Alternative Elemetal Systems

[exploding_brain]

The sidebar on page 253 got me thinking about other fun ways to organize your wizard's understanding of the metaphysical world.  Came up with a rather oddball one that I'm kind of proud of.  Thought I'd share, and see if I can start some brainstorming on other systems.  Mostly focused on evocations, but maybe there's some fun to be had with re-thinking Thaumaturgy as well. 


Classical Western Tradition

Air - Motion, Vacuum, Sound, Fine manipulation
Earth - Walls of stone, Stability, Magnetism, Gravity
Fire - Burn baby burn, Purification, Heating up/cooling down, 
Water - Entropy, Inundate with water, Chemical reactions
Spirit - Force, Light, Veils


Physics

I imagined a wizard who developed his magical talents later in life, after gaining extensive training in modern Physics, bringing that mindset to magic. (Insert Mr. Wizard joke here)

Classic Newtonian - Speed, Kinetic Energy, Potential Energy, Moving stuff around, brute force sorts of things
Electromagnetic - Magnetism, Light, Veils, Hexing Electronics, (Working with Electronics?)
Relativistic - Distorting time, Distorting space, Changing gravity, (Wormhole Teleportation?)
Quantum - Probability, Mind magic, Sympathetic action at a distance, going insubstantial/phasing through walls, visiting "alternate universes" i.e. the Nevernever, unpredictable behavior in general
Thermodynamic - Moving heat and cold, order and entropy, could move all the air to one side of a room, or separate two thoroughly mixed liquids,

Not sure where to put predictive magic in there, probably Quantum, but maybe Relativistic.  Clairvoyance is probably Quantum.


Chinese

How Ancient Mai thinks about it.

Metal -
Water -
Wood -
Earth -
Fire -
Spirit -

Not familiar enough with these to talk about their possible uses, but they're close enough to the Classical Western tradition as to not need much adapting.


Codex Alera

Slightly similar to Chinese.  I somehow don't think the author would mind us appropriating that system for the DFRPG.

Air - Flight, Speed, Line of sight distance vision, Move air (knock down)
Earth - Strength, Calm emotions?, Induce Lust, Move earth (grab, crush, wall of stone)
Fire - Burn Baby Burn, Induce Anger, Move Fire (Protect an area from fire)
Metal - Ignoring personal emotions and pain, Move metal (fighting with metal weapons, break opponent's weapons, repair yours), Detect Metal (feel attack coming)
Water - Healing, Empathy, Long distance communication, Move Water (knock down, drown, dessicate?)
Wood - Stealth in natural settings, Move wood (fighting with wooden weapons like arrows, break opponent's weapons), Detect wood (feel attack coming)

Probably need to think about new adaptations for modern setting.

[srl51676]

Love the physics idea. How about a spell that reduced an opponents coefficient of friction to zero there by removing his ability to effect his own inertia. If he was still he is stuck if moving he can't slow down.

[Enjorous]

Until he slammed into something, preferably big and heavy. But that would be very interesting.

[Archmage_Cowl]

i came up with one that was a little tough to do a while back basicly

fire-mostly damage dealing things but also invigoration
ice-mostly heat manipulation in the reverse good for area manuvers.
earth-mostly ground effects but also allows many buff type spells.
wind-largely wind manipulation but also allows things like cellular work.
lightning-Mostly molecular effects dealing with charges(like magnetism and what not.) also allows some types of teleportation deals.
water-mostly water manipulation and healing effects.

I came up with this idea forever ago so if i was gonna put it into a game i would likely need to update it or upgrade it somehow.

[Saedar]

I LOVE the physics one! I have actually been working on a physicist wizard and have been finding it difficult to mesh with the classical elements. This is amazing. Thank you.

[Hoar Grimnir]

The Physics elemental system is a very cool idea. 
And instead of saying a non-sense version of a language, the wizard could spout non-sensical formulae.
You know, if he wanted to take ages to cast evocation spells that is. 
E=MCHammer squared

[LCDarkwood]

My only comment here is that you want to watch and make sure you're not stepping outside of evocation's known limitations, even if your "element" is based on physics. Refined applications wouldn't really be appropriate, nor would anything that can't be defined in terms of attack, block, maneuver, or counterspell.

Unless you were some strange Emissary of Einstein or whatever, and could achieve such things via sponsorship.

Or if you shunted off some of those more complex effects into themes for thaumaturgy. Which would then be fine.

[aumshantih]

An Indian/Buddhist system is known as the Panchabhutas - literally the Five Elements/Ghosts.  They match up pretty closely to the classical western five elements, though they have slightly different connotations, and each corresponds with one of the five senses.

Akasha - Spirit/Space/Soul.  The element that conducts sound, and considered the first element.
Vayu - Wind.  The element that conducts feeling.
Agni - Fire.  The element that conducts sight.
Jala - Water.  The element that conducts taste.
Prithvi - Earth.  The element that conducts smell.

[computerking]

Hooray for Thread Necromancy (Take that, White Council!)

I was toying with a character concept: 2 Denarians decide to make their own potential replacement. Otherwise known as 2 demons have a kid. Since many of the Nickleheads have magic, and since fallen angels are supposed to be really old, I would figure some of them would use an ancient form of magic.

So I came up with an alternate system, and found this thread to share it with you all.

Lightning - Basically fire from the sky, the ancients probably thought it more powerful than fire, since it can make fire.

Dust - Not having much of a concept of what Air is, the ancients focused on what they could see, and the lightest thing that interacted with air is dust.

Earth - Hey, some things just don't have a substitute.

Shadow -  It pools, it flows, it acts in many ways like water, and you can breathe while standing in it, so it's a little safer to work with than water would be.

Hate/Passion - This analog for Spirit was hard to come up with. I had to take cues from the Dark side of the Force, Wraith: The Oblivion, and the Poltergeist movies to justify this one. Strong emotion can excite spirits, for example.


Hopefully this isn't too bad for someone who has yet to actually play the game..

[Masurao]

You could use 'Smoke' for 'Dust' as well. I believe the djinn from the Quran were create from smoke and fire, so that would make thematic sense as an ancient 'element'. (Humans, on the other hand, were made from clay/earth)

[admiralducksauce]

Ripped with love from Brütal Legend, I present the Heavy Metal elements:

1.  Fire: Fire is fire, because... yeah.  Fire and Noise make lightning and thunder, as well as awesome stage shows.  Purifying but destructive.
2.  Noise: sonic blasts, possibly some "force push"-like uses.  Discord maybe, using the entropy trapping of Water.  Sensory manipulation as well?
3.  Chrome: Solidity, visual beauty (possibly another place for veils?), speed.  Maybe it could be a 'craftmanship' element, to counter fire and noise.  An element of enhancement and aid?
4.  Blood: Strength, life, physical transformation (watch out!), emotion (again, watch out!), death (ditto!).  "Blood magic" shows up here and there in other sources, from Vampire to Unknown Armies.  Pick some uses you like and can justify. 

[Silverblaze]

Question:

if a player had good reason (twinked out, munchkin behavior aside), would "you" as a GM allow more elements than the basic 5 or alternates thereof.

meaning: Sponsored magic: adding elements like - Shadow, Death, Void, Life, Decay, etc. etc.

I think having more than 5 elements to use refinement on/with could be potentially nasty.

I tend to worry about such things in a conservative fashion seeingo nly worst case scenarios.

So...how many additional elements if any?

[Roskey]

Oh hey, I know some stuff about the chinese elements. Not perfect, but here's a rough idea of them at least?

Wood - Yang Yin. Energy is up and outwards, like tree growth. Directed and strong, elements of spring's upward growth. Super rapid plant growth biomancy (botomancy?) and probably a lot of tactical maneuvers for this, and normal perception, too, so alarm spells and that kind of thing. Oh, any sound magic fits here too. Dey da soldierey guys.
Fire - Yin Yang. The energy of fire is up, down, and out. Attacks interestingly would probably be less laser-like, and more flamethrower/explosive blast of force like, though of course it wouldn't HAVE to be. This one likely has social components too, but I can't think of any at the moment that fit. This and metal both might have air-ish parts, but if you're talking air itself, probably would fit here.
Earth - Transitory states. Center to periphery energy motion. All about data processing (input food, digest, etc., input data, mull over, etc.), groundedness, sympathy, dangers of laws 2, 3, and 4 mainly for trying to "help people". Earthworks, especially defenses and definitely some healing biomancy in there, and maybe "blocking people off" so to speak. Also probably some acidish stuff, wearing down walls and such.
Metal - Yin Yin. About connection and execution. Lotsa connection to higher power, probably lots of phobomancy and the sight kind of stuff, might be a bit dangerous with laws 7, 1, and 5, strong and quick. Very warden-ey. I imagine moving metal like whips or liquid or such, and very strong and quick strikes.
Water - Yang Yang. Hoo, this one is tricky. Key word is relentless though, so a whole TON of water at once like an unstoppable ocean, and basically a lot of complex things at once. Even when water is still, it's waiting for action. This is probably good for thaumaturgy especially, it really gets the big complex picture of everything. For evocation, large jets of water could work, and I would say counterspells would be really in this one in particular, which works well for the purifying anti-magic stuff it's got going on for other systems.

So yeah. Thing is you could probably combine them a lot, since that's sort of how it works. Lot of personality stuff too, probably would help for focused practitioners with channeling. Anyways, hope that gives at least some info.

[Sanctaphrax]

@Roskey: That is interesting stuff. Seems to me that those elements would work well as Sponsored Magic variants.

@Silverblaze: Sure, as many elements as they want and are willing to pay for.

What about the extra elements worries you? An excessively large specialization pyramid? Because with 5 elements, you already have room for an astonishing level of Refinement. More than you could ever use, given reasonable skills.

Given the diminishing returns involved, I'd be glad to let some munchkin expand their pyramid. Because it seems like a really suboptimal choice to me, and I don't foresee it making him any stronger.

Am I missing something?

[Roskey]

@Sanctaphrax

Thanks! Kind of a eastern medicine nerd here. Why do you say sponsored magic, though? I mean, more so than normal evocation/thaumaturgy.