PDA

View Full Version : Idle Elemental Musings...



JNAProductions
2018-05-02, 07:35 PM
So, no idea what this could be used for. But I was bored, and this will hopefully lead to something. Without further ado: THE ELEMENTS!



The four Primal Elements:
-Fire
-Earth
-Air
-Water

The two Astral Elements:
-Light
-Dark

The two Magical Elements:
-Aether
-Void

Practitioners of the Primal Elements are called Evokers.
Practitioners of the Astral Elements are called Luminaries.
Practitioners of the Magical Elements are called Mages.

Fire
Earth
Air
Water
Earth-Air
Water-Fire
Fire-Earth
Fire-Air
Earth-Water
Air-Water
Fire-Earth-Air
Fire-Earth-Water
Fire-Air-Water
Earth-Air-Water
Fire-Earth-Air-Water
Total Interactions: 15

Light
Dark
Light-Dark
Total Interactions: 3

Aether
Void
Aether-Void
Total Interactions: 3

Total Possible Interactions: 135

aimlessPolymath
2018-05-02, 09:56 PM
Hm.

A thought about Adjacent Element interactions-
Is the Air-Fire interaction analogous to "Wind stokes the flame", or is it analogous to the interaction between being Lawful and being Good?

JNAProductions
2018-05-02, 10:03 PM
Hm.

A thought about Adjacent Element interactions-
Is the Air-Fire interaction analogous to "Wind stokes the flame", or is it analogous to the interaction between being Lawful and being Good?

Those are meant to be reversible too. Fire-Air is the same as Air-Fire.

And adjacent, in this case, pretty much just means "Not Opposed".

aimlessPolymath
2018-05-02, 10:13 PM
Those are meant to be reversible too. Fire-Air is the same as Air-Fire.

And adjacent, in this case, pretty much just means "Not Opposed".

Yes, but I'm asking what the actual interaction is- if these are Primal Elements, does that mean that they are physical substances which interact, or (as implied by the presence of direct opposition) are they axes used to generically describe... stuff? Can an object be Fire Air, like a creature can be Lawful Good? What does an opposition interaction mean (how do they... interact?), and how is it distinguished from adjacency?

Right now, I don't know about the interactions other than that they comprise all combinations of the elements.

JNAProductions
2018-05-02, 10:16 PM
Nor do I, fully.

I would imagine that yes, a creature could be Fire-Air, or Earth-Water. In general, I'd say pure elements (of any category) are the easiest to use, requiring the least energy. Mixes that are adjacent are the next easiest, requiring more power than pure but less than opposition. And then oppositions, like Light-Dark, would be the hardest and require the most power.

So a being of pure Fire? Powerful, since it is raw elementstuff, but not as strong as an Air-Fire being. And a Fire-Water being would be the most powerful, since if it was weaker, it literally would not be able to hold itself together.

Which is not to say a Fire being couldn't be stronger than a Light-Dark being. Just that the MINIMUM of a Light-Dark is far, far greater than a pure Fire.

aimlessPolymath
2018-05-02, 10:25 PM
Huh. I would actually expect the opposite- given equal amounts of power, a single-element being spends the least on "being alive", followed by the adjacent-element beings, followed by the opposite-element beings, etc.

So the single-element beings are actually the most efficient with their abilities, letting them do more (assuming there's some kind of energy input required to do stuff- a food-equivalent). This ties in neatly with the idea that most creatures are a mixture of the various elements.

Part of what I'm asking is what you mean when you say Primal Element. Is a fire I light in my backyard qualitatively different from Fire, the Primal Element? Or is it just a matter of scale?

JNAProductions
2018-05-02, 10:29 PM
I mean, yes? Let's take two beings with power 100 (just an arbitrary amount). A Fire being would be able to spend the least surviving and holding itself together, and therefore do more than a Fire-Water.

But, while you could have a Fire being of power 10, you could NOT have a Fire-Water of power 10. It just plain wouldn't have enough power to hold itself together.

In other words, the biggest and baddest of Fire elementals might be tougher than a Fire-Water elemental. But if you see a Fire-Water elemental, treat it well, because if you don't, you are FETHED.



Second bit... I'd say yes. A fire you light in your backyard is not the same as Fire. It has wood particles, bits of water from the wood itself, air in it, clumps of dirt, maybe... It's not pure Fire.

ShiningStarling
2018-05-05, 07:48 PM
If you pick apart fire like that, you edge on it being a chemical reaction instead of an element (which of course it is), although perhaps not... it occurs to me the 4 elements correspond to the 4 states of matter (solid for earth, liquid for water, gas for air, plasma for fire)

Also, for the Magical elements, I had an idea. Since they are more like high concepts that necessarily having their own planes, perhaps they are summary resources. What i mean by that is that Aether could be the sum of all elemental and astral power in a system, and void is it's Newtonian 'equal but opposite,' growing more powerful the less of anything else there is in the system. I could see this manifesting as a sort of inverse spellcaster, the more spells your enemies cast, the stronger you become, because your opponents are spending their aether.

Fire Tarrasque
2018-05-06, 07:43 PM
Firstly:
I like this. I need to use it for... something. Someday.
Secondly: I also feel compelled to make an Evoker and Luminary class. Also someday.
Thirdly: My inner physicist compels me to say that there are technically five states of matter. The ones you mentioned, and Einstein-Ross condensate. But no one cares about Einstein-Ross condensate. It's effectively a super-solid. If you really wanted a primal element for that, you could add metal?

JNAProductions
2018-05-06, 10:17 PM
If you pick apart fire like that, you edge on it being a chemical reaction instead of an element (which of course it is), although perhaps not... it occurs to me the 4 elements correspond to the 4 states of matter (solid for earth, liquid for water, gas for air, plasma for fire)

Also, for the Magical elements, I had an idea. Since they are more like high concepts that necessarily having their own planes, perhaps they are summary resources. What i mean by that is that Aether could be the sum of all elemental and astral power in a system, and void is it's Newtonian 'equal but opposite,' growing more powerful the less of anything else there is in the system. I could see this manifesting as a sort of inverse spellcaster, the more spells your enemies cast, the stronger you become, because your opponents are spending their aether.

Intriguing. Intriguing...