It's a very unique and origonal idea for a roleplaying setting, and I give you tons of props for that. However, the ending explanation felt a little rushed. Isn't it a little unrealistic that spider venom and goblin blood would make someone explosively sensitive to impact? I can imagine the formation of flammable gases, but for an explosion, you need not only that, but fire. Where does the fire come from?
I think this would work better if the explosion was less "James Bond Shoots a Tanker"-like, and more of a "hard" explosion. Hmmm...ok, I'm being really specific here...but if you could just hear me out - Instead of a huge fireball, think more of a huge bang and a shockwave of air. Nothing fantastic to look at from across a field, but still deadly as heck for anyone nearby.
That, or you could just use magic to explain the fireball. Anyway, despite my nitpicking, I thought it was overall good work! Go to Comment
Quite an interesting idea. I liked it, overall. Be nice to know more specificly how it was made, or what happens if something goes wrong in the creation process. (I would think that it would have to be a very specific recepie to get the exactly correct chemical reaction each time.)
As far as how they explode without fire...Well, in battle blades, armor and shields often clash, causing sparks. And, there are explosives that will ignite without fire. Some react to air that way. Anyway, the way I picture it is more of a napalm type substance.
I've been looking for some good sources to further my knowledge of existing Elemental Energies as well as Elementals. This thread is a good well-spring of such info, and so in return I'll add my own 2-bits.
After reading up on Kitsunes and game magics, I've sorted the elements I know of for certain into the following Elemental Zodiac.
The Four Cores:
--Earth: all stone, sand, ground, rock mineral focuses, and solid structure
--Water: all pure liquids, non-molten fluids, currents, rain, and fluid structure
--Wind/Air: all gases, gales, vortexes, clouds/vapor/steams (when touched with water), free movement structure
Fire: all heat, flames, combustion, active structure
The Four Fusions:
--Wood (Earth + Water): all plants and plant based material and/or organisms
--Ice (Water + Wind/Air): all cold, freezing, and things born from freezing
--Lightning (Wind/Air + Fire): all electricity, storms, and electric based powers/forces
--Metal (Fire + Earth): all ores, metallic materials and/or organisms, and metal focused energy
The Two Influences:
--Light: encompasses glows, beams, stars, suns, Heaven, Healing, Life, Angels, Goodness, etc.
--Dark: encompasses shadow, illusions, voids, space, black-holes, Hell, Pain, Death, Demons/Devils, Evil, Primal, etc.
The Three Lords:
--Sound: covers sounds, all sonic based forces and techniques, on up to Cosmic Harmonics and Dimensional Frequencies
--Spirit: covers ghosts, life-force itself, Ki/chi forces, emotions, the very spark of life itself, and the true soul--the very thing that separates the truly alive from the false imitations.
--Time: The Past/Present/Future, the flow of time, age, youth, speed, the ever moving force that without which everything stops and then shatters.
All the other magical energies and forces I've found since either falls directly under one of these 13, or is born from a minor mix of two of them. Go to Comment
Wow! I traipsed all over the 'Net looking for stuff, and was passing thru this site. MY GODS! You guys are amazing! :) Seriously? After being fascinated by all the ideas (MoonHunter, I swear you could be the soul mate of my HP!) I just sat and wished I had a question just so I could watch y'all shine! Your posts were all so good, I just had to take the time and applaud! Go to Comment
Light - white - good
Shadow - black - bad
Fire - red - good
Earth - orange - bad
Electricity (energy) - yellow - good
Life - green - bad
Water - blue - good
Air - purple - bad Go to Comment
Nothingness - Air and everything you can't see
Everything - All you can see and touch
Darkness - That which is unknown. Counts stuff under the mountain and deep in the water as well as the night.
Concentrate on colors and let them categorize the elements
Red - fire
Blue - water
Green - trees and grass/nature
Brown - dirt and earth
White - clouds/air
Grey - metal and mountains
Found a cool Greek Site that I can't resist adding.
Earth is Dry and Cool
Water Cool and Moist
Air Moist and Warm
Fire Warm and Dry
Quote from: "http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec01.html"
In a seemingly unrelated discovery, Euclid, a Greek mathematician, proved that there are only five solid shapes that can be made from simple polygons (the triangle, square and hexagon). Plato, strongly influenced by this pure mathematical discovery, revised the four element theory with the proposition that there were five elements to the Universe (earth, water, air, fire and quintessence) in correspondence with the five regular solids.
Elements had a natural tendency to separate in space; fire moved outwards, away from the earth, and earth moved inwards, with air and water being intermediate. Thus, each of these five elements occupied a unique place in the heavens (earth elements were heavy and, therefore, low; fire elements were light and located up high).
Thanks in the name of all that contributed to this submission - and to this site!
By the way, do consider to join as a regular member, it makes commenting much easier, allows voting and you can feel even more free to add ideas to the site. :)
Binding force- "Wholeness", "holding-together", the element which causes things to be whole, to stick together, to combine, to stay in one place.
Deconstructing force- "Partiality", "falling-away", the element which causes things to be partial, to fall into pieces or crumble, to split away from each other, to repel, and to move.
Increasing force- "Complexity", "extending-outward", the element which causes things to increase in size or number, to grow outward, to move outward (out of itself), to multiply, to enlarge.
Decreasing force- "Simplicity", "shrinking-inward", the element which causes thigns to decrease in size or number, to shrink, to move inward (into itself), to decrease exponentially, to diminish.
Now, I'm not sure how you would implement those, and they cross over in many places... But whatever. Go to Comment
Well, when I was imagining it, the image I had in my mind was this:
There's a bunch of grey dust. It suddenly flurries together into a grey cube, and it's cracks vanish (binding force). Cracks suddenly develop, and the whole thing crumbles to pieces (deconstructing force). The cube reforms. Now, it begins to grow and spawn smaller cubes and split itself off into a multitude of cubes (increasing force). Then, the cubes begin to shrink and diminish into themselves, some by pieces, others exponentially (decreasing force).
I don't know if this is significantly different from the other system I gave, so I'm not going to really flesh it out, but...
-Rising energy (pulls up- air)
-Descending energy (pulls down- water)
-Central energy (keeps still, keeps together- earth, stone)
-Turning energy (constant motion- can't think of a good example)
-Split energy (when rising or descending pulls on central, it creates split- fire is an example of this) Go to Comment
...Y'know, that's a really unique idea. I like it. I may try to figure out how to implement the magic system based around this sort of thing. Go to Comment
-Creative Force
-Can summon creatures, create items and energy, and renew things (healing?)
-Things and creatures brought forth will be 'rough' - creatures will be almost like crude sculptures without the smooth movements of a "true" creature
-Nothing may be directly damaged or destroyed with this force, but indirect damage - calling forth fire beneath an opponent, for example - is possible
-The nature of things cannot be changed with this force.
-Orderly Force
-Can shape and mold things to a more perfect form, whether turning a crude natural bridge into an elegant walkway, forming the 'rough' creations of the Creative into "true" creatures and items, or aiding the labors of a craftsman to turn raw materials into a finished product
-Cannot directly create a finished item, only shape it from raw materials
-Cannot deal damage, but can heal.
-Unable to truly alter something from what it is. A piece of wood shaped to become a sword is still wood, and lead shaped into bars cannot be made gold.
-Destructive Force
-Can break down things, deal direct injury, and banish things.
-Cannot create things except in the crudest way - breaking blocks to make a rough sculpture, or making a tunnel by destroying the earth.
-Cannot be used to shape things save as above; fine control needed to make a finished product is impossible as the energy 'spills over'.
-Cannot change a substance, only destroy it.
-Discordant Force
-Can transform things from one form to another, or one type to another. Shapeshifting and transmutation are quite possible.
-Cannot create things, although previously existing items and creatures can be made into something else
-Cannot make a finished item by turning a crude item into a finished one, but can change the nature of a finished item - lead bars becoming gold bars, but not a wooden staff becoming a metal sword or a frog into a wizard.
-Cannot actually destroy things, only transform them, although the result may fall apart naturally - a castle wall with the bottom row turned to soft mud will naturally fall apart.
-Mages must undergo a test to determine the forces to which they are attuned.
-Balanced mages are uncommon, as they may use all four forces equally but have no special power with any.
-Polarized mages show a measure of attunement to two forces, but not opposed ones. Thus, Creative/Orderly, Orderly/Destructive, Destructive/Disorderly, and Disorderly/Creative are the only four possible Polarizations. Polarized mages are the most common.
-Duality mages specialize in opposed forces - Creative/Destructive and Orderly/Disorderly. Extremely rare, and often more than a bit insane.
-Specialized mages focus solely on a single force, and can wring measures of strength from it that lie beyond other, more generalized mages, at the cost of versatility. These kinds of mages are about as uncommon as balanced mages, and often work in teams with other specialized mages as befits their profession of choice.
-So-called sorcerers exist (sorcerer being the wizardly term; normal non-spellcasters tend to call them warlocks out of a sense of fear at their 'unnatural' magic) who can tap into the various forces without training and in strange ways. They are extremely rare, however.
-Like wizards, most warlocks are Balanced spellworkers. Their inherent grasp of magic and the nature of their gift, however, makes them roughly equivalent in power to a Polarized or Duality mage.
-Polarized warlocks are extremely rare, while duality warlocks tend to be more common and quite thoroughly off their rockers.
-Specialized warlocks achieve heights of power unknown to anyone else, but usually end up destroying themselves by reaching too far.
-Extremely rarely, Warlocks exist who tap three of the four forces, a thing unheard of among Mages. This unorthodox combination is abnormally powerful, as well, but the imbalance tends to rapidly turn them into gibbering lunatics of no importance.
-Rumors exist of warlocks who can tap a 'Fifth Force' of some kind, doing things that leave Mages and other Warlocks alike completely dumbfounded; distortion of space and time are often featured, but discounted as impossible wives' tales.
-Any spellworker may be 'biased' toward a given force over another while still remaining able to tap into the others. Certain forms of magic are only possible for a given force-dominance or force-balance. The animation of golems, as an example, requires a perfect balance of both Creative and Discordant Force, to summon up animating energy and shape both it and the material of the golem's body together.
-If a 'Fifth Force' exists, it would be linked to the energy and structure of the 'barriers' of space, time, and the planes; a Fifth Force Warlock would likely be able to teleport, augment their own speed, and potentially open portals to other planes. However, such a talent would likely be unfathomably rare in this system. Go to Comment
Items (Potion) (Cursed)