Elemental Magic

[Queshire]

Completely off-topic, but I've liked plenty of his writing videos. He talks a lot of sense on plenty of topics. How are his books on writing?

Mostly the same as the videos but expanded in parts. Good as a reference if you don't want to navigate a bunch of YouTube videos.

 

[Fyri]

Yeah, I've found the books are almost just transcripts from the videos--which has its own unique use! Highlighting and notetaking and such.

 

[Akira444]

Well, my magic is mostly hard in the sense that you can't create physical elements like water and earth. Air already exists around us and fire is created from the mage's own heat. Otherwise, it's pretty standard.

My magic is separated into four elements: fire, water, earth and air. Each element has its own subtypes: Lightning and sound for air, light for fire, ice for water, and gravity and plants for Earth. Earth mages can learn how to phase change solid rock into lava and cool it back again, and they can also manipulate metals (which is considered to be difficult even by master magician standards). Baseline water magic does involve freezing and/or evaporating water, but ice magic is an extension of it by manipulating ice and snow itself. Light is considered to be an extension of fire magic, a purified form of fire that does not burn but can still cause damage in large amounts.

I play around with the elements, but that's the gist of it.

 

[Aldarion]

I will not have much magic for my world, but what there is is divided into four primary elements, each of which is assigned a side of the world. Then there are few subtypes (for example, plant magic as subtype of water magic) plus black magic which is corruption of nature... but that is about as far as I will take it. Most of the magic in the world is actually anti-magic, so there won't be mages throwing fireballs or anything.

 

[BiggusBeardus]

I'm being a little bit of a hack. My elemental magic-users are basically "benders" from Avatar the Last Airbender/Legend of Korra.

The main difference is they have to have a source present (fire mages can't create fire like fire benders), the effect is dependent on the size of the source available (a candle isn't going to make a huge fireball), and, with all my magic in my setting, it drains their energy the more they use, so they can't just keep "bending" like on those shows.

 

[JBCrowson]

Idk, I think it'd be interesting to see what everyone here does with elemental magic included in their stories.

I'm currently writing a fight scene and had to remind myself what I had decided for my earth elementalists. My first (awful, terrible, cringe cringe cringe) draft had an attack with a "steel blade," and I wasn't sure if I had decided my earth elementalists could manipulate steel.

Then, I remembered my "pure fire" elementalists are able to create a special type of lava that then cools into a special type of obsidian that only a fire elementalist could affect. Earth elementalists cannot manipulate obsidian created from a fire elementalist's lava, because the obsidian there has a signature attached to the lava affinity.

However, this implies that earth elementalists can manipulate natural obsidian, a glass. Then my mind wandered around what else this would/could/should mean for my earth elementalists. Then I thought about the joke that ice is technically, scientifically, a rock. Well, I'm not going to do that. (Maybe. *entertains idea* Could be fun.)

Humored by the train of thought, I wondered... What kind of fun do my fellow writers of elemental magic have in their magic systems? Do you lean more into science or, er, magic magic when crafting your system?

Bonus question: What inspired you to write with elemental magic?

My world has 3 types of magic - elemental, shamanist, freeform. almost all mortals use elemental magic. I have 8 elements in (sort of) opposing pairs. Fire, water, air, rock, lightning, metal, wood, blood. The ability to do magic is based on genetics (ie your just born that way, with some races more inherently likely to birth magi than others) your will / determination. Some magic users are enhanced or can only use in heightened emotional states (emoto-mages). The gods powers are a combination of the 3 types.

Since you asked about elemental magic in particular, each of my elements works slightly differently. Rock mages have "rock-sight" which enables them to see rocks hidden under other objects, the stresses rocks are under (so they can if skilled, avert rockslides, even earthquakes). They can also learn to manipulate the internal crystal structures of rocks to fracture them or repair cracks). In my second book one develops a device like a kindle that can store and retrieve written words. Glass, including obsidian, would be considered rock in my schema - makes for a nasty surprise when someone throws a glass bottle of acid at a rock mage who prevents it breaking and lobs it back.

I chose to have elements as it gives an easy way to limit mages powers. Air mages are still nasty in battle though as if powerful enough they can move all the air from around an enemy army; water mages can change the phase of the water inside their opponents either making them freeze or explode as their blood literally boils.

 

[Fyri]

Well, my magic is mostly hard in the sense that you can't create physical elements like water and earth. Air already exists around us and fire is created from the mage's own heat. Otherwise, it's pretty standard.

My magic is separated into four elements: fire, water, earth and air. Each element has its own subtypes: Lightning and sound for air, light for fire, ice for water, and gravity and plants for Earth. Earth mages can learn how to phase change solid rock into lava and cool it back again, and they can also manipulate metals (which is considered to be difficult even by master magician standards). Baseline water magic does involve freezing and/or evaporating water, but ice magic is an extension of it by manipulating ice and snow itself. Light is considered to be an extension of fire magic, a purified form of fire that does not burn but can still cause damage in large amounts.

I play around with the elements, but that's the gist of it.

Ooooooh! I like your subtypes! Those are interesting connections! Especially connection lightning an sound with air and gravity with earth? Neat!!

I want to see gravity magic at work here.

 

[Fyri]

Some magic users are enhanced or can only use in heightened emotional states (emoto-mages).

I hate the magic is connected to emotion trope because I view it as overdone (although, I actually probably secretly adore it forever because angry/sad fire mage go rrrrrrrrrrr), but I love your name for them. XD Emoto-mages. Neat!

In my second book one develops a device like a kindle that can store and retrieve written words. Glass, including obsidian, would be considered rock in my schema - makes for a nasty surprise when someone throws a glass bottle of acid at a rock mage who prevents it breaking and lobs it back.

Pf. Tch. Kch. Okay—cool!

 

[JBCrowson]

I hate the magic is connected to emotion trope because I view it as overdone

Given that magic tends to be used in situations of danger to characters or those they care about, its use at least is likely to be connected to emotion. I've used it sparingly as I figured such mages would have to completely control their emotions to avoid magic "breaking out" at inopportune moments, and emotionally restricted characters probably aren't fun if there are too many of them. Some have created emotional reservoirs they can put "spare" emotion into for later use, but then a novice accidentally sets the whole lot off not realising such reservoirs existed. Left quite a crater.