ElementsThe elements are pretty simple, however on top of being just an element, they are also concepts those elements embody. This list Writeup is not intended to be exhaustive, just a general thing. The original DFRPG elements are outlined on YS253. Much like the lightning example on YS254, elements have a great deal of overlap. If an element can bolster something, it can weaken or redirect it as well most likely. In some cases, this can be bad for the caster as one element may have other aspects that lead to such a use being either temporary (& easily usable as a result) or permanent (& possibly a laws violation).
• Water: I’m starting with water as it easily sets the stage for a number of things in the other elements. The core description for water is that it embodies Entropy , along with Change, and is responsible for things like erosion, decay, disrupting, dissolving, disintegrating, etc.
o Polymorph effects: water embodies change among other things. As a result of this aspect it has, you can use it to change the form of someone (or something). Since water is fluidic & lacks a stable form of its own, This change will typically only last as long as you continue to pump shifts into persistence when the target of your spell begins to swiftly return to its normal form.
o Decay/dissolve/etc [iffy]: There are lots of things you can do with this, few of them good. Disintegration type spells are an obvious attack spell, but dispersing/decaying/eroding the mind, thoughts, or structure of an opponent/victim is probably bad & likely to risk law violations as situations dictate
o Force Effects: A jet of high pressure: water can topple structures or slice into the flesh of a victim in its way, if you compress water under the pressure of about 10,000 times that of ouratmosphere, it will even solidify at room temp. by using various methods, you could make force effects with water, but doing so for armor/shield effects would probably be a whole lot more complicated than relying on a screen of magic enhanced with its ability to erode, decay, & degrade things It could also be used to degrade/decay/disperse kinetic force
o Charm Spells[Iffy]: Spirit may be the magic of the mind, but water is the magic if change & can be used to do things like change the mind of an opponent into believing you are an ally. See the laws above for more details, but this relies on water’s lack of stable structure in order to protect the caster from law violations by quickly allowing the victim to revert back to a normal mental state once your spell ends. If they took consequences in their attempts to resist your spell however, you are looking at a law violation.
o Mind Mucking [Evil][iffy]: This is pretty similar to fire’s ability to do this. Unlike the earlier mentioned ability to temporarily change the thoughts &memories of a subject/opponent. By using some of water’s other aspects, an arcane caster could erode, degrade, & decay the thoughts & memories of a subject. Doing this to active thoughts might just cause a moment of confusion, but doing this to memories is almost certainly going to be a bad thing
o Raise/Animate Dead & other Necromancy[Evil]: By using the element of water , an arcane caster could pour waters of life into the dead.
Since water is not consuming, it’s more likely to make an intelligent lich type of abomination than a dumb but useful zombie. The end result is still an abomination that sucks life from the world around it to continue it’ existence if the spell is not structured in a way that allows it to disperse after you quit powering it with shifts of persistence. Choosing to do it in a “good enough” manner in order to create a dumb zombie is always an option
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o Waterbreathing: By taking advantage of water’s ability to change things, you could do things like change an ally to be able to breathe through a pair of gills while you power the spell with persistence.
o Abjuration type effects: If water can change things, it can change a friend to make them temporarily stronger, smarter, focused etc while you pump shifts into persistence to maintaining the temporary aspect you gave them. Granted someone with a high might, scholarship, discipline, etc may need more shifts pumped into this due to the difficulty involved. Suddenly giving a frog into Einstein levels of scholarship might be doable for a while, but more is not always better, too much of a good thing can be distracting or cause problems with coordination & planning. Be careful with just extending these effects across entire zones of allies.
o Curse effects: You may be asking how water can curse someone, but if you can use it to change someone to be someone smarter, stronger, or more athletic, you can use it to change them to be dumber, weaker, less coordinated, etc & rely on the same lack of stability in water to protect you from law violations once your spell wears off. You can get slapped down hard with lawbreaker penalties if you inflict consequences as a direct part of the spell (dumb as a post consequence is bad, mentally headache, blurred vision, & bleeding from the ears will clear up fine.)
o Cats grace & freedom of movement: By enhancing the fluidity in an ally, you can do things like bestow an aspect to grant them the fluidity to move without impedance, or to move more fluidly, yes change could cover some of this, but different methods become important in different situations.
o Reduced/Zero Gravity: Use Water’s ability to erode & disperse things to erode & disperse gravity someplace desirable. It might not be as good as reverse gravity, but it might let you carry that house in a pinch
o Healing: You could use water to change a wound into something less wounded, but the effect would likely be temporary & difficult unless some other method is used to maintain the spell. It would be great to change a slashed wrist/throat into an unslashed one long enough to buy time for a divine (or mundane) healer to address the problem as you slowly release the spell.
o Shadow/Darkness: By eroding, decaying and/or degrading light itself, the element of water is able to create areas of shadow & darkness
o Scrying With Water: Water Elementals are often selfish & vain. Their mood & temperament ranges from calm, friendly, & complacent to indifferent brutality.
Water is capable of reflecting things back at a viewer & ripples with the presence of sound. Since most living creatures (especially civilized ones) tend to need water to some extent, they are often able to peer through & listen to things going on around another body /container of water & is great for making assessments/declarations like “I know where/when the BBEG’s ritual is going down” or helping to find a trail to their a supplier/henchmen.
• Air: Air is the element of motion & freedom, it’s also vital in most spoken communication & life requires it
o Freedom of movement: No it won’t let you move through anything & avoid being grappled like the D&D version. These kinds of effects can give you a defense, armor, or shield against anything that would impede movement given the right situation.
This could likewise be twisted into hold person type effects by removing the freedom of motion in an opponent Too much of a good thing can be bad however as blood needs to move within the body for your victim to live, paralyzed while suffering from a massive heart attack might be a rather horrific death that taints the caster who caused it.
o Telepathy & detect thoughts[IFFY]: The transmission of & eavesdropping on thoughts is a staple of many fantasy settings. By using the fact that air is vital to spoken communication, you can provide the freedom to enter or listen in on another’s thoughts.
o Bending & manipulation of light: Light passes through the air, & light is covers movement. You might not easily be doing any cool illusions with it, but a telescope & giant “ant” melting magnifying glass probably aren’t too tough
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o Force Effects: While not quite the same as Spirit’s control over force, a sufficiently dense &compressed area of air or wind could provide you with a similar effect
By Extension, there are a great many nasty things that can be done with a highly compressed blade of air, or a pocket of vacuum
o Flight & feather fall: There are a great many ways you could swing these as coming from air, everything from reducing your motion towards the ground to gusts of wind to lift, condensed sheets of air to carry you, along with all sorts of other possibilities & combinations. Needless to say, sustained flight probably is not that easy…. It might be a lot easier than landing though, that goes double if someone else threw you into the air & let you fall on your own, unprepared;).
o Veils & invisibility type effects: Being responsible for things like motion & having light transmit through air gives you a nice way to use air for bending light around you sort of like a magically created mesh of fiberoptics that bend the light around you.
o Raise/Animate Dead & other Necromancy[Evil]: By using the element of air, an arcane caster could breathe life into the dead.
Since air is not consuming, it’s more likely to make an intelligent lich type of abomination than a dumb but useful zombie. The end result is still an abomination that sucks life from the world around it to continue it’ existence if the spell is not structured in a way that allows it to disperse after you quit powering it with shifts of persistence. Choosing to do it in a “good enough” manner in order to create a dumb zombie is always an option
o Transmutation effects: Granted you probably won’t be using Air to turn your friend into a giant like water & some other elements can, but you might be able to transmute the air in order to purify it for breathing, or foul it to make breathing more difficult. You could also do things like separate out only the explosive oxygen & compress it into a bomb ready for a spark.
Healing: Air might be a poor choice for most healing, but a broken arm/leg could be started towards full mobility by reducing the freedom & motion in the broken section of bone & enhancing it in the limb itself the motion I the limb
o Slow/Haste: By lowering or raising the movement in an opponent/ally, you can provide them with an aspect that slows or hastens their ability to move & react to things
o Lightning: Lightning can fit under either air, or Earth depending on how a given caster views magic.
Revive/Animate Dead: By imparting a body (or piece of one) with an arcane spark of life, a caster could bring it back as an undead abomination. Because lightning is both capable of consuming things in fire & providing its own power to things, this sort of revival/animation could go towards both the [iffy] stupid animated corps type of zombie or [evil] creation of a lich depending on the caster’s intent & desire when casting the spell. See the animate/raise dead entries under fire& air for more details on those particular undead variants
o Water Breathing: There is oxygen in water, by using air magic, you could theoretically forcibly collect the air in it into a breathable form or provide a bubble of breathable air that refreshes itself from the oxygen in the water.
o Shield & armor effects: If air can be compressed into a blade or wind can be used to lift you into the air,
o Sound: Sound travels as a vibration through the air, by using air magic, a caster could do things like dampen sounds for stealth & privacy. It could even do things like create phantom sounds & “throw”/redirect actual or phantom sounds
o Scrying With Air: Air elementals tend to be whimsical & easily distracted at one end, all the way to cruel & savage depending on their mood and temperament.
Air’s temperament, ease of losing interest, & the general obviousness of a gust of wind wailing its way through one’s livingspace tends to make air elementals something typically a poor choice for scrying, they are usually able to move fast though & sometimes able to be n multiple places at once to allow for a “whispering wind” type effect where a brief message, & sometimes conversation can be had across distances of a few miles with only minor delays while the elemental remains interested in helping
On a not related note, air magic can bend light as explained in other parts of air’s writeup, by doing so, an aeromancer can always have ready access to a telescope, pair of binoculars, or magnifying “glass”
• Fire: On the surface, Fire is an element that’s stuck with mere destructive uses, but it’s aspects are so much more First we start with consumption & destruction, but life, courage, & rage can be life a fire as well
o Force Effects: This is a different sort of force than the compressed air that air & water would use, but an explosion creates quite a bit of force, a directed explosion sends it right where it needs to go
. Good for armor & shields if incinerating attacks is not going to be helpful.
o Breathable Air: Ok, It’s not as useful as water & Air’s contributions here, but fire can split the air out of a watersource, & with some difficulty carefully burn off the hydrogen without burning off the oxygen (or blowing yourself up!) Having a bowl/canteen of water pumping out oxygen while trapped in a vault or something could be mighty useful though!
o Burn/incinerate stuff: This is the obvious usage for fire, but it could be used for any situation where you might want to burn or incinerate stuff. Granted ASir & spirit can focus light into a laser-like beam of burning death, but fire can go whole hog & just explode with a nice ball of burning death.
o Mind mucking: [evil][Iffy] Fire can make changes to the mind of a victim, but unlike water & air, those changes will rarely escape a law violation due to how they work. Water lets you do things like temporarily add/change things in the mind of someone & air gives you the freedom to listen & move within their thoughts & memories; But fire allows you to burn away the thoughts & memories of your victim in a way far more destructive & potentially damaging than water’s ability to erode & disperse those memories. Even if the subject of this sort of magic wants you to do this, it might still be iffy depending on the situation & whims of the GM. Caster beware.
o Raise/Animate Dead[Evil]: Fires of life, by infusing the fire of life into a the dead, you can revive/animate them.
o Since fire is a destructive force that consumes, you are likely to wind up with a horrible abomination hellbent on sustaining itself with the life of anything around it in a way that borders on hatred for the living.
o Healing: You may be wondering how fire could heal without even being iffy. It’s actually pretty reasonable though. A bleeding wound can be sealed & disinfected with fire to allow it time to heal cleanly without infection & prevent the patient from bleeding out. On top of that, your body will use fire to fight off various sorts of infections & illnesses by causing a fever or localized warmth to help in fighting off infection. By using fire, you could even supercharge the body’s attempts, just be careful not to kill the patient in the process.
o Regrowth: While revive/animate dead is a bad idea, by lending fire’s strength of life to the patient’s own, you can help it to regrow damaged or missing body parts while it’s still alive. Since you are only providing a sustaining encouraging scaffold for the body to repair itself, this manages to neatly avoi8d diving into tainting necromancy by the slimmest of margins.
o Scrying with fire: Fire elementals are likely to lash out if they feel slighted or abused
You wouldn’t think that a fire elemental would be much help when scrying, but fire creates light & is used for seeing in the dark. As a result of that, a fire elemental could peek out from the elemental plane of fire through a candle or torch. Because everyone likes to see, a setting not using electric style lighting everywhere allows fire to assess things like “I’ve got a good idea who’s in there” or “the sacrifice is still alive & safe in a cell”
