Elemental System- Tying it all Together (2024)

Okay, I had an elemental magic system while, being vague in places, was pretty well established in my work. The elements are:

Fire

Water

Ice (No arguing about this!)

Forest

Earth

Air

Conceived roughly in order. In my continuity (called Melahawk Sea, for those interested), using and mastering an element causes the user's personality to conform to a stereotype associated with it: Fire is hot-headed, impatient, and passionate, Earth is stoic and apathetic, though stable, Forest causes massive mood-swings between depressed and happy, Ice is cold and heartless, though tight-knit, though logical, Water is flighty and gossipy, Air is full of Cloud Cuckoo Landers. It is possible to thwart these personality shifts, but that involves a lot of cultural posturing, eugenics, and propoganda.

Anyway, last night I thought of a way to tie them all together.◊ A triangle of the core three (Earth, Air, and Water) combine to make the tributary three (Fire, Ice, and Forest).

Each element has a little leeway with what falls under their control. Air can also ionize lighting, Earth can also summon acid (Yeah, I cribbed that from 3rd Edition), Forest has empathy with animals, but cannot explicitly control them (Leading the primary users of the magic, Forest Shades, to be the only faction that uses mounted combat. With giant rats), Fire is heat, and can control magma with no small effort, Water extends to most liquids, so they also could control magma, and Ice is really control over cold and by proxy, crystals from snow/ice.

The hexa-triangle-thing as I have it makes sense: Water+Air=Ice, and Water+Earth (Soil) = Forest (Plants). However, I kind of had to stretch Earth+Air = Fire. I justified it by thinking that fire needs two things to consume: oxygen and fuel, such as coal.

I also had the idea to have the elements tied to some sort of magic hormones, because my fantasy world is not in Medieval Stasis, it is advancing. However, this could be weird, but I cannot fully explore that until I know more about what hormones can cause what emotions.

Any thoughts on my ideas and plans? Does my element system actually make any sense, or am I delusional? Anyone know about hormones?

Me and my friend's collaborative webcomic:Forged Men

Well, 'controlling cold' is really just removing heat - and of course, there's the fact that 'hot' and 'cold' are rather subjective - so there would be some overlap with fire and ice.

As for the personality things, that seems to be a nice twist on Personality Powers. Could make for some nice tension, like someone wants to learn magic, but a friend/lover/whatever doesn't want them to because they're afraid of losing them to the magic personality.

The main users of elemental magic are the Umber Shades, and four of the elements (Fire, Ice, Water, and Forest) are tied into their life cycle. Basically, two or three times in their lifetime the start developing a certain elemental disposition, and they gin those powers and their appearance changes accordingly. Most of the time, they go and live with others of their ilk, but sometimes they remain. I have a Shade couple where the pregnant wife is also a Forest Shade. The pregnancy hormones do not help.

Me and my friend's collaborative webcomic:Forged Men

Hormones take a while to do anything. Even adrenaline takes a few seconds to get going and that's strapped to your kidneys. If the magic needs the hormone to work then either the hormone is always on, possibly leading to Power Incontinence , or needs to be be released, leading to a delay as the caster's endocrine system releases the magic hormones into the blood stream.

The quantity of the hormone is also an issue. Unlike neurotransmitters like seretonin, endorphines, and dopamine, hormones need to flood the entire system. Dedicated glands are needed to create enough hormones in order to ensure that the right message gets to the right place. So where does the magic hormone come from? If you can't think of a gland, or don't want to think up a new one, claim the pituatary gland is responsible. God knows that thing makes alot of hormones.

Hormones also have a great deal of say over how we act. They also tend to stick around for a while, think of when you get angry and tend to stay angry for a bit. A magic hormone and it's byproducts could easily alter mood and behavior. It wouldn't differ from person to person all that much but since it is your hormone you can pick any particular mood you want.

What I am saying is that each element would have a different hormone, that builds up within a user's system, allowing them to use powers but altering their personality. The Shades simply do not possess the hormones to perform Earth or Air magic. The temporary, if long, changes they experience over their lifetime are basically chemical imbalances.

Me and my friend's collaborative webcomic:Forged Men

Then add the drug element. Hormone imbalances in our world are solved by medicines and stuff like that.

Don't have the power? get the power...buy it. It could have a whole new depth to your world.

So using magic would therefore deplete someone's supply of magic hormone? Then they'd have to build up their hormone levels?

edited 29th May '13 6:20:54 AM by Belisaurius

Forest sounds like an overly narrow name. Nature might work better.

"Steel wins battles. Gold wins wars."

If I was to tweak this, I would:

1) Speak of "humors" instead of "hormones", it fits better with the elemental thing

2) Make the cycle fire / air / water / ice / earth / wood (instead of forest)

fire creates air (smoke), air creates water (rain), water creates ice, ice creates earth (... ok, not really, but they fit together), earth creates wood, wood creates fire.

And you can have a neat primary cycle of fire / water / earth, and a secondary 'less important' circle of air / ice / wood.

Plus in this version fire is the opposite of ice, which makes way more sense (that's why I moved 'em around). Air being the opposite of earth also makes more sense.