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Join Date 12/2008

Elemental Ideas. No, really, ideas for elements...

I've had it with those bull*censured* nonsensical Helenian elements. Fire/water/air/earth is boring, limiting, and cliched. This thread is where we try to come up with new systems of elements.

As I see it, you know you made a good system where each and every spell you can think of can be neatly categorized. The classic system is rather bad because it works only for spells that deal with said elements, everything else comes out as a sad excuse (I.E. 'Spirit Bending').

Aside the classic system, I can think of only two: the one D&D had, which I think is almost entirely useless and the one used by MoM and M:tG which is unique and thus worth some description.

M:tG had a pentagram of element:

White - life, civilization, humanity, holy and 'goodness'.
Green - nature, growth, life and... well, nature.
Red - chaos, fire, earth, change, chance, destruction
Black - death, un-death, unholy, 'badness', corruption, decay
Blue - air, water, thought, meta-magic, time

The problem, as I see it with the system, is that it tryes to include other systems inside it, and thus loses itself. Why would the chaotic and warlike mermen (sea people) be blue creatures and not red? How come a bi-polar system such a 'good/evil' is included in a penta-polar system? What the hell is an angel who is both black and white? Eh...

Now for the fun part, where i do my best to blow your minds away with my homebrew system.

Or not. I created it as a tool descriptory tool to convey ideas, and it's extremely simplistic.

It goes like this: every spell is definde by four variables: Element, Motion, Force and Chance :

Element - The stuff you're playing with. Fire, water, sound, time, space, thought, emotions, whatever. If you try to make a lightening storm the Element is 'weather', and if you're trying for a sleep spell the Element is 'psychic'.
Motion - The direction of the spell is the end result relative to the starting conditions. Basically, 'awake!' and 'sleep!' are the same spell with reversed Motion. In 'physical' Elements, the spell's Motion is the direction in which the Force was used.
Force - Quite simply, the amount of energy invested in the spell. Can be measured in Mana Points, Joules, Calories or Headaches.
Chance - Since the caster never has complete and total knowladge of the universe, and our reality is rather chaotic on the micro-scale, spells may not always work exactly as intended. The more complicated a system the caster is trying to alter/create/control, the larger the Chance something will get out of control or just end up wrong. This can be thought of as not giving the spell the proper Motion.

Example time: Fireball.

Element - Fire.
Motion - Two phases. Phase #1 - Condense energy in hands. Phase #2 - Release in specified direction; preventing the ball from exploding before impact.
Force - Phase #1 - The more the better, say 50k kilo calories. Phase #2 - Minimal.
Chance - Phase #1 - May accidently blow up.* Phase #2 - Actual damage can only be guessed.

*The portion of Chance in the making of the spell is related to the skill of the caster, and inversly proportional to the amount of Force invested. I.E, Expert caster will be able to accuratly control larger amounts of Force without accidents.

Hope you liked it. Now I'm not looking for cryticism (which will be appreciated nontheless), what I'm looking for is to *your* ideas about elemental systems. Share them with us, who knows, maybe the Devs will like one of the ideas enough to adopt it...

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Every spell is the combination of one verb (Abjure, Create, Evoke,...) and one noum (Fire, Holy,...), and given those two words you specify the result of the spell (with some rules). It's great for DnD campaigns (where every one is a caster, because if not the non-casters are going to feel like the poor guys in the group).

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Good post, but isn't the word "Hellenic"?

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Quoting VicenteC,

reply 1

It would be totally imposible to translate this system to a computer, but probably one of the best magic systems out there is "Elements of Magic Revised Edition" from ENWorld Press for the d20 System (I think Ars Magica has a pretty similar system too).

Every spell is the combination of one verb (Abjure, Create, Evoke,...) and one noum (Fire, Holy,...), and given those two words you specify the result of the spell (with some rules). It's great for DnD campaigns (where every one is a caster, because if not the non-casters are going to feel like the poor guys in the group).

My friend loves Elements of Magic and swears by it. I highly recommend it too though I've never actually used it.

Another fantastic system is Unknown Armies. I think that has the best magic system I've seen. Mages draw their power from paradoxes from everyday concepts, and so end up doing things like becoming alcoholics, accumulating money, take insane risks and experiment with drug-alchemy. I'm a fan of Unknown Armies.

I also built a magic system based around the source of the plane it came from... Elemental Magic, Astral Magic, and Celestial Magic. Each one can do things natural to that realm... Elemental Magic (our realm) can manipulate objects. Celestial Magic (the land of Daemons) can manipulate thoughts and emotions. Finally, Astral Magic (the realm of HORRORS) is more powerful but subtle, it can alter reality and such. Under this system, we, as humans, would actually be elementals as opposed to creatures made of pure earth/flame/wind/water/whatever.

Quoting ,

quoting post

I've had it with those bull*censured* nonsensical Helenian elements. Fire/water/air/earth is boring, limiting, and cliched. This thread is where we try to come up with new systems of elements

You know, I don't think the Hellenic elemental system is so bad. Sure, it's been done quite a bit but it's simple and fun and we basically know our way around it. Also, Elemental is hardly based on pure elemental magic (wow this is confusing) it has Life and Death magic thrown into the mix and as far as I can tell magic is basically combinations of different types of magic to produce effects. I find that almost every magic system really ends up using some variation of the hellenic elemental system. In any case, I don't even know what the system is going to entail... we practically know nothing about it.

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I have read the book that inspired Magic the gathering. It is called "Authentic Thaumaturgy". Some sort of magic RPG system based on esoteric magic.

By checking back at the colors and elements, I used for my game a 5 element system a la magic but white was replaced for yellow. So it made:

Yellow = Science: TIme travel, teleportation, golems, machinery, alchemy

Red= Chaos: Impossible mixture of stuff: Living walls, Chimeras, stone skin,

Blue = Ether: Control of magic it self, magical creatures "dragons, fairies, elementals,"

Black = Spirit: Ghost, mental attacks and effect.

Green = Nature: Weather, dire animals,

NOt even in MTg, there is some ambiguity following this system. For example, they place fire elemental in "Chaos" because it's red but in reality, it should be placed in Ether.

There are other 5 element system. Chinese and japanese use a 5 element system:

Ciinese: Wood, Metal, Water, air, fire

Japanese: Earth, void, water, air, fire

The relation in a 5 point element is as this.

Draw a pentagram between your elements and draw a ccircle to chain your elements. Each elements is good against another elements, THis 5 point Rock-paper scisor follows the lines of the pentagram. Each elements support another elements, this follows the circle around your pentagram.

I made a picture of it as my windows background, I might try to link it Later.

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Im fairly certain we are already decided on Earth/Water/Fire/Air/Death/Life .... unless you are talking 'bout modz.

In this case Earth would also be following the path of nature/plants/animals(in addition to dirt n rocks), while Air would govern weather,ect. Water and Fire are kind of self explanatory, as well as Death and life.

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Im fairly certain we are already decided on Earth/Water/Fire/Air/Death/Life .... unless you are talking 'bout modz.

you can say that with more confidence, as it is most assuringly confirmed.

However it is interesting to talk about other elements. Things like "oil, heat, water, metal, wood, light" being the elements for a robot... they are fun to discuss. I'm not sure if is needs to be related to the game directly. However it would be need to have an asian mod of this game or something, leaning heavier on asian mythos than european mythos. Though I do not feel that Elemental is particularly "norse' or 'greek' the way many fantasy settings are.

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No offense to stardock but I have a feeling there's going to be alot of mods out there that end up with far more interesting systems than the original game. And if I understand frogboy correctly I think that's part of the dream he's working for.

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It would be cool if one or two of the human factions were Asian-esque, and if one or two of the Fallen Factions were Oni or Yokai based.

same goes for if one of the human factions was more Native/tribal, and on of the fallen factions (their mirror faction) was based off of feral spirits, corrupted elder beings. (im thinking "Earth" but hey, who knows)

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I would *pay* to have a mod based around making the world from these six elements:

Up.
Down.
Top.
Bottom.
Charm.
Strange.

Quantom Chemistery is in semester 7, so it'll be at least a couple of years between Elemental is out and me having the background for that though...

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Well, I know a little bit about quantum physics, and as always, google is your friend. However, my pure-fantasy perfectionism means I probably wouldn't enjoy such a mod...... how would the flavors correspond to elements, anyway?

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Iron: It is hefty, and you can smack people with it.

Arsenic: Throw it at people and they die!

Magnesium: Burns like a motherfuh^h^h^h^npleasant thing.

Oxygen: What plants need. Less of. Or something. Anyway at least it is good for people.

Helium: Causes people to talk funny.

Me, I'd love a game that took a serious peek at the actual elements and thought up creative ways to use them destructively. Or even just a mechanically adept group that besieges you with SCIENCE.

Of course, I'd have a hard time not deleting my sovereign on the first turn and declaring the revolution won. Liberte, egalite, fraternite ou la morte!

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Carbon: creation magic ... make stuff and throw it at thine enemy!! (oils, poisons, poisonous oils, perfumes)

Sulpher: stink-magic ... it destroys things with its powerful stench, directly opposed to Carbon magic

Hydrogen: binding magic ... can stick things tightly together, or blow them to smithereens ... can make soldiers "magnetically" attracted to each other, and then release the magic to blow the soldiers apart.

Xenon: null-magic ... significantly non-reactive, will imbue soldiers with a noble-buff to resist most magics ... especially resists binding magic, making it directly opposed. Can also attack enemy soldiers with "radon clouds" and "argon clouds" ... which makes them immune to all further forms of magic, but affected soldiers slowly die of radiation.

Lithium: salt-magic ... can interact with other magic to form salty creatures which attack the enemy. opposes life magic

Oxygen: life-magic ... can invigorate your own troops, and can errode (cause damage) to enemy troops. opposes salt-magic

if Lithium magic and Oxygen magic are cast near each other, bad things happen. Anything from a blinding light which stuns all nearby troops, a gigantic explosion, or both casters instantly die (oxygen caster and the lithium caster)

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I just had to dig out my old Rolemaster Elemental Companion to see how many elements it includes:

Lesser Basic Elements
1. air
2. cold
3. light
4. vibration
5. water
Greater Basic Elements
1. gravity
2. heat
3. dark
4. inertia
5. earth
Compound Elements
1. electrical
2. fire
3. ice
4. wind
Super Compound Elements
1. plasma
2. vacid
Complex Elements
1. aether
2. chaos
3. nether
4. nexus
5. spirit
6. time

Ah... those were the days.

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Quoting Gazing,

reply 9

I would *pay* to have a mod based around making the world from these six elements:

Up.
Down.
Top.
Bottom.
Charm.
Strange.

Quantom Chemistery is in semester 7, so it'll be at least a couple of years between Elemental is out and me having the background for that though...

Something can be arranged...

Quoting Aeon221,

reply 11

Iron: It is hefty, and you can smack people with it.

Arsenic: Throw it at people and they die!

Magnesium: Burns like a motherfuh^h^h^h^npleasant thing.

Oxygen: What plants need. Less of. Or something. Anyway at least it is good for people.

Helium: Causes people to talk funny.

Me, I'd love a game that took a serious peek at the actual elements and thought up creative ways to use them destructively. Or even just a mechanically adept group that besieges you with SCIENCE.

Of course, I'd have a hard time not deleting my sovereign on the first turn and declaring the revolution won. Liberte, egalite, fraternite ou la morte!

I really want to say that this exists somewhere. Hmm...

The basic premise behind quoting these two peeps is that basing magic on the basic scientific principles of reality would be interesting, if potentially not a good idea.

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