Talk:Elementary Magic/@comment-187.19.127.210-20150726131739/@comment-187.19.127.210-20150726133847

Air

Air is the element of motion and freedom, and most of its key effects are motion-based: powerful gales to knock over foes or throw objects around, the movement of objects to the wizard’s hand, or shields of swirling air currents that push harm away.

On the nastier end, it’s possible to make pockets of vacuum to suffocate or implode targets. It also can affect the quality of air around the wizard — keeping smoke clouds localized, purifying the air in a room, or even calling up fog to conceal an escape. Movement can involve fine manipulation, which is why air magic is often called upon to pick locks and pull apart devices. Also, air is the primary medium for the transfer of sound, allowing for the creation of distractions by throwing loud sounds around, or creating “bubbles” where sound doesn’t travel for the purposes of privacy or stealth.

Maneuvers that rely on movement, like pushing and pulling stuff around, are the strong suit of air magic. Air magic is most commonly used to put aspects such as Buffeted, Dust in Eyes, and such on targets, as well as Hard to Maneuver on scenes.

Earth

Earth is the element of stability, gravity, and grounding. Ultimately, everything rests on the earth, and its practitioners take advantage of this fact by calling up protective walls of stone, shaking the ground underfoot, and keeping themselves stable regardless of the surrounding circumstances. Earth is also the element that governs magnetism; earth mages often use this to their advantage, strengthening or dampening magnetic fields to achieve various effects.

Earth’s strong points are in doing damage to — or reinforcing — ordered structures like buildings. Earth can put aspects like Unsure Footing and Shaken on targets, and Weak Foundations or Tremors on scenes. It can also put strong gravitational effects on targets, flattening them directly or pinning them down with something like Three Times as Heavy.

Fire

Fire is the element of consumption and destruction, and it is the first resort of those who wish to deal massive carnage to their foes. Besides the classic image of the fireball-throwing wizard, this element allows for a more subtle range of effects, allowing a wizard to apply or remove heat from an object or area and to melt small objects like locks or other barriers.

Fire maneuvers normally call upon the ubiquitous On Fire aspect, which can be placed on targets or scenes.

Water

Water is the element of entropy and change. Its chief power is changing the state of things, as water tends to do: eroding, dissolving, disrupting, decaying, dispersing, disintegrating. While many people wouldn’t consider water to be a very damaging element, you have to think about the kind of insidious damage water does: dissolving stone, rusting metal, warping wood — even pummeling or slicing if it’s a high-pressure jet of water. It can also flood, suffocate, assist in chemical reactions, and so on. Water is often lethal to many different kinds of machines, shorting them out or causing them to jam (like firearms). Plenty of dangerous substances — battery acid, quicksand, drain cleanser—have liquid properties that a water evocation might manipulate (perhaps with a little extra difficulty for using something unusual).

Wizards tend to use water maneuvers to break down matter in various ways. Water can place aspects like Drenched and Hard to Breathe (water strategically moved to suffocate) on a target, as well as Slick and Partly Dissolved on a scene.

Spirit

Spirit is the element of the soul, the purest expression of will. In a way, it’s the most basic of the elements — the translation of the wizard’s raw desire into energy — and its presence tends to transcend different traditions of magic, being a core element in every one. Spirit effects tend to manifest as raw kinetic force and light, allowing the wizard to create or snuff light in an area, summon shields of force, strike a foe with raw kinetic power, and even bend the energies around people and objects to make them appear invisible.

A special kind of block called a veil is the special province of spirit magic. Unlike a normal block, the power invested in a veil serves as the difficulty for using skills or other magic to detect anything that’s concealed by the veil. Beyond that, spirit maneuvers tend to be oriented around light, but kinetic strikes can also knock enemies offbalance and create physical havoc.

Depending on a wizard’s temperament, he often tends to be good at the “blunt, direct” side of spirit evocations (force effects) or good at the “sensitive, subtle” side (veils and other soft effects). This is really true of any element, but it’s particularly strongly expressed in the case of spirit — the element most closely tied to thought.