Elemental System
These are the elements present in my writings and my real world magical practice. Each element is associated with certain personal traits as well as the element they are named after. All OCs I create will fall under at least one of these elements.
Fire is the element of renewal and transformation. As one of the great four elements Fire is a primordial force that predates most of the others. Since ancient times Fire has been feared as a great destroyer and as an unpredictable force. Many cultures throughout the multiverse offered sacrifices to the Spirit of Fire hoping to appease it. They didn’t understand that with fire comes the groundwork for new life to thrive. While Fire can be a great destroyer in its wake it often seeds new life. Fire sentients are much like their spirit in that they are balls of force and energy. Tempestuous is the perfect descriptor for these individuals as their moods and tempers fluctuate unpredictably. Fire is one of the harder elements to control, but luckily since this is a fairly common focus there is tons of training out there available for Fire sentients.
Water is the element of adaptation and depth. Water is one of the most ancient elements that exists and many cultures throughout the multiverse posit that reality started as a great body of water. Water is an extremely powerful force that can perform feats many would consider impossible. With enough force and time water can cut through the strongest of steels. Those sentients who are born under this elemental focus tend to be deep thinkers who love diving in with their thoughts and emotions. As one of the most prevalent elements on most worlds inhabited by sentients these individuals are true forces of nature. Their powers can be great enough to change their entire world.
The element of Earth is a force of stability and protection throughout the multiverse. Being one of the material elements Earth sentients are very grounded and tied to the material world. More so than any other element they are focused on the physical aspects of life, and often put value on things that can be felt and verified. Earth being the source of life makes these sentients very nurturing and protective. They have a tendency to take the brunt of unhappiness into themselves to spare others from pain and suffering. This can be a good trait, but in negatively aligned individuals it can lead to martyring and unnecessary self sacrifice.
Air is the element of movement and freedom. From primordial days sentients have dreamed of leaving the ground and taking flight. Being able to just take off and explore the heavens was a dream for many. This in turn made Air quite a positive and freeing energy. It represents the breaking of the tethers that bind us to also us to achieve what we dream of accomplishing. Air aligned sentients are often very free spirits who care little for material things. They are the type of individuals who prefer experiences to things and money. Being able to dance with the breeze and feel the gales have made Air sentients very sensitive. They are often among the first to try new things and push the envelope past what it previously was.
Ice is the element of preservation which seeks to keep the things they care about intact. Ice is an extremely cold and numbing element that can cause many different traits to arise in their sentients. Some of these individuals can be closed off and quite distant. Others can be obsessed with traditionalism preserving social mores for the sake of keeping the status quo. Still others can take on the roles of historians and conservationists who devote their lives to protecting knowledge and life. Just like frost in the winter blanketing plants this element has great potential for keeping things alive. Ice can be a dangerous element for sentients without proper training, as it can harden hearts and close off minds. However it can create some of the most devoted individuals as well with proper training or a strong support system.
Lightning is the element of power and energy. Lightning as a force is powerful, diffusing, and charged. The elemental spirit of Lightning is playful and often forgets its own strength and potency. This is perhaps showcased in its duality. Lightning that is stable and used for power, and then atmospheric lightning that is uncontrollable and intense. Lightning aligned sentients tend to have massive amounts of energy easily bouncing from one thing to the next. They may have a hard time focusing on a singular subject, but they put their all into what they are passionate about. Since antiquity Lightning has been seen as part of the realm of the gods, and it keeps this mystery and presence to this day.
Metal is the element of utility and purpose. The spirit of Metal is unique in that instead of symbolizing raw metal it actually represents worked/forged metal. Metal used to be a force much like Earth representing aspects of the planets, but as sentients began to work with metal so too did Metal change. Its nature went from a passive force to one of great action and decisiveness. Metal adapted to the many uses sentients had made from it. Metal now is a force that is very utilitarian and logical. Metal isn’t a fluid being, instead it has many aspects to fulfill its many functions. Metal sentients tend to be practical, logical, and utilitarian. While they aren’t unfeeling these sentients tend to let their brain take control more often than not. This makes them great strategists and planners.
Sound is the element of harmony and resonance. Sound is the force that transmits waves and ideas across the multiverse. Sound can naturally tune itself to others’ feelings and mental states to resonate with their being. Sound is one of the few elements that can interact with other forces in a meaningful way. Sound sentients have the ability to synchronize their power with that of their companions which makes everyone’s magic more powerful. Personality wise these sentients tend to be very sensitive to the world around them, and try hard to maintain a harmonious atmosphere. They can often be seen as poets, musicians, and public speakers. Sound, and by extension music, is the great unifier which empowers the multiverse to continue spinning.
Wood is the element of regeneration and new life. Wood is perhaps the most gentle and nurturing element spirit that exists, and it often directly intervenes in its sentients' lives. Wood is a very care giving energy and actively fosters life throughout the multiverse. Wood sentients often mirror this mindset and spend their lives creating a balance between nature and modernization. On more magically inclined universes these individuals often take the role of nature witches or druids. While Wood is a very gentle element that doesn’t mean that it is without agency. When life or the balance of nature is threatened Wood will show the strength it truly wields. The protector is the other mask of the Wood sentient and they often will go to any length to keep their balance in check.
Decay is the element of relinquishment and solemnity. As a part of the life cycle dyad Decay is intimately involved with the cycle of rebirth. While most sentients have a great fear and disdain for Decay it is actually quite a gentle and kind element. Decay is not the force of Death in the universe, it is the force that brings dead things back to nature. Decay as an elemental spirit is very gentle, and it recycles life with great care and respect. Decay is not a monster who relishes in death, but a force who continues the cycle so new life can continue to come. Decay sentients often have a gentle spirit and with their unique connection to the death cycle have a great gentleness for the mourning process. Decay sentients are usually at home in fields of mushrooms and cemeteries where they can feel their elemental spirit the strongest.
Poison is the element of influence and autonomy. The element of Poison came about from the effort of living things trying to protect themselves. Unlike most other elemental focus Poison came into being with the rise of living creatures. It isn’t as primordial as some of their colleagues, but it is just as potent. Poison is unique in that by its nature poisons and toxins can either be very harmful or helpful. As poison sentients like to say “the difference between poison and a cure is the dosage”, an adage that is eerily true. Poison sentients are by far some of the most individualistic of any group. Poison doesn’t have a strict sense of morality and whatever is best for the sentient is what should be done. Poison at its core is an element defined by the drive for survival, and it continues to be like this to this day.
Body is the element of flesh and blood, and is one of the most common elemental foci to be born under . While most sentients are born with physical forms, Body individuals specialize in tailoring their own body to a wide array of functions. There is no universal body plan or shape that Body expects or nurtures in their sentients. A long distance runner is just as impressive as a sumo wrestler or contortionist. Since individuals are essentially flesh these sentients have the strongest connection to their elemental focus. They find power in their life and body, and this causes them to be one of the most diverse groups of sentients. The only commonality they share is their dedication to refining their physicality to their limits.
Rubber is one of the more unique elements as it has always existed in our own universe, but it was so rare in sentients that few were aware of its existence. Rubber’s main traits are resilience and durability. Those born with rubber as their focus are often destined to live tough lives, however they were born with everything they need to thrive and overcome any obstacle. While rubber is an element that gets knocked down often it always has the power to spring back and continue forward. The individuals born under this force also have a tendency to be flexible and can adapt quickly to most situations while maintaining their core values and personality. Sentients of this element often make for great companions, and use their durability to protect what’s important to them. Those who are more negatively aspected to this element can be uncompromising and intolerant. Often using their past pain to justify the subjugation of others.
Magnetism is the elemental force of attraction and repulsion. This force is what binds things to each other, and conversely can force them apart. Magnetism as an elemental focus is extremely rare as those who have it tend to be able to bend life to their whim. These individuals can attract things such as money, fame, or status while repelling undesirable things like poverty, hunger, and disdain. As such every individual born with this focus is extremely charismatic and innately knows how to tug on the waves of their element to get what they want. Often these individuals have high positions in governmental and social institutions utilizing their “pull” to position themselves in powerful positions.
Gravity is the element of oppression and liberation. Gravity has the force to bend things to its will, or lessen its grip to allow them to soar. Gravity at its core is an element that is hard to control and even harder to resist. Of all the elements it has the most raw physical power. Sentients born with this elemental focus are almost universally well known individuals. With the sheer force behind their being it’d be hard not to impact their home worlds’ history and culture. Gravity aligned sentients run the gamut from despotic dictators to selfless freedom fighters. The only thing these sentients have in common is the force of their personality and drive.
Radiation is the element of mutation and change. This is an elemental force that is unpredictable and extremely difficult to control. Radiation often operates on a cosmic scale, and for most sentients this energy is simply too unpredictable to work with. Many who are born with this element as their focus bind their powers to keep them from eventually killing themselves of those around them. Those sentients who do learn to control their powers can become some of the most powerful beings in their entire reality. From curing incurable diseases to blasts of absolute annihilation these beings are not to be messed with. The elemental spirit for Radiation is just as unpredictable, and can randomly empower his charges even further for indiscernible reasons.
Dark is the element of concealment and mystery. As an elemental spirit Dark is quite withdrawn and tends to interact solely with its twin energy Light. When it comes to magic darkness is suited to shrouding things from sight, and creating areas of non-observance. While darkness has a negative connotation for most sentients this is often due to prejudice and preconceived notions. While it is true that there are Dark sentients that use their powers of obscurity to do harmful acts these are the minority. Many Dark sentients act as protectors, hiding individuals from those who wish them harm. Dark, like any other elemental focus, can produce sentients of any temperament.
Light is the element of illumination or revelation. Light as an elemental force seeks to illuminate the world banishing the shadows and bringing truth to the forefront. It has a great disdain for hidden truths, and desires full transparency amongst itself and the multiverse. Light aligned sentients share this zeal for truth and illumination often taking up a more inquisitive nature. Like Dark this elemental focus has its own preconceived notions and stereotypes that can be detrimental to sentients. Light is not the holy infallible element that many cultures portray it as. Light individuals who are negatively aspected can be zealous in their search for truth, leading witch hunts based on little to no evidence. Their sense of “justice” can often be put into overdrive which can make for very dangerous individuals. As with Dark it is important to really get to know a Light aligned sentient before giving them your full trust.
Twilight is the element which embodies liminality, and acts as the bridge between “opposing” concepts. Twilight is the force that connects concepts and finds new possibilities in combining their differences. Unlike most sentients, twilight focused individuals make very little value judgements between supposed opposites. To twilight there are things to be learned from everything, and to discredit anything without acknowledging its strengths is just hubris. While there are good deeds and evil acts, Twilight does not label sentients as either “good” or “evil”. It tries to look at everything with context and an understanding of the entire situation. Twilight wants to reach the root of truth without prior prejudice or assumptions. Twilight focused sentients tend to be seen as oddballs who break social mores and follow their own unique paths. They also often act as mediators between warring factions, as their open mindedness is seen as a great unifier.
Time is one of the celestial elements and as such has great dominion over reality itself. Time is the great observer who records and documents all things that occur within the multiverse. Mirroring their elemental source, sentients born under Time tend to be watchers who rarely interact with their world in a meaningful way. While they may have desires and wishes of their own they rarely act on them. These sentients aren’t amoral, but they have a different view of life than all other sentients. They see their purpose as being history keepers and nothing more. This focus is not as rare as some would presume, but due to their passive nature very few of these sentients make a name for themselves.
Space is the elemental force of expansion. It is one of the celestial elements and as such commands much of the multiverse. This element is in charge of placement and growth, and together with Time binds the multiverse together. Sentients born under this element are explorers at heart who seek to expand their horizons. They do this both through actual geographical exploration and intellectual pursuits. Typically these drives are for the sole pursuit of discovering novel experiences the sentient has never had. However some space sentients with negative aspects have been known to be horrible colonizers and conquerors.
Void is one of the external elements that are the antithesis to all sentient life. Void is a force that seeks only destruction and the ending of all things. The “consciousness” (if it can be called that) behind this element corrupts and hollows out sentient life in order to bring the multiverse back to a state of nothingness. No sentient life is born with this element as their defining focus. However a sententient can attain this element later on in life due to trauma or dejection. Those who are corrupted by void seek nothing but the complete annihilation of all things. Typically this results in them becoming great forces of death and terror. However this is not always a death sentence. Although it is extremely rare there have been cases of those taken over by void being cured of this corruption.
Psychic is the elemental focus that represents intuition, extrasensory perception, and mental prowess. Psychic as an element is all about the power of the mind and how powerful it can truly be. Psychic believes that true power needs to come from the individual, and doesn’t need to come from external sources. Sentients born under this sign are often seen as mystics and clairvoyants. They hone their mental abilities to grant great feats like mind reading, future seeing, and astral projection. Their core value tends to be a reliance on the self not on faith or religion. Ironically due to their unique abilities many psychic sentiments are in direct contact with their source element. Even though they are aware of the God-like existence that their power comes from they don’t ask for much. When they commune it’s for discussion and education. These individuals resent being handed anything and like to accomplish things on their own.
The only other currently known external element is madness. Madness is an infectious force that slowly corrupts and degrades a mind until only brief flashes of lucidity remain. Unlike void this element has no desires or goals motivating it. It’s simply a force that is beyond sentient comprehension and lacks empathy or even acknowledgement of sentient life. As all external elements no one is born with this elemental affinity but can be changed later on. Those who become corrupted with madness tend to have accidentally discovered ancient artifacts and carvings left by previous “vessels”. These “vessels'' act as a patient zero and spread their madness like a disease. Thankfully these individuals are curable through purifying elements but stopping the spread is an eternal struggle.
Dream is perhaps the element that has the most complexities of any elemental nature. At its core Dream is the element of artistry, novelty, and creation. Those born under this focus are innovators of the highest level and can be seen amongst many past creative geniuses. However those born under this element may have a very loose interpretation of boundaries. What matters to some dreamers is bringing their ideas to life, and thus they rarely think in the long term about potential consequences. The reason for this is that the element incorporates both good dreams and nightmares. Dreams' potential is limitless, and so is what becomes of those who embody this focus. Whether their creations are beneficial or harmful is often up to interpretation and personal perspective.
Soap is one of the more rare elemental forces that exist, and it is not connected to most realities. This element is known for its great potential and dedication to the art of purification. This is both their greatest strength, and potentially their greatest weakness. Those who are more humanitarian use their gifts to purify malignant essences and help bring equality to their world. These types are often seen as saints or heroes. However there are also zealots born into this element who use their gifts to purge unwelcome “intruders” in their bubble. They have a strict sense of “right” and “wrong” and are often among their world’s greatest tyrants.
Heart is the element of connection, emotions, and devotion. Heart is often misunderstood as the element of love, but that’s just one dimension of this extremely complex elemental focus. Where magic is the element that binds elements to sentients, Heart is the element that binds sentients to each other. It is Heart that powers our connections and brings us together. Heart sentiments are unique in that they draw their power not from their elemental font, but from the connections they hold. It is those bonds of love, hate, and empathy that powers their magic. Heart individuals often take the caregiver role and thrive when mending hearts and building spirits. They understand more intimately than any other group that it is our collective lives that contain true power. Life can’t exist in a vacuum alone and Heart is the force that keeps us thriving.
Spirit is the element of communion and the afterlife. Psychic is thought of as the element of intellect, and its counterpart is Spirit which embodies wisdom. Spirit connects the living with the deceased. In essence Spirit is the collective consciousness of all ancestral life, and through it sentients can gain unlimited wisdom. All lessons ever learned by a living being are right at the finger tips of spirit sentients. These individuals have abilities related to necromancy and spirit conjuring. While they can’t directly contact The Great Spirit or the elemental spirits they can still contact any soul that ever lived. These individuals tend to be extremely wise, dedicated to the ancestors, and understanding. Being close to death so early on gives these sentients a unique perspective on life and death. They often make powerful allies and wise leaders.
Magic is perhaps the most important elemental focus for all sentients that exist. Magic, same as all other elemental forces, exists all on its own without the need of sentients. However it was Magic that first connected sentient beings with the elemental spirits. Magic is the force of faith and belief. Without Magic no sentient being could connect to their elemental font, or attain spiritual fulfillment. Magic is the element that binds all of the elemental forces together, and then binds us to them. Magic sentients are the only ones who have the ability to connect and commune with all of the elemental spirits. Like their progenitor they create a bridge between living beings and those of the higher spiritual planes. They are the great priests and holy people of the multiverse.
Sugar is one of the most pure elements in the entire multiverse. Not naturally found in most universes sugar is a force of pure joy and celebration. It is one of the driving forces behind hope, bliss, and optimism. Beings who are born with this element as their focus tend to be balls of enthusiasm. They have a tendency to bring levity to the most grim of situations, and have more often than not been true saviors and messianic figures. Curiously sugar aligned sentients have a natural protection against external elements and there has never been a documented case of them being corrupted. As such they have a tendency to be on the front lines fighting back against these forces.
Cyber is one of the newest elements to our native plane of existence, and as such there is still much being discovered about it. Cyber as an elemental focus seems to be a very structured and organized force. It has specific rules and functions that must be followed, or else the whole system collapses. One of Cyber's primary functions is communication and sentients born with this focus have a knack for picking up communication skills. Cyber magic entails communicating with code based systems, plucking data from nothing, and creating unique spaces in the digital world with only their force of will. Only with more time and research will we find out more about these sentients and the force that empowers them.
Glitch is a newer elemental font that sprung out of the font of Cyber. While Cyber is the force of order and rules, Glitch is the opposite. Glitch is an energy that feeds on chaos and represents possibility. Glitch was an unintentionally created force that is about spontaneous change and possibility. Glitch represents the break away from rules and conformity to discover one’s own path. It’s an elemental focus that defines our current time period as people resist traditions of the past to discover what truly makes them happy. Glitch sentients tend to be unique existences with out of the box ideas and interests. It is theorized that the next big multiversal change will occur when Glitch reaches a certain level of power.