the Wind Is Green trope is alluded to in his jealousy of Lloyd becoming the Green Ninja instead of him. Fortunately, ghosts are repelled by water — though Nya initially struggles with controlling her newfound element due to her reluctance to embrace her identity as a ninja.
- The main villains of Season 7 are the twins Acronix and Krux, collectively referred to as "the Hands of Time". Notably, Acronix is the younger and more tech-savvy twin with the ability to speed up time while Krux is the older twin with a disdain for technology and the ability to slow down time.
- Mostly inverted with Fullmetal Alchemist in which the characters who utilize the elements use elements from the periodic table in addition to the traditional four, fire, air, water and earth. Edward Elric in particular is adept at being able to recognize the elements used by his opponents, though he isn't perfect and it can cost him at times. Curiously, Roy Mustang seems to combine air with fire when utilizing his alchemy to create flames as he is relying on the molecules in the air as well as environmental conditions. Aside from this, air elementals are pretty rare in the series. The philosopher's stone acts as a fifth element in the series that can grant alchemists powers without the need for a transmutation circle, as these stones are constructed from mass human sacrifices with the souls of humans powering the alchemist.
- Naruto:
- The Five Great Shinobi Countries are mostly named after the five classical Japanese elements (with Lightning replacing Void as the fifth element), and their ninja tend to have an affinity with their respective homeland's element. For example, the main characters' home village, Fire Country's Hidden Leaf, tends to produce shinobi who can use fire. Note that this is not a hard and fast rule, as several ninja can use elements not native to their country; Naruto's own primary affinity is wind, while his sensei Kakashi is well-versed in all five basic elements, with his main techniques being lightning-based.
- The majority of genetically-exclusive bloodline powers, or Kekkei Genkai, work by combining two elements to create a new one; Earth and Water makes Wood, Air and Water becomes Ice, Fire and Earth gives us Lava, Fire and Water makes "Boil" (A corrosive/acidic mist), Water and Lightning creates "Storm" (Beam Spam), and Earth, Wind & Fire (amusingly enough) creates "Dust" (basically a Disintegrator Ray). Other elemental bloodline abilities include "Scorch" (which boils the water out of your body), "Explosion", and Magnetism. Sasuke has a special "Blaze" nature in which he uses "shape transformation" to manipulate the Amaterasu created by his Mangekyo Sharingan.
- Other "elemental" abilities in the series involve control over space-time, paper, shadows, sound, gravity, steam, etc.
- A filler character could create crystals, and a movie villain had, among a combo platter of other abilities, Steel.
- Mages in the Nasuverse typically use one or more of the four classical elements, plus ether, which is mainly used in granting physical form to otherwise immaterial beings. Rin Tohsaka is a rare mage born with an affinity for all five elements at once, known as an "Average One". There are two other, extremely rare, elements mages can sometimes have an affinity for: demon/wish and shadow/imaginary. Some characters have such a strong affinity with their "origin" that the origin becomes their "element", such as Shirou, whose "element" is 'sword.'
- Western-style magic in Negima! Magister Negi Magi tends to be elemental in nature. Thus far we've seen: Light, Wind, Lightning, Fire, Earth, Water, Ice, Darkness, and even Plant, though that last one hasn't come up very often. Some of them seem to be grouped together as well: Wind and Lightning, Water and Ice, etc. Mages tend to have a particular affinity for one or two elements, and find it difficult (though not impossible) to cast spells of a different one. Some spells also combine elements: Jovis Tempestas Fulguriens is Lightning/Wind, while Incendium Gehennae is Darkness/Fire.
- In One Piece:
- Logia Devil Fruits let their users turn into whatever element they're given, as well as create huge amounts of them out of nothing and manipulate it. However, this includes more than the basic elements as a result of the Logia's official definition being the loose concept of "Forces of Nature", which means bizarre "elements" such as Smoke, Swamp, and Gas get a pass. Oddly, Fire is the only classical element that has appeared yet.note ; seen so far were:
- There are also three non-canon ones:
- An unknown liquid
- Candy syrup
- Paper
- It's unlikely that water will show up because it's such a story-breaker power within the setting. The reason why earth and air don't seem to show up is that the Fruits seem to focus on specific parts of air (smoke and gas) and earth (these are in the Paramecia-class where one person was able to turn his body into diamond, though he couldn't produce it, and another person who has the ability to assimilate rock and earth).
- Later in the series it's revealed that Kaido's Mythical Zoan Fruit (which allows him to transform into a gigantic Azure Dragon) has the side-effect of giving him control over many different elements of nature: he produces "Dragon Clouds" made of flame he can use to fly or make anything float, as well as emitting a scorching hot Breath Weapon. He can summon lightning bolts, ice (non-canon) and wind, either in the form of massive tornadoes, slicing blades of air or tornadoes coated in slicing blades of air.
- As the series goes on, the majority of the Straw Hats begin to fall under this category.
- Zoro develops his first Razor Wind attack near the end of the first saga, and they only grow stronger from there. Bonus points: his hair is green.
- Nami's weapon has been a Weather-Control Machine staff since the end of the second saga, and Shock and Awe is her preferred means of offense.
- Usopp had a versatile arsenal before the time skip, but afterwards, he slings Fantastic Flora.
- Sanji says in his debut arc that no chef worth his salt would be afraid of fire. Foreshadowing early on for the fourth saga when he starts Playing with Fire himself.
- Brook harnesses the power of his Devil Fruit over the time skip, making him An Ice Person...of the Ghostly Chill variety.
- Jimbe, when he joins, has a precedent of Making a Splash with his Fishman Karate.
- Pokémon: The Series has 18 elemental types for its various creatures. These range from conventional elements like Fire, Water, and Electric to very unconventional elements like Bug, Dragon, and Ghost.
- In Reborn to Master the Blade, Runes are special marks that only appear on a handful of people, and that allow them to use magic, magical Artifact weapons, and fight the dangerous Prism Beasts. Each Rune corresponds to a specific element and gives the Rune-holder corresponding powers; for example, Rafinha has Light powers that let her use an Energy Bow that fires arrows of light which travel just as fast as the mundane version.
- Seikon no Qwaser twists the trope by having the characters be able to control actual elements: the main character can control iron, another controls copper, another magnesium, etc. Those capable of controlling oxygen or hydrogen are considered Game Breakers due to how versatile those elements are, and one element user is a Butt-Monkey because his elemental power is control over roentgenium, which can only exist for minutes at a time, and only a few atoms of it have ever been produced in laboratories, so it's useless. Of course, most people remember this series for... other reasons.
- In Sekirei, elemental abilities are condensed among the powerful Single Numbers and the last two Numbers.
- #03 Kazehana is the Sekirei of Wind.
- #05 Mutsu has been shown to be able to create shockwaves and fissues with his sword, suggesting he has earth-related powers.
- #06 Homura is the Sekirei of Flame.
- #07 Akitsu, the Scrapped Number, has ice powers and is Homura's rival.
- #09 Tsukiumi is the Sekirei of Water.
- #11 Hikari and #12 Hibiki are known as the Thunder Twins, because of their lightning powers.
- #107 Shiina has death-related powers, in an example of Dark Is Not Evil.
- #108 Kusano, his younger sister, has a Green Thumb.
- Slayers has the Shamanism discipline, which revolves around connection to elemental spirits. This gives them access to Earth, Air, Water, Fire and Spirit/Astral magic, as well as ice and lightning spells as part of the Water and Air branches, respectively. This makes shamans the Red Mages of the setting, since they have a wide variety of offensive, defensive and utilarian spells in their possession, with their only problem being problems dealing with mazoku.
- Soul Hunter:
- [Four-Element Ensemble]
- The Juttenkun are equipped with Spatial Paopeis known as "Juzetsujin", and act as personal dimensions where they can manipulate the surroundings to kill their victims. Aside from the Kaketsujin (which turns people into toys we have Kosuijin (Corrosive Blood), Kosajin (Sand), Chiretsujin and Tenzetsujin (Earth and Rocks), Kinkojin (Light and Shadows), Fuukojin (Tornado), Kanpyojin (Frost) and Rekkajin (Flames).
- Other elemental-controlling Paopei abound, manipulating Wind (Taikobo's Dashinben), Electricity (Shinkohyo's Raikoben), Gravity (Genshi Tenson's Bankohan), Magma (Kaako), Earth (Dokoson's Doryuuso), Icy Water (Ryukitsu Shoko's Kenkon Muromo) and more, probably.
- In Tokyo Underground, almost everyone of significance possesses some manner of elemental power, including Earth, Water, Fire, Electricity, Magnetism, Gravity, Life, and the all-but-legendary element of Wind.
- Hatoko of When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace possesses Over Element, a power that lets her control fire, water, earth, wind and light. Andou's Dark And Dark can summon a flame though it does nothing but look cool. It's not even hot.
- Yaiba has the Legendary Orbs, with many of them connected to an element and Color-Coded for Your Convenience. They are:
- Raijin Orb (Green/Yellow): the power of thunders and lightnings.
- Fujin Orb (Blue): the power of winds and gusts
- Water Orb (Light Blue): the power of commanding water.
- Golden Orb (Yellow): the power of Transformation.
- Fire Orb (Red): the power of fire and flames.
- Giant Orb (Gray): the power of enlargement
- Dark Orb (Purple): the power of sucking the enemies in the darkness.
- Ice Orb (Whiteish-blue): the power of ice
- Victory Orb (Light Purple): Tells you were to find the others.
- Ryuujin Orb (Multicolored): the power of all the legendary Orbs plus more.
- Heaven Orb (White): the ultimate power of the Supreme King Sword.
- Balefire: Clio and Petra have fire as "their" element. They assume that Clio's twin Thais does too, until a series of disastrous magical events show that her element is water.
- The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: Stone and Wood related powers are the best established due to being the ones favored by the good guys, but other possible "elements" appear to include Fire, Ice, Acid, Lightning, Water, Wind/Sound, Gold, Blood, and Time. There exists also non-elemental magic of pure force, as well as Wild Magic based on White Gold.
- Codex Alera features a fantasy world inhabited by "furies", which are elemental spirits that inhabit most everything. Most people in this world can "craft" at least one fury; talented furycrafters can control two or more or differing elements. Anyone can exert a minimal level of control over most elements, especially if items have been pre-crafted for a specific effect. For instance, a Furylamp is a lamp with a captive fire fury to produce light. Anyone can turn them on or off, even if they have no actual skill at firecrafting. Similarly, anyone can draw on the earth furies in the major roads to let them run at high speed with minimal fatigue — infantry can march up to fifty miles a day with a causeway, whereas without one, a day's march is only six to eight miles. Furycrafting has two aspects. Internal (drawing on an element to improve your abilities) and external (manifesting an actual elemental, or physical effect).
- Earth is specifically about dirt and stone, but not metal. Mentally, Earth is associated with love, lust and contentment. Internal earthcrafting gives great strength and endurance. A talented earthcrafter can literally lift tons of weight. Externally, you can move and reshape dirt and stone. This can be used to create walls (or holes in them), carve ditches, or draw salt up from the earth. Manifested earth furies tend to be large strong quadrupeds, like giant dogs, bulls or just golems.
- Metal is unusual in that it doesn't normally manifest externally. Metalcrafters are good at manipulating metal, and tend to work as smiths. A metalcrafter can draw on the "stillness" of metal to control their emotions (becoming dispassionate and flat), as well as to ignore pain, even from crippling wounds. The control of metal makes them master fencers. Not only can they harden the metal of their own swords (letting them cut through stone or even un-fury-hardened steel), but they can both more precisely control their blades, but can sense the nearby presence of metal, letting them know exactly where their opponent's swing is headed so they can block. Master metalcrafters have been shown to have the ability to turn their skin into metal armor, though this is incredibly painful.
- Water is the element of healing and empathy. Watercrafters have a constant level of empathy going on, and with more direct application, can detect lies from almost anyone. They can physically manipulate water to flow uphill or over a riverbank. When an injured person or animal is immersed in water, they can examine the injury from an internal perspective, and heal any number of wounds.
- Fire doesn't have many internal manifestations. The only one really seen is in regulating body temperature, typically keeping warm in winter. Externally, it's most commonly used to shoot fireballs at the enemy, set fires, or to craft heat-related items. Chilling and freezing things is also an application of firecraft. Emotionally, firecraft can be used to generate anger, raise passions, or cause fear and panic.
- Air is associated with intellect. It is said that air furies are fickle with short attention spans, and thus only those with great concentration can master them. Internally, air can be drawn upon for incredible speed and reactions. Externally, the most common application is flight. Proper manipulation of air can also be used to create a magnifying glass for far-seeing, or with enough strength, a veil to conceal from sight. One rarely used application is simply to draw the air out of an opponent's lungs, asphyxiating them.
- Wood is associated with almost all vegetable matter, including leaves, grass, hay, ferns and the like. Woodcrafters are great scouts and trackers, and phenomenal archers. Being able to directly manipulate the wood of their arrows grants them extreme levels of accuracy. They can draw vegetable matter over themselves in veil, using it to manipulate shadows into concealing themselves. With enough strength, they can animate trees into entangling foes.
- Coiling Dragon: People and magical beasts train in the Laws of Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Lightning, Light, and Dark; the Edicts of Life, Death, and Fate; and the Way of Destruction. Gaining insights into these types of magic allows one to create offensive and defensive abilities. In order to become a Saint and, later, a deity, one must increase their mastery of this magic.
- The Crush has the "chosen", who can manipulate either air, earth, fire, metal, or water. The United Nations has an entire division devoted to making use of them.
- Cursed World has Mancies, which are inherant supernatural abilities to manipulate the elements or thematic abilities tied to them. The first book, Initial Sparks, introduces Pyromancers, Ferromancers, Shadowmancers, and Sanquinmancers. Magic, learned supernatural abilities, can also maniulate the elements and there's a wizard with wind magic.
- The Cycle of Fire has particularly powerful elemental magic. The Stormwarden, who uses only air and water, can create a storm fierce enough to melt rock through sheer friction. The Firelord, who uses only earth and fire, kills the Big Bad with a explosion hotter than the heart of a star.
- The Dresden Files:
- Harry Dresden generally conjures wind when he wants to move something or pull his punches and fire when he really wants something destroyed quickly. He also rarely calls on earth magic (in such aspects as magnetism and moving gravity for a moment) but considers that element "difficult, powerful, and dangerous" to deal with. Later on he becomes more adept at using force magic. Beginning with Changes, he adds added ice to his repertoire due to becoming the Winter Knight.
- Morgan used earth magic in combat, although it was rarely seen directly in the novels. It's mentioned once or twice that Harry knows he wouldn't stand a chance against Morgan in straight-up combat, although this is probably mostly just due to Morgan's skill and experience rather than their elements.
- Harry's friend Carlos Ramirez balances Harry in that he possesses an elemental power that Harry doesn't have (water) and a power that may or may not be an element in the Dresdenverse — entropy. When the two wizards are working together, they seriously kick ass. Entropy is described a part of water magic, essentially enhancing water's natural dissolving properties by an order of magnitude.
- Elemental Assassin has a slightly abnormal elemental system. Instead of Earth/Air/Water/Fire, it uses Stone/Air/Ice/Fire. The protagonist, Gin, is a dual element user — Stone/Ice.
- Elemental Blessings features the Kingdom of Welce, where every citizen is personally aligned with one of the five elements;elay or air, coru or water, hunti or wood, sweela or fire, and torz or earth. The Five Primes, heads of the most powerful families in the country, are more traditional examples, having direct control over their personal element.
- Elementals of The Empirium Trilogy are humans who have power of one of seven available elements: air, fire, earth, water, shadow, light, and metal.
- Fighting Fantasy features the Seven Serpents, seven giant winged snakes with specific powers over different elements — Earth, Fire, Air, Water, Sun, Moon, and Time. They are the main antagonists in the third book of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! series, and the player must defeat them so news of their mission won't get back to the series' Big Bad. Fortunately, the Serpents' elemental powers also give them each specific weaknesses, which skilled adventurers can exploit.
- Forging Divinity: Sorcerers make use of Dominions, which relate to specific concepts. Some of these are simple elements like Flame and Metal. Others are more esoteric, like Sight or Knowledge.
- The Locksmith uses the four classic elements for its magic guilds.
- Magical Annals: Elemental magic is one of the various types of magic in the books. The strengths, weaknesses and some personality resemblances to the elements is apparent throughout. The ensemble is traditional and then some.
- The elements include fire, water, earth, wind, light, dark, metal, ice, wood, lightning.
- Windfire is talented with fire and light especially.
- She is warm, passionate and rebellious.
- Windfire also suffers a horrific weakness to water. To an extreme degree since she almost drowns multiple times in her life.
- Malediction Trilogy: Witches can use the elements (earth, air, water and fire) to power their spells. The element used depends on the spell, sometimes all of them are used for more complicated spells.
- Of Fire and Stars: Magic is divided into different Affinities, which includes those for air, earth, fire and water magic. It also adds less common elements of shadow and spirit.
- Pale: Elementalism is a subset of wider spiritual practices. The four classical elements are present, but there is often a fifth element in major rituals (though what it actually is varies; iron or wood are the most common but Lucy Ellingson favors smoke). Elemental practices can produce powerful physical effects for little cost, which is rare for magical practitioners who tend to favor subtler or less overtly obvious magic to help maintain The Masquerade.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians:
- Various demigods can use the elements as based on their parentage. Percy, the son of Poseidon, controls water and earth, to an extent; Thalia and Jason, children of Zeus/ Jupiter control lightning (and Jason, air, as Thalia, despite being his sister, is afraid of heights); Leo, son of Hephaestus, controls fire; Nico and Hazel, children of Hades and Pluto control earth and death, and children of Demeter control plants. This doesn't even go into the all powerful gods and titans roaming around....
- The Kane Chronicles: Some characters like Zia Rashid control fire with Egyptian magic. Here, however, the fifth element is said to be cheese... but as this is Rick Riordan it's possible that that's a joke.
- Raveleijn, a children's book by the Dutch author Paul van Loon (which was also adapted into a tv-miniseries), resolves around five siblings who find a magic gate that transports them all back to medieval times, and turns them into adult knights with the powers of fire, water, metal, wood and earth.
- The Runelords: Air and fire are usually treated as the "bad" elements, since they're chaotic and inspire chaos and madness in their wielders (and fire inspires its wielders to be destructive, because they can draw strength from other fires), while earth and water are the "good" elements, since both are considered stable and even nurturing. The hero of the first part of the series was the powerful Earth King, fighting to avert The End of the World as We Know It at the hands of Fire and Air worshipers. The second series is much less black-and-white. The Earth King's son is a fire mage; the son's challenges lie as much in controlling his rampant power as in fighting evil. We find out that Fire has powers that can be used for good, including doing one thing that nobody has ever been known to do with Earth powers: kill a Locus.
- Seven Elements Of Creation: Elements are central to the plot. Each of the seven elements chooses one of the seven heroes to be its agents in order to fight those who would destroy all of Creation. The young space pilot Danila Timokhin becomes the agent of Life; Père, a wisp-like creature that befriended Danila as a boy, is chosen by Air; Yulia Strizh, a female gunner, is favored by Water; an interdimentional Intermediary named Seraphima Kaliada is selected by Cosmos (or Void); twins Greg and Gor (usually simply called Greg-Gor, as they have one consciousness) become agents of Fire; his/their brother Olivul Ber-Ross, the White Knight, is chosen by Earth; his cousin Donai Dierbrook (Yulia's brother), initially the heroes' antagonist, changes his title from the Black Knight to the Red Knight and takes up the cause of Death (Death is not inherently evil; it is merely a necessary counterpart to Life). These seven fly around in an interdimensional ship, the Winged Wolf.
- Seven Kennings: People can enter a trial's site and potentially be blessed with a kenning (power) related to the element. However, there's nothing that can be done to favor being blessed as it's random and deadly e.g. the trial of fire consist into jumping into a certain volcano. The blessed come out unharmed but the others die quickly.
Whichever power is received, they also become immune to harm from their element.- Fire will never be burned.
- Water will never drowned.
- Earth will never be crushed or harmed by rocks.
- Wind will never be harmed by the air, including never being too hot or cold.
- Plant will never be harmed by plants (however, a plant they use, a very voracious carnivorous flower, will try to bite them if they get too close before "releasing they're off limits").
- Animals will never be harmed by animals (including insects' bites) which they can extend to their fellow travelers (which is helpful as the region is very dangerous because of animals, even at night).
- Shadow Ops features Latents with powers that include Hydromancy, Terramancy, Pyromancy and Aeromancy.
- Skulduggery Pleasant: Elemental magic is based around manipulating the four elements, with air being used to push things, cushion landings and (at a more advanced stage) to fly, fire just conjures fire, etc. Water and earth are apparently harder to learn, and less useful in most situations. Adepts use Non-Elemental magic instead, which is never described in much detail. There are also various other miscellaneous fields of magic used by select groups, like Necromancy.
- The Sovereign Stone: Magic is divided into elemental disciplines, each of which is associated with (and can usually only be used by) a particular race — humans have Earth, elves have Air, dwarves have Fire, and orks have Water. There is also Void magic, which anyone can learn to use, but is forbidden in most of the world; eventually it's revealed that Void is associated with a fifth race, the taan.
- Stories of Nypre: All magic is based off of the four elements: Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth. There are also what are called sub elements for things such as lightning and ice.
- The Stormlight Archive: Soulcasting is a form of magic that allows turning one substance into another (vaguely resembling Alchemy from Fullmetal Alchemist), and is based around ten elements: Zephyr , Vapor , Spark , Lucentia , Pulp , Blood , Tallow , Foil , Talus and Sinew .
- Sunshine: The titular protagonist is a magic-user whose abilities are connected to sunlight. This is described as an unusual elemental affinity that falls somewhere between air and fire. It is explained that in this book's universe, being a magic-user associated with a certain element gives you resistance to anything that element opposes or neutralizes. For example, a magic-user affiliated with Water would make a good firefighter, and a mage associated with Sun would make a good vampire hunter.
- A Swiftly Tilting Planet: Played With. There is an invocation called the Rune of Saint Patrick that calls on a surprising number of classic elemental powers, but generally only one or two powers actually get used at a time, e.g. lightning burning a church down and ending a Witch Hunt.
- The Tales of Alvin Maker: There are torches (fire), doodlebugs (earth), Making and Unmaking, as well as the Indians' Song of the Green. There are also references to earth-fire-air-water... unusually, water is the one considered to be inherently destructive.
- Tales of the Branion Realm: The four elements (Flame, Wind, Sea and Oaks) are actually divine, with one of them controlled by a human avatar. This probably shouldn't have been able to happen, and the possibility of destroying the world is dangerous enough that anyone else who tries it is treated as a heretic.
- Vampire Academy: All of the Moroi specialize in one of the four elements. Well, all except for those who specialize in Spirit, which people used to think was not specializing at all.
- The Witch Watch: Wizards can invoke the "primal forces of nature". Normally fire, but wind and rain have been known to occur too and there are rumours of wizards commanding even lightning.
- Wrong Time for Dragons has four elemental clans whose power is strongly affected by the time of day. The central point of the novel is that the protagonist must absorb the elemental power of each of the elemental clans in order to become the Dragonslayer before the next Dragon invasion. Other magical clans exist as well, of the animal variety, but they are small and weak compared to the elementals. However, the Cat Clan plays a major role in the novel.
- After Armageddon Gaiden: Each one of the five main characters has control of a specific element of magic. Radune is Wind (which includes lightning), Jokos is Fire, Dhalzam is Earth, Freya is Water (including ice), and Loperus is Nothingness.
- All over the place in Arcana Heart, with each of the Arcana representing a particular element — fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, and yes...even "heart" (it's more dangerous than it sounds...Take Our Word for It). Each of the girls has their particular preference, but the player can use whatever Arcana they want when selecting a character.
- Armageddon (MUD) has six kinds of elementalists, all getting an in-universe name:
- Vivaduans are the game's resident water mages, whose spells focus on healing and restoration.
- Rukkians use the earth element's powers, and are said to have spells good at protecting people.
- Whirans control the element of air, and use magicks useful for transportation and stealth.
- Krathi can channel the powers of fire, which is used mostly to deal death and destroy.
- Drovians are those mages who use the shadow element, and are described as a secretive, elusive lot.
- Elkrosians use both energy and electricity in the spells they cast, with spells focused on great bursts of force.
- Nilazi deserve mention for not controlling an actual element, but more a pseudo-element that is anathema to all the other magickers' powers.
- Battle High is a Fighting Game where all characters have some sort of elemental power. The neat thing is, every character uses their powers differently, so no two characters fight alike, even if they have the same element.
- Brave Frontier has six: Fire, Water Earth, Thunder, Light and Dark. Each summons can be of one element and has a simple advantage and disadvantage to one or two others.
- City of Heroes has multiple powersets for using many elements for ranged and melee attacks, defensive armors, controls, and buffs and debuffs. Elements available include Fire, Wind (Storm), Electricity, Ice, Darkness, Energy, and one of the few heroic examples of Radiation, used by one unambiguously heroic character.
- The Denpa Men has eight different elements: Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth, Electricity, Water, Light, and Darkness. Magic antennas correspond to these elements (as well as the Denpa Men's body colors). All but Darkness are common, but to make up for it, Dark is an extremely powerful element offensively. Very few enemies resist Dark-type attacks, and many are outright weak to them.
- Some gear you can give your Denpa Man will change the element of its physical attack (normally typeless). For example, a pair of Shock Gloves will give your Denpa Man more physical strength AND an Electric-type physical attack.
- In The Denpa Men 3: The Rise of Digitoll, there are dual-type magic antennas. Under very specific circumstances, a Denpa Man's party-wide magic antenna can evolve into a different antenna with a different name and design, an extra element, and more power.
- In Destiny, magic is divided into two categories — Light and Darkness — based which of those two fields one draws power from. Both types manifest in three elemental forms; Light comes in Solar (Fire), Arc (Electricity), and Void, while Darkness comes in Stasis (Ice), Strand (Soul), and a yet to be revealed third. There are other elements mentioned in the lore, but these are the ones that the Guardians have learned to use so far. It's later elaborated that the difference between the two categories is that Light embodies physical, material phenomena, while Darkness embodies more abstract and psychic concepts. Both are rather more esoteric than typical for this trope and it's noted that the elemental "spells" are really more like manifestations of complex fundamental forces; Solar, for instance, is really more like Entropy magic while Stasis is ice magic because that represents the enforcement of order, control, and, well, stasis.
- In the Devil May Cry series, elements are all over the place with the Devil Arms (the weapon and its original demon form otherwise), ranging from fire, to wind, to ice, to thunder and lightning, or to light. Some entities even use a combination of these elements, such as Agni & Rudra in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening who can channel fire or wind respectively, or both when the other dies. Also, many of the demons themselves are often stated to use determinated elements in order to appear in a solid form, while the others can wield specific elements as parts of their attacks and abilities.
- Dragon Age
- In Dragon Age II, elements aren't considered polar opposites, but allied. Learning Fire and Ice together, or Earth and Lightning (a more spectacular manifestation of Air) improves mastery of both. There's also the Spirit element, and the Force school amplifies the side effects of all elements (Fire burns, Ice freezes, Earth knocks down and Lightning stuns.)
- Dragon Age: Inquisition makes Fire and Ice separate skill trees, and gives Lightning (Storm) a tree to itself, removing Earth altogether.
- The Dragon Quest series has most of the basic elements but divides them up based on character class or type. Wizards only get fire and ice magics, while clerics get wind and dark magics. The hero is associated with lightning. In fact, only the hero and the hero class can learn lightning magic. Of the standard four elements earth is extremely uncommon. Offensive light magic as a counter to dark is also pretty rare though the role is partially taken up by the lightning element.
- The elements Fire, Water, Air and Earth appear in the game Dragon Rage, though only Ceal Cyndar and General Mandek can use them all.
- Drakensang: In Drakensang 2: Phileasson's Secret, at one point you have to learn and use the powers of the six elven elements of Tie'Shianna, first in a series of room to complete a labyrinth, and then in a boss battle. The elements (and respective power ups) are:
- Fire: Burns through your veins, increasing your might and boosting your attack.
- Air: The winds of freedom storms the enemies, unleashing allies on them.
- Ice: Freezes the blood of your enemies, injuring them.
- Earth: Embraces you with the warmth of life, covering the battlefield with a healing aura.
- Water: The everchanging element breaks through the defense of your foes.
- Stone: The might of stone will stop your enemies (or, in the boss battle, prevent him from summoning reinforcements).
- The Monk class in Dungeons & Dragons Online come stock with elemental attacks in Air, Fire, Earth, and Water, which adds electric, fire, acid and cold damage to attacks, respectively. Combining or repeating some attacks yield special results, such as shooting flames from your hand. Offensive/defense stances based on the elements are included, too. Earth gives best defense, Fire gives best strength to damage, Wind generates the fastest and most prolific attacks, and Water generates the best offensive/defensive balance. A Void attack is optionally available, which, in its ultimate form, sends a foe out of existence. Special attacks that generate light, force and negative energy damage make the class nearly a Trope Codifier, were it not for the online game's relative youth.
- Elemental damage powers are common in the game. Acid, cold, lightning, and fire attacks are associated with earth, water, air, and (of course) fire, respectively. There are also Sonic and Force attacks, which are treated like the other "energy" attacks but are not associated with an element.
- Dungeons of Dredmor, given its very silly place on the Sliding Scale of Seriousness Versus Silliness, has some rather odd damage types, though even its normal elements are oddly named:
- Conflagratory: Fire. The entire Promethean Magic school focuses on spells to burn everything, though this isn't always a good thing.
- Hyperborean: Ice.
- Voltaic: Lightning. Often found with Viking Wizardry, courtesy of Thor.
- Toxic: Self-explanatory, and one of Fleshsmithing's two main ways of hurting things.
- Righteous: Sometimes Light, sometimes Holy. Astrology uses a lot of it, as does demonology, at first.
- Necromantic: Self-explanatory. Necronomiconomics loves this damage type, and you'll be facing it a lot.
- Acidic: Self-explanatory
- Putrefying: The other part of Fleshsmithing's damage output, rots the flesh off the target. Often found with, but otherwise unrelated to, necromantic damage.
- Transmutative: Attacks like turning chunks of your opponent into gold coins or just plain re-arranging their atoms. Combines elements of radiation and Pure Energy. Mathemagic loves this one, and it's common among magical staves as well.
- Aethereal: Magic from the stars, one of the primary damage types dealt by Astrology.
- Asphyxiative: Anything you risk choking to death on.
- Existential: Sort-of psychic, sort of darkness, and rarely seen outside of Emomancy.
- In Earth and Sky, Austin and Emily wear superpower-granting suits with elemental themes: the earthsuit gives Austin super-strength, damage resistance, and the ability to leap great distances; the skysuit gives Emily the power of flight and the ability to generate fog and lightning. The final chapter of the series reveals that there are also fire and water themed suits, worn by Austin and Emily's parents, the long-missing creators of the suits.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- This is present in the series' Destruction school of magic. The three elemental types are Fire, Frost, and Shock. While the exact effects of each type vary depending on the game, they generally follow the following formula: Fire spells tend to deal the most direct damage, cost the least Magicka to use, and often have the effect of continuing to burn the target for some time after the initial impact. Frost spells tend to do the least direct damage, but typically have secondary effects of slowing the movement speed of targets after they've been hit as well as draining the target's Stamina. This makes Frost spells especially effective against enemy melee combatants. Shock spells typically deal damage somewhere in between Fire and Frost, cost the most Magicka, (if ranged) sometimes strike instantly (similar to a hitscan attack), and sometimes drain Magicka in addition to damaging health. This makes Shock spells especially effective against enemy spellcasters. A fourth "element" covered by the Destruction school is Poison-based magic, which often deals little direct damage but drains the health of the target over a longer period of time.
- [Elemental Embodiments]
- The "Dragonborn" DLC in Skyrim adds a Destruction spell that knocks back enemies in melee range with a whirlwind.
- The Elder Scrolls also uses the Greek four, plus light. Relmyna Verenim in Shivering Isles believes she's found a sixth element, flesh.
- In Elemental Master for the Sega Genesis, Laden starts out as a user of Light magic, and through completing stages gains access to Fire, Wind, Earth and Water as well.
- Fake Happy End: Everyone except the protagonist learns elemental spells through leveling up, though the protagonist gets an extra Soul slot to give them access to two elements anyways.
- Light spells specialize in HP draining and status recovery. Karin can learn spells of this element naturally.
- Dark spells specialize in dealing AP damage and reviving allies.
- Fire spells specialize in manipulating the attack value of both allies and enemies. Mishika can learn spells of this element naturally.
- Water spells specialize in granting AP decay or AP regen.
- Nature spells specialize in manipulating HP decay or HP regen.
- Bolt spells specialize in manipulating speed.
- Air spells specialize in acting at the start of a turn and immediately healing AP. Aeri can learn spells of this element naturally.
- Ice spells specialize in manipulating defense.
- Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts:
- Black Magic is usually based around Elemental Powers, with Thunder, Blizzard, and Fire being common Black Magic spells. Less commonly, Holy, Dark, Wind, Earth, and Water are also mixed in.
- Blue Mages or other casters not directly connected to the classic classes often cover the more unusual elements. White Mages often get Holy, though.
- "Gravity" is a class of spells which deals percentage-based damage but is generally not directly associated with an element (unless it's associated with Darkness, in which case it takes off an extra fraction of damage to those weak against it). There are also countless "non-elemental" spells like Flare and Ultima.
- In Final Fantasy, the last boss Chaos has the powers of the four elemental fiends at his command, and thus uses the powerful elemental spells Blaze, Tsunami, Tornado and Earthquake. This is echoed in Dissidia Final Fantasy, where Chaos' original form Garland has these spells as well. What's more, Garland's Swiss-Army Weapon has four alternate forms, each symbolizing an element, and he uses each form to launch that element's attack.
- In Genji: Dawn of a Samurai there are four basic elements which can be use both by the player and the enemies and each of them has a status effect and color: Fire (Red, set ablaze), Ice (Blue, freeze), Lightning (Yellow, paralyze) and Poison (Purple, intoxicate).
- In Genshin Impact, the seven elements are Hydro, Dendro, Pyro, Cryo, Electro, Anemo, and Geo. They have a wide variety of interactions, like Electro and Pyro causing explosions or Anemo spreading other elements' effects.
- The Golden Sun series:
- [...]
- Nearly all of the major characters are "Adepts" with elemental powers, and the player gets one or two party members per element. It also tends to follow the Personality Powers connotations, with (for example) Ivan (Air, which includes lightning attacks here) being quiet and thoughtful, most Fire Adepts tending to be brash and aggressive, water (and ice too) characters being more even and level-headed, and of course Isaac, Felix, and Matthew (Earth) being Heroic Mimes. The game categorizes all the magic as one of these four elements, with one exception, even when there's not much of a link between the spell and the element (i.e. stat-in/decreasing spells and some of the puzzle-solving ones). None of the other elements get used, actually.
- Golden Sun: Dark Dawn ends by adding light and darkness to the setting. We can only guess how they'll play into future installments of the series.
- Grid Warrior has eight: Fire, Ice, Water, Lightning, Earth, Wind, Light and Virus/Darkness. Each element specializes in a certain aspect — Fire deals heavy damage, Ice slows enemies, Water deals area knockback, Lightning penetrates armor, Earth has Anti-Air and Stun, Wind destroys projectiles, Light slows along with homing projectiles and Virus/Darkness causes a poison effect.
- Grim Dawn has many powers. Maximizing all resistances can be very challenging especially in higher difficulties. The powers are: Fire, Cold, Lightning, Acid (with Poison as its long-term counterpart), Vitality (health-draining effects coming from both necromantic artes and contact with the Ch'thonic void), Aether (often brought in by Aetherial spirits and raw magic) and Chaos (seen in both Voidborne and Hellish magics as well as raw primordial energy, usually accompanies fire).
- Elementalists in Guild Wars. They have five spell attributes: Fire, Earth, Air (Most of which are Lightning), Water (Most of which are Ice), and their Primary Attribute, Energy Storage, which gives them a large Energy (mana) pool. It has one offensive spell, Energy Blast, which does more damage based on how much Energy you currently have. Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors isn't invoked much, mainly against some monsters with an obvious elemental bent.
- Mesmers can also perhaps be called in here, invoking a strange mix of Heart and Mind, collectively designated Chaos, and they excel at making life for other people miserable by turning their own powers against them, sabotaging those powers, and attacking the very essence of the enemy.
- Rangers also feature a series of Nature Rituals, tying them into Life, and Ritualists use Spirit as their main power source, with some ties to Life.
- The four main sets of damage-dealing spells in the Harry Potter games for the Game Boy Color act as elemental powers. Flipendo is wind, Vermilious is Pure Energy, Verdimilious is electricity, and Incendio is fire.
- Harukanaru Toki no Naka de has a system based off both the Five Elements and the Eight Trigramsnote . The eight characters in the party fit into the Eight Trigrams concept (to the point of it being used in the manga/anime to track down one of them), and their powers are also tied to it, yet the Combination Attacks utilise the Five Elements version (with wood, metal and earth assigned to two characters each — and two of them aren't even tied to the same holy beast).
- Jewel Master, a fantasy-themed game where you're on a quest to collect twelve magical rings granting you control over the elements, from throwing fireballs to creating earthquakes and summoning ice shards. And in the final stage, you fight four statue guardians, each with their own elemental powers as well, in respective order, fire, water, earth and wind, where your ring's elements can counter your opponents' when combined correctly.
- Kameo from Kameo: Elements of Power uses her powers to transform into ten Elemental Warriors related to Plant (Pummel Weed and Snare), Earth (Major Ruin and Rubble), Ice (Chilla and 40 Below), Water (Deep Blue and Flex), and Fire (Ash and Thermite).
- In Kingdom Hearts, Organization XIII members have their own "attribute". Most of the time, they use elemental attacks based on their attribute. Axel controls fire, Demyx controls water, Xaldin controls wind, etc. Others just use their attribute as a source of power (Saïx), or visual motifs (Marluxia). Or it's just very tangentially related to their fighting style (Luxord's timer is the extent of his time attribute). In Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, these elements are extended to Heartless enemies as well, and each one is given a status effect.
- Nothingness: Xemnas. Can null your defense in 358/2 Days.
- Space: Xigbar. Can "shoe-glue" you in 358/2 Days, preventing you from jumping.
- Wind: Xaldin. Can "air-toss" you, making you fall to the ground if you're in the air.
- Ice: Vexen. Can freeze you in 358/2 Days.
- Earth: Lexaeus. Can halve your health in 358/2 Days.
- Illusion: Zexion. Can "flip-foot" you in 358/2 Days, reversing your controls.
- Moon: Saïx. Can silence you in 358/2 Days, preventing you from casting magic.
- Fire: Axel. Can ignite you in 358/2 Days, making you lose small amounts of health at intervals.
- Water: Demyx. Can damage-drain you, healing the enemy if you get hit by their water attack.
- Time: Luxord. Can rewind your defense in 358/2 Days, setting your defense back to what it was at level 1.
- Flower: Marluxia. Can blind you in 358/2 Days, making you miss enemies much more often.
- Lightning: Larxene. Can shock you in 358/2 Days.
- Light: Roxas and Xion. Can zap your radar in 358/2 Days, messing with your minimap.
- In Kingdom of Loathing, there are the five elements of Hot, Cold, Spooky, Stench, and Sleaze, with rare occurrences of Bad Spelling and Shadow (the former used by creatures parodying the Internet like Flaming Trolls and Spam Witches, the latter used, appropriately, by your Shadow).
- The Legend of Zelda:
- The series have had such powers exhibited to at least a minor extent by the Sages ever since The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, with the Sages of Forest, Fire, Water, Spirit, Shadow, and Light. In addition, the three Golden Goddesses Din (fire and earth), Nayru (water), and Farore (air and wood) are said to have created the world with these powers.
- In The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Link can obtain four magic rods (Fire Rod, Ice Rod, Tornado Rod and Sand Rod), which also roughly correspond to the Four Elements (fire, water, air and earth). Some of them existed before, but this is the first time he's been able to obtain the whole set.
- [...]
- In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the Divine Beasts have the power to control different elements. Fire and magma for Rudania. Water and ice for Ruta. Wind for Medoh. Earth and lightning for Naboris.
- [...]
- Light Crusader has Air, Fire, Earth and Water. You can mix the elements to create unique spells like Needlecrack.
- Loser Reborn: The game has only two elements, fire and lightning. All armor is resistant to one of these elements while being weak to the other, forcing the player to consider their characters' elemental weaknesses when going up against rogues and wizards. Rogue classes also have access to a field effect that can shift everyone's elemental resistances one way or the other.
- Luminous Plume: The elements in this game include electric, fire, ice, wind, shadow, light, and spirit. Raven has access to all of these elements except for ice.
- Fire techs tend to have higher damage multipliers.
- Electric techs have higher hitstun.
- Wind techs tend to be ranged and have higher crit chance when it hits a target's back.
- Ice techs have a chance of inflicting the frozen status.
- Light techs have a chance to remove the target's buffs.
- Shadow techs have a chance to inflict the haunted ailment, which weakens the target's damage.
- Spirit techs don't have a consistent property.
- The Magical Vacation series really stretches the definition of what counts as "Elemental Powers", with characters having powers over Sound, Beauty, Poison, Bug, Beast, Machinery, and Love along with the more traditional ones. The sequal simplifies it to Air, Earth, Water, Grass, Fire, Light and Dark.
- Magicka's magick system is entirely based around combining eight elements, each with different properties and effects, (including opposites with which they cannot be combined) to create your own spells.
- Water: Creates a spray that makes targets wet and pushes them around, but does no damage on its own. Opposite of Lightning.
- Life: Heals things (except undead, which it hurts). Opposite of Arcane.
- Shield: Creates a barrier out of energy. When combined with other elements, makes barriers out of those elements. Can also be used to make personal shields, elemental resistance auras, and landmines.
- Cold: Creates a spray that chills enemies, and freezes them if they are wet. Can also be used to freeze water, making bridges. Opposite of Fire.
- Lightning: Electrocutes people, jumps between targets, does extra damage to wet targets. Opposite of Water and Earth.
- Arcane: Fires beams of energy, and turns whatever it's combined with into a beam. Opposite of Life.
- Earth: Fires boulders, and turns whatever it's combined with into a projectile. Opposite of Lightning.
- Fire: Creates a spray that sets things on fire. Opposite of Cold.
- There are also two elements that can be made by combining other elements. Ice (Water+Cold) has similar properties to Earth, but fires a spread of projectiles. Steam (Water+Fire) acts like Water but has no opposites, and is used in the recipes of Magicks related to air, weather, or the sky.
- If you cast a spell with no elements selected it uses Air, which pushes once and does no damage.
- There was originally a Poison element that was removed from the players' arsenal due to being overpowered, but is still used by certain weapons and enemies that give a Poison effect, and there's one section where you fight Elementals attributed to Water, Life, Cold, Lightning, Arcane, Fire, and Poison.
- Manafinder: Lambda and human enemies can imbue themselves with elemental ores, which include fire, water, thunder, earth, ice, light, and dark. This causes each physical hit from them to be followed by a magic hit and changes their elemental resistances.
- Master of Magic is halfway between here and there. It got 5 types of magic, but in the sense of "Resist Elements" spell and suchlike elemental damage is caused by Chaos (fire bolt, lightning bolt) and Nature (ice bolt, call lightning) magic. Summoneble elementals are Air (in Sorcery), Earth (in Nature) and Fire (in Chaos) — Water is absent.
- Mega Man:
- [...]
- Mega Man 2 had bosses based on four of the 5 chinese elements AND three of the 4 classical elements:
- Metal Man: Metal (obviously)
- Wood Man: Wood (obviously)
- Bubble Man: Water
- Heat Man: Fire
- Air Man: Air
- It also had a Time Master in Flash Man, who was also An Ice Person and Crash Man.
- [...]
- Mega Man X had bosses that represented 8 of the elements:
- Chill Penguin: Ice
- Spark Mandrill: Electricity
- Armored Armadillo: Earth
- Launch Octopus: Water
- Flame Mammoth: Fire
- Storm Eagle: Wind
- Sting Chameleon: Light (his weapon is an optical laser of sorts)
- Boomer Kuwanger: Probably the odd one out, but could be Darkness as he employs frequent ninja tactics.
- Both Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 have these elemental powers: Fire, Cold, Electricity, Acid, Sonic, Magic, Divine, Positive energy and Negative energy.
- Wizeman from NiGHTS into Dreams… uses fireballs, ice balls, waves of boulders, and tornadoes against the Visitors, hitting the four basic elements.
- In Nioh, the Guardian Spirits and a few Yokai are based on different elements, usually each with a related status effect. These include: Fire (Scorched, suffers damage over time), Water (Saturated, suffers 20% more physical damage), Earth (Muddied,suffers double damage from Ki attacks), Wind (Blustered, weakens attack and defense) and Lightning (Electrified, slows down movement).
- Octopath Traveler:
- "Magic" attacks are referred to as "Elemental" attacks. Most of the jobs are capable of using at least one Elemental attack:
- Clerics use the element of light, which they can cast on a single enemy or all enemies.
- Scholars use multi-target fire, ice, and lightning spells.
- Merchants have the element of wind, single-target or multi-target
- Warriors are the odd man out and use only physical attacks.
- Dancers use single-target and multi-target darkness abilities.
- Apothecaries have a single-target ice attack.
- Thieves have a single-target fire attack.
- Hunters have a single-target lightning attack.
- Even beyond the eight classes, elements can still show up. Of the four secret classes, a Sorcerer gets access to multi-target attacks of each of the six elements; a Starseer gets one attack that causes Light, Dark, and Wind damage; and a Runelord adds elemental damage to physical attacks, with their Divine skill targeting one enemy with all six elements. The Warmaster is like the Warrior in that the class gets no elemental attacks.
- OFF does have elemental attacks, though the actual elements are Smoke, Metal, Plastic, Meat and Sugar. A few parallels are made, like Metal being earth and Smoke being air, but that's about the extent of it. It's an odd game.
- In Paladin's Quest, there are 8 Elements: Fire, Sky, Light, Spirit, Heart, Air, Earth, Water. All spells (except nine) are made by combining two elements together. Example: Fire + Spirit is "FireG", or "Fire Group". When leaning a new Spirit (element), you suddenly get a batch of new spells. The last, is the ultimate spell only the Hero can learn, because only the Hero ever gets access to the Fire spirit, as there are no Fire or Earth Spirit teachers. The Hero only gets Earth through a scripted dungeon-and-boss.
- The original Plants vs. Zombies started out with just fire and ice plants, whose effects cancel each other out, meaning they couldn't be used effectively together. PVZ also has the unique case of Blover, who can literally Blow You Away. One of the first plants introduced in the sequel is the Lightning Reed, who hits zombies with weak Chain Lightning. By Garden Warfare 2, there are plants encompassing quite a few elements, most notably the different elemental versions of Peashooter. There's Snow Pea, Fire Peashooter, Toxic Pea, Rock Pea, Electro Pea and Shadow Peashooter.
- The Psygnosis RPG Hexx: Heresy of the Wizard has Earth, Chaos, Dragon (fire), and Night. The game lets you pick from sixteen characters — one for each element for each of the four classes. Character alignment affects what spells you can learn.
- The MMORPG Ragnarok Online has 9 elements. Earth, Fire , Wind (most of it is lightning), Water (almost everything of it is ice), Ghost , Holy , Undead , Dark , Poison. There's also neutral. First five are used by Mages, holy by Priest and Crusaders, Poison is utilized by Assassins. Dark and Undead is used by monsters. The game involves Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors and elemental levels, from 1 to 4. The higher the elemental level the more important its elemental weaknesses and strengths. A Water1 monster is highly resistant to fire attacks, but a Water4 is invulnerable to them.
- The Chinese MMORPG Roco Kingdom has a set of Mons as one of its primary elements (no pun intended!), with these Mons, called "pets", each having one or two of several power types that may or may not be based on an elemental power — much like in Pokémon. The possible types include 火 (fire), 水 (water), 电 (electricity), 草 (grass), 冰 (ice), 武 (martial arts), 毒 (poison), 土 (soil), 翼 (wing), 萌 (cute), 虫 (insect), 石 (stone), 幽 (quiet), 龙 (dragon), 恶魔 (demon), 机械 (mechanical), and 光系 (light).
- In RuneScape, the basic spell book divides up offensive spells into wind, water, earth and fire attacks. The Ancient spellbook on the other hand uses smoke, shadow, blood, ice and miasma spells. In addition, all spells are based on Runes. Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Mind and Body Runes can be crafted and used by anybody. Nature, Death, Order, Chaos and Cosmic Runes can only be crafted by Members. Blood, Soul and Astral Runes (and the Life Rune before it was scrapped) can only be crafted or used by Members. There are also Runes made from combining the classical elements: Lava (Earth+Fire), Mud (Earth+Water), Dust (Earth+Air), Smoke (Air+Fire), Mist (Air+Water) and Steam (Water+Fire).
- In Samurai Warriors series there were different elements, each with a determinated power and effect and a fancy japanese name. It affects weapons, but also some characters are more incline to determinated elements than others, and often changes from game to game. Furthermore, some characters have elemental attacks involving Light, Water and Sound. Most of these elements also appeared in Dynasty Warriors
- Fire (Guren, lit. Crinsom Lotus): Set the enemies ablaze and damage them for a while or if in air. Fire users include Yukimura, Magoichi and Okuni
- Ice (Toga, lit. Freezing Fang): Freeze the enemies and make them helpless. Ice users include Ranmaru, Masamune and Nene.
- Thunder (Senko, lit. Light Flash): Stun the enemies and make them crumble. Thunder users include Keiji, Mitsuhide and Ginchiyo.
- Dark (Kyuusei, lit. Absorbtion): Drain the life energy from enemies. First game only.
- Wind (Reppu, lit. Violent Gale): Blow the enemies and increses knockbacks and such. Wind users include Sakon, Yoshihiro and Gracia.
- Demon/Slay (Shura, lit. Massacre): Inflicts damage based on percentage of the enemy life bar. Demon users include Musashi, Hanzo and Nohime.
- Earth (Kongo, lit. Adamant): produces small quakes to extend the range of the attacks and make more combo attacks. Earth users include Naotora, Katsuie and Kagekatsu.
- Sengoku Basara uses elements, but unlike Samurai Warriors above, each character is tied to an element, can channel it through certain aligned weapons (changed in later games) and have elemental-themed techniques. They have:
- Fire: Burns the opponent dealing damage over time.
- Lightning: Shocks opponents and deal damage to nearby enemies.
- Wind: Draw the enemies closer and deals them damage.
- Ice: Freeze the opponents.
- Darkness: Heals the user with each killed mook.
- Light: Break any defense.
- Passion: Confuses enemies, either charming them into becoming allies for a while or forcing them to ignore the player. Only a single character, Sen no Rikyu, has this element (Mitsunari can use it through a downloadable weapon)
- Quake: Releases additional shockwaves which further damage enemies from anywhere. Only two official users in Ashikaga Yoshiteru and Sanada Nobuyuki.
- A number of Sonic the Hedgehog characters are associated with particular elements and have matching attacks:
- Sonic is associated with the wind and can use his speed to produce and manipulate wind.
- Tails is associated with the sky and possesses the ability to fly, as well as a few air-based moves.
- Knuckles is associated with ground and is an expert at digging.
- Blaze is associated with fire, being a pyrokinetic.
- In the first Tales of Symphonia game, there are eight temples for the eight elements, Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Lightning, Ice, Darkness, and Light. Spellcasting characters can use spells from each element except for darkness, which for some reason doesn't have spells usable by playable characters other than one of Sheena's summons late in the game. In the second Tales of Symphonia game, each character is assigned a different element.
- Also in Tales of Symphonia was heart, which the spirit can't be used and there are no techs of the element, but by the sequel the element becomes much more important. Other non-tech elements seen in Tales of in general also included the sea, monsters, origin, and sound.
- In the first Tales of Symphonia game, there are eight temples for the eight elements, Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Lightning, Ice, Darkness, and Light. Spellcasting characters can use spells from each element except for darkness, which for some reason doesn't have spells usable by playable characters other than one of Sheena's summons late in the game. In the second Tales of Symphonia game, each character is assigned a different element.
- The Telepath RPG series uses heat, cold, light, and shadow. "Shadow" is the only one to have a metaphysical component, as the miasma it summons is made of negative thoughts and emotions. Word of God says it also causes chemical corrosion, so Poisonous Person may also apply. Psy fighters usually specialize in one element, and the protagonist of each game can pick up special items that grant a resistance to one of the four.
- Touhou's Patchouli Knowledge is known as the "one-week wizard" for a reason — along with the five oriental elements (fire, water, wood, metal, and earth), she can control solar and lunar power as well (each element corresponds to a day of the week in the Japanese calendar). She can even combine multiple elements for her attacks, up to the five-element "Philosopher's Stone".
- The Trails Series (Kiseki in Japan) uses seven different elements for its system. Interestingly, anyone can invoke elemental powers by using a Combat Orbment, and use any or all elements by fitting appropriate-color quartz into it. There are two tiers; four lower elements (Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth) and three higher elements (Time, Space, and Mirage).
- Fire is represented with the color red, and ruby quartz, and its primarily-offensive spell list ranges from small fireballs to supernova-like explosions.
- Water is represented with the color blue, and sapphire quartz, and primarily invokes healing spells (manifest as purifying drops of water) plus some offensive magic such as water geysers or ice storms.
- Wind is represented with the color green, and emerald quartz, and uses windstorms to blow enemies around, improve allies' movement and agility, or spread the effect of another art over a wide area (i.e., Ao E versions of single-target arts of other elements tend to require a small amount of Wind quartz in addition to the other element). Lightning attacks also fall under the purview of wind.
- Earth is represented with the color brown, and topaz quartz. Besides throwing boulders or creating earthquakes, it can also create protective walls around allies.
- Time is represented with the color black, and onyx quartz. Its support magic, predictably, involves speeding up or slowing down time, but strangely its offensive magic typically invokes dark powers such as blades of darkness or channeling power out of a Hellgate. Time is also associated with instant death effects—as all things die given enough time—and characters who have a mechanical affinity for Time tend to be associated with death.
- Space is represented with the color yellow, and gold quartz. Its primary spells include gravity wells and miniature black holes. As the counterpart to Time, it also sometimes includes light-based magic. True masters of the element, such as Georg Weissmann, can even teleport or temporarily displace people from reality.
- Mirage is represented with the color gray, and silver quartz. The strangest of the elements, Mirage governs cognition and information, and is often associated with the moon. Its repetoire primarily consists of support magic for confusing or debilitating your enemies, information gathering, and a small handful of Pure Energy attacks for offensive presence. Powerful enough Mirage entities, such as the Demiourgos, can alter more than just the perception of reality; they can manipulate actual reality.
- The Elemental class in Twilight Heroes has powers and skills themed on the four classical elements.
- In Ultima VIII: Pagan, much of the plot involves the Avatar learning magical powers related to three of the four elements, only to later defeat the gods responsible for them. You don't get to acquire any water-based powers, since the mastery of that element seems to be an inborn talent of a particular royal family. However, the player can optionally learn Thaumaturgy, a branch of magic particular to a fifth element, Aether.
- Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider has several characters with elemental abilities, most notably the Guardians:
- Flamestalker uses fire abilities like a fire boomerang, a flaming Shoryuken, and a rain of fireballs. Moonrider obtains a flaming boomerang after beating him.
- Hydromancer uses water abilities like shapeshifting into water, or shaping water and throwing them like projectiles. Moonrider gains an Orbiting Particle Shield of water shurikens after beating him.
- Stormdiver uses wind abilities in the form of tornadoes and flight. Moonrider gains a horizontal air vortex after beating her.
- Geocrusher uses earth abilities like a ground punch as well as sending shockwaves across the floor. Moonrider gains a Ground Punch that creates a spread of projectiles after beating him.
- Photondrifter uses light abilities such as firing lasers and bolts of light. Moonrider gains a damaging, fast dash attack after beating him.
- Darkchaser uses darkness abilities which take the form of opening portals of darkness that spawn fleshy tendrils or appendages. Moonrider gains the ability to conjure a portal that extends a shadow tendril after beating her.
- While not a Guardian, Shinjen uses lightning attacks in the form of firing bolt projectiles and summoning lightning bolts.
- Sunseeker uses sun-based abilities like waves of fire and energy balls.
- Visions & Voices has five elements: Cold, Fire, Shock, Necrotic, and Radiant. Five of the playable characters specialize in one element, and one character can switch between light and dark skillsets.
- Warframe
- The game has fourteen elements, each with its own associated Status Effect:
- Three physical elements: Impact (knockback), Puncture (lowers damage dealt) and Slash (Damage Over Time bypassing shields and armor).
- Four primary elements: Heat (damage over time, causes a panic effect plus halved armor), Cold (reduces attack and movement speed), Electricity (chains between enemies and stuns) and Toxin (heavy damage over time).
- Six combined elements: Blast (Heat+Cold, reduces accuracy), Corrosive (Electricity+Toxin, lowers armor per stack up to 80%), Gas (Heat+Toxin, area of effect + dual-effect Toxin), Magnetic (Cold+Electricity, drains energy and increases damage to shields whilst preventing shield regeneration), Radiation (Heat+Electricity, causes enemies to fight each other) and Viral (Cold+Toxin, deal more damage to HP per stack).
- And last but not least, the two Element No. 5, Void (ignores all elemental resistances) and True (ignores everything).
- Many Warframes specialize in some of these elements: Ember has Playing with Fire powers, Frost is An Ice Person, Volt wields Shock and Awe, Saryn is a Poisonous Person. And then there's Lavos, the alchemist Warframe, whose four abilities are each based on the four primary elements, and who can imbue these abilities with any of the 10 elemental damage types.
- The game has fourteen elements, each with its own associated Status Effect:
- The titular heroine of the Shoot 'Em Up arcade game, Sylphia, obtains her powers from Fire, Water, Plant and Earth, which she can collect one of four from the start of each level to rain havoc on her enemies:
- Fire power-ups allows Sylphia to blast fireballs and streams of flames, and further upgrades can release multiple homing fireballs all at once. It's one of the strongest of the four, but it's range is limited.
- Water upgrades have Sylphia shooting blue liquid bubbles that can reach the other side of the screen and can increase in speed after being upgraded.
- Plant power release a wave of razor leaves in assorted sizes. Smaller ones can home in on enemies or become a Reverse Shrapnel that remains on the screen for several seconds.
- Earth is a slightly slower, defense-based power that conjures heavy boulders to be dropped on enemies, with several boulders serving as an Orbiting Particle Shield around Sylphia.
- In The Witcher the classical elements are used in full force by mages (for example, Azar Javed is a fire mage, who attacks with fire, and summons a monster from the planes of fire.). Mad Scientist Kalkstein however mentions he has a theory that is effectively a basic description of atoms.
- Wizards in Witcher's world call upon the elements for
mana pointsmagical power they use for spells. Water is easiest to channel, requiring but to find a ley line, so it's the one taught to wizardry students. Earth requires much strength to get magic from it, while Air is technically difficult. Fire offers great power that is easy to reach, but also is a poster child for With Great Power Comes Great Insanity.
- Wizards in Witcher's world call upon the elements for
- The later games in the Wizardry series, from Bane of the Cosmic Forge onward, use six spheres of magic-fire (also folding in light and general energy), water (including ice), air (involving lots of poison, oddly enough), earth (including acid and wild/nature), mind (lots of weird/limited use spells, but also some directly offensive ones), and magic (which also includes holy/light). Mages mostly specialize in fire and water, alchemists in earth and air, psionics in mind, and priests in magic, but all spellcasters pick up an array of spells from all spheres.
- In World of Warcraft the Shaman class can create elemental "totems" that produce various effects; Earth totems tend to give defensive buffs, Fire ones are usually offensive, Water ones provide healing/restoration effects and Air ones provide a variety of support effects such as acting like a lightning rod for enemy spells. And let's not forget the fact that they can shoot lightning (and lava) from their hands.
- The game is unique in that air and earth count as the same element (nature). It also features Shadow, Arcane (magic) and Holy (which, unlike the other five, has no resistance stat).
- Story-wise, the Warcraft universe contains universal self-aware spirits for each element. The fifth element, and the strongest of all, is
lifeWild. - Note that there doesn't seem to be any connection to the elemental spirits that Shamans get their power from and the damage types in-game; which are the above mentioned Nature, Shadow, Arcane and Holy, plus Fire, Frost and physical damage. Nature in particular seems to be a 'dump' category, including air and earth, but also poisons.
- The schools of magic damage simply don't correspond to anything in particular. Arcane damage is usually dealt by either pure magical energy also known as Mana or by 5 separate elements(collectively called the Schools of Arcane) of created from mathematical equations referred to as Arcane, Displacing Arcane, Fortified Arcane, Replicating Arcane and Time which are used almost exclusively by cerebral mages with, which warps reality in large concentrations — but focused moonlight, a gift from the moon goddess, also deals Arcane damage despite not being anyway related to Arcane. Fire from demons is a completely different thing from fire from elemental forces or a chemical combustion reaction, but it's all Fire damage. Frost damage is dealt by all water elementals everywhere, even on tropical islands. Some earth elementals (that is, with a certain animated rock model) deal Nature damage and some deal Fire damage, if they're found in places where volcanic forces are strong, and somewhere there are probably some that deal physical damage. In addition to some earth elementals, Nature damage also comes from lightning, poison, plant elementals and wildlife-associated spells, Shadow damage comes from Shadow, Fel, Void, Death(created from mathematical equations like Arcane and other Elements of the Schools of Arcane which it is a member of) and strangely enough Life Spells(Ra-Den's spells that use life against the player either do Shadow or Plague AKA Nature/Shadow damage) and Holy damage comes from spells associated with The Light, The Loa and Elune.
- Of course, every spell is connected to an element and most classes have at least two elements used regularly. Exception being the Warrior, who doesn't use anything at all, the Rogue who has poisons and the Paladin who relies solely on Holy spells.
- Storm, Earth, and Fire! Heed my call!
but I don't see any examples in the second folder that couldn't be moved to a more specific element-based subtrope and/or one of the other power-based tropes mentioned in this thread, so I'm not sure why they were brought up.
Because I was responding to them being brought up as a problem in the OP. They're not part of my "orphaned" point, they're part of my "is this problem still occurring?" point.
Edited by Twiddler on May 23rd 2023 at 7:02:27 AM
WarJay77
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
(Troper Knight)
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
#58: May 23rd 2023 at 11:19:42 AM
Eh, the "Schools of Magic" ones can go to this TLP draft here. It's been cooking for a while and anyone who wants to take it over wouldn't have to wait long to launch it.
Malady
(Not-So-Newbie)
#59: May 23rd 2023 at 12:37:46 PM
So, current votes are "Make An Index that's separate from Elements of Nature"...
How would the prospective index be different?
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
WarJay77
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
(Troper Knight)
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
#60: May 23rd 2023 at 12:38:54 PM
That's not what it says?
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
JHD0919
One-Track Mind (he/him)
from a 12-pack of Diet Coke
(Troper in training)
Relationship Status: Abstaining
One-Track Mind (he/him)
#61: May 23rd 2023 at 2:17:14 PM
Was tempted to add a new crowner option just cuz I can, but ultimately decided against doing so.
I previously added a new crowner option over at the NREP cleanup thread, but in that case I had a justified reason for doing so.
This is Idol Tap. (My Troper Wall)
Synchronicity
(4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#62: May 23rd 2023 at 2:38:43 PM
For the record, my original comment about 'setting-specific superpowers' was more in line with the Schools Of Magic draft, really not Elemental Nation. I wasn't talking about "Fire Country, Water Country" etc but that "the rules of the work have it so you can have fire or water powers because the author wanted the magic system to be like this".
I think Twiddler's concern about the the benefit of the combo supertrope is valid though. Cast Speciation / Superhero Speciation probably cover "everyone in the team controls a different elemental power", but I also don't want to see a spate of Random Elemental Grouping drafts in TLP to compensate.
Malady
(Not-So-Newbie)
#63: May 23rd 2023 at 2:59:22 PM
- If "Turn into an index for tropes related to elemental powers" passes and "Redirect to Elements of Nature" fails, that means that we then have the Elemental Powers(Index) and Elements of Nature indexes, but I dunno what the difference between them would be?
Twiddler
(On A Trope Odyssey)
#64: May 23rd 2023 at 3:14:53 PM
Cast Speciation is more specific than "everyone in the team has a different specialization".
Generally speaking, it's bad form to have two major crew members on the show who essentially perform the same job [...] So any character who starts mirroring another too closely will have a different personality which affects the outcome of their work, or will be given a noticeably different job. One way to do this is to make the two rivals, competing to be the best at what they do. In this case, usually one is more friendly and laid-back and the other is more serious and stoic.
themayorofsimpleton
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
from Elsewhere
(Experienced, Not Yet Jaded)
Relationship Status: Abstaining
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
#65: May 23rd 2023 at 6:21:38 PM
If the crowner fails, what do we do next?
TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
GastonRabbit
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
from Robinson, Illinois, USA
(General of TV Troops)
Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#66: May 23rd 2023 at 6:55:47 PM
Close the thread with no action being taken. A cleanup thread could still be made to fix the bad indentation and sort between subtropes; that doesn't need TRS.
Edited by GastonRabbit on May 23rd 2023 at 8:56:07 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
WarJay77
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
(Troper Knight)
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
#67: May 23rd 2023 at 6:58:33 PM
If it'll help, I'm willing to re-adopt the Disciplines of Magic draft and finally let it launch. Just has a lot of crosswicking...
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
(she/her)
#68: May 23rd 2023 at 7:04:09 PM
~JHD 0919 Just so you know, you can't just add options to crowners unilaterally without discussion.
Macron's notes
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
#69: May 23rd 2023 at 7:04:36 PM
If this ends up becoming an index but we don't rename... what's going to stop people from listing it as a trope anyway? Turning this into an index without renaming it is unlikely to solve anything since most tropers won't even realize that anything's changed.
GastonRabbit
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
from Robinson, Illinois, USA
(General of TV Troops)
Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#70: May 23rd 2023 at 7:11:48 PM
Neither turning into an index nor renaming has consensus, so if the ratios stay below the 2:1 mark, we're not doing anything, meaning it would still be a supertrope.
Edited by GastonRabbit on May 23rd 2023 at 9:12:39 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
amathieu13
Since: Aug, 2013
#71: May 23rd 2023 at 11:14:46 PM
Sorry in advance for the long post. I know a crowners been placed, but thinking about the issues with this page some more and I think the root problem is that Elemental Powers is doing double duty right now: it's both a page that explains A) the concept of "The Elements", those things/forces from nature once considered the natural building blocks of life, and B) a page that covers any time "The Elements" manifests as superpowers. Those who want to preserve the page seem to be motivated by the things in A that don't neatly fit into related tropes/more specific subtropes and those that want to disambig/turn into an index/redirect to Elements of Nature are more focused on B, because it is covered by more specific subtropes.
The issue is that while these two things are certainly related, they aren't the same. Many works have characters with element-based powers without the concept of "The Elements" being a relevant factor to the worldbuilding (think the Human Torch from The Fantastic Four or Ice Man from X-Men). In contrast, you can have a world in which The Elements are important but don't manifest in an explicit elemental power or ability. But the page conflates the two and the name doesn't help. And the closest things we have to pages that just discuss the elements are Alchemic Elementals (but that's more specific and completely ignores the Eastern Tradition/classification system which is slightly different) and Four-Element Ensemble (close but it is specific to groups of people with these affinities and again is limited to only the "classical" arrangement).
This might have been what Eddy was trying to get at when they said "elemental embodiment." If that's the case, then I partially agree. I think having a page just about the top-level concept of "The Elements" that would keep all of the examples that align with def A, that aren't also covered by def B makes sense.
But I don't think our current page Elemental Powers should be that, because the name really does read as "elements as superpowers". Maybe something like The Elements, The Classical Elements, or The Natural Elements could work. Honestly, I think Elements of Nature is the best name and we should move that index over to something like The Elements Index. And I do stand by the idea that many examples currently on Elemental Powers are better off moved to the appropriate subtropes and related tropes and not carried over to the new page.
Edited by amathieu13 on May 24th 2023 at 3:50:18 PM
GastonRabbit
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
from Robinson, Illinois, USA
(General of TV Troops)
Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#72: May 24th 2023 at 1:40:58 AM
Why can't that page idea be taken to TLP, possibly with a Projects thread to handle wick migration and the description improvement thread handling trimming the description of Elemental Powers to reduce the redundancy with the proposed new page's description? It explains the elements as part of explaining how elemental powers work, but I'm not seeing how the page is acting as a full-fledged trope for elements in general, as opposed to explaining a related concept. I'm not going to add that proposal to the crowner unless you can explain whether TRS is needed for any of it.
Edit: And as for moving examples to related tropes and subtropes, I already said that's something Projects can do without TRS, but I neglected to mention that it's also something that's already been done with the Wick Cleaning Projects page independently of TRS.
Edit: I looked at the wick check again and I don't see any examples that focus on the elements in general; they all appear to be focusing on powers. If I overlooked anything, it's not a significant enough amount for the new page to be made without starting from scratch via TLP.
Edited by GastonRabbit on May 24th 2023 at 4:03:01 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
amathieu13
Since: Aug, 2013
#73: May 24th 2023 at 2:56:29 AM
- I'm not saying it can't be taken to TLP. i'm just sharing what I think the problem and solution is. How we reach that solution has yet to be decided. Figuring out the issue and how to address it, that's why this thread exists, no? I will say though that you'd likely do it here versus in TLP because:
- if we wanted to do a name migration with Elements of Nature for this new page that'd obviously need TRS permission for a Trope Transplant
- much of the new def for the new page would be taken from Elemental Powers since it's already baked into Elemental Powers' definition. Paragraphs 1, 4, 6, 8, and large chunks of the two folders that details the properties of the different elements you could/would copy over wholesale. However, removing that half would leave Elemental Powers as basically a power only subtrope, i.e. a Super-Trope to all of the individual elemental power trope pages. Since we have debated the usefulness of turning Elemental Powers into a Super-Trope vs. an exampleless Super-Trope vs. disambiging entirely because of the issues shown in the initial wick check, I'm not certain that's a desired outcome. It would require a conversation and a vote, which would be TRS.
Basically you'd handle it here to avoid another Lunacy / The Power Of The Moon debacle[1][2] given just how much the new trope would take from the old one.
Edited by amathieu13 on May 24th 2023 at 6:04:39 AM
GastonRabbit
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
from Robinson, Illinois, USA
(General of TV Troops)
Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#74: May 24th 2023 at 7:10:19 AM
I'm still not convinced that TRS is needed for this page to be made, especially due to what I said about Elemental Powers lacking examples about the elements themselves instead of elemental powers.
Edit: Also, as I previously said about the description for Elemental Powers:
It explains the elements as part of explaining how elemental powers work, but I'm not seeing how the page is acting as a full-fledged trope for elements in general, as opposed to explaining a related concept.
Edit: Also, doing a Trope Transplant for Elements of Nature would require TRS, but it would require a TRS thread for Elements of Nature, not one for a separate page, meaning it's not being done using this thread.
Edited by GastonRabbit on May 24th 2023 at 9:23:11 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
themayorofsimpleton
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
from Elsewhere
(Experienced, Not Yet Jaded)
Relationship Status: Abstaining
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
#75: May 24th 2023 at 8:04:34 AM
Hey I noticed the transplant option isn't on the crowner. If this crowner fails, could another one be made to possibly vote on that?
TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
Trope Repair Shop:
Elements of Nature
28th May '23 2:43:58 AM
Crown Description:
Consensus was to rename Elements Of Nature and convert the page from an index into a supertrope for the concept of elements. What sould Elements Of Nature's new name be?
Total posts: 106
1) I don't like the idea of removing a supertrope and leaving a lot of valid examples (that don't fit a subtrope) with nowhere to go. I would rather do cleanup first and see if the issues persist. Especially because:
2) I suspect that many of the illegal subbullet examples date back to earlier days of the wiki, when indentation was less enforced (or not enforced at all).
I've checked both the "Illegal subbullets" and the "Only one element" folders of the wick check to see when the examples were made. Some were old enough that they predate the page history, so I wasn't able to give an exact date. Also sometimes page content was moved around (e.g. splits, namespace migration) so I had to look around to find the original point it was added (when possible).
Out of 16 examples of illegal indentation:
Out of 7 wicks referring to only one element:
Edited by Twiddler on May 23rd 2023 at 12:17:29 PM