Forgive me if I've said this before, but I currently plan to have magic in Arbiter be comprised of 8 different elements, and that collective will be known as the elemental spectrum. The classic elements, the ones that really spawned the idea of elements in fantasy, are earth, air, fire, and water. Why am I doubling that number? Well, I guess because other people have, and I liked it. Plus, they divide neatly: four are energy (light, electricity, fire/heat, and life/nature) and four are physical (earth, water, air, darkness).
If you're confounded by an element's categorization there, save it for that element's individual profile in the weeks to come!
So we'll start with Light, an element that isn't on the classical list, but one we've seen frequently enough. Warcraft and Warhammer, Final Fantasy, Zelda, Magic: The Gathering, and holy crap all my examples are games. You know what, though? I'm not gonna care, because if we tried hard enough, we'd find it elsewhere.
Anyway, here's the profile:
************
Light element
Color: White (shut up, we're calling it a color)
Sin: Lust
Virtue: Love
Nature and applications: Light is the purest form of energy. It is plentiful and generous, giving itself freely to whatever it touches. Those who are fond of it claim it to be the source of love and everything that is good. Cynics associate light with promiscuity and impulsiveness. Some say it is the easiest school of magic, because all the element desires is to give itself to others.
Light is believed to be the source of the physical elements' consciousness, that it brings the energy required for wizards to be able to manipulate water, earth, and air.
The most common use of light is in healing magic, where it is used to supercharge the body's ability to regenerate.
From a utility standpoint, someone's sight is entirely dependent on light, so light can be used to play tricks on the enemy's vision or even deprive them of it entirely. And since Light is necessary for sight, Light can be used to spy on things you'd normally be unable to see; Light obviously travels swiftly, so as long as there's light around to ask favors of, it can travel to a target and return to reassemble what it saw in a matter of seconds.
There are offensive applications too, however: light mages can concentrate light into beams of pure kinetic energy, which can be used to inflict blunt-force trauma or even punch holes through solid objects.
Indeed, many scholars believe light and kinetic energy are the same thing: any object that moves at sufficient speeds will glow in proportion to its velocity. This is why stars and comets shine: they either burn hot or move swiftly enough. Even weapons have been purported to glow with an unnatural light when swung by particularly-skilled warriors, though the light only lasts a moment, and it's not common to find a person with the prowess to achieve such speeds.
************
That's how we might describe it from within the world of Arbiter. From outside, there's a couple more things I want to say about it.
First and easiest, associating a color with each element is important because they'll be used with runes (we'll explore that in the post about runes).
While light and heat are closely associated in reality (can't think of anything that generates light that doesn't also generate heat), I want to separate them for Arbiter. I want to change its nature a bit, to make super concentrations of light less like laser beams and more like the repulsor blasts from Iron Man's hands, or maybe even the Kamehameha. Like it says above, kinetic energy. I feel like it would make light more identifiable from "fire" magic. And, if my wildest dreams ever came true and I had the chance to work with a comic artist or game developer or movie producer or something, they could have fun with the whole "an object's brightness is proportional to how fast it's moving" dynamic. If his hammer glows, you know the hit is gonna hurt. Shut up, it's fun to daydream about the idea!
Unlike other franchises, which like to use light as a metaphor for good and darkness as a metaphor for evil, I want to avoid that suggestion. Sure, there will be churches and societies in Arbiter that might claim that light is pure good and dark is pure evil, but I hope to always have credible characters to dispute that claim. Just like all the other elements, light has a neutral alignment. The whole reason I plan to assign one of the seven deadly sins (and a similar virtue) to all (except one!) elements is not to suggest how good or evil it is, but to give you a better idea of the element's consciousness, its personality, and an idea for what type of person would like to use which school of magic.They are what motivates the element to do anything at all, the desires a sorcerer needs to appease in order to get their element(s) to play along.
In this case, Light is the Snooki of the group. People who love her do so because she's outgoing and friendly and innocent. (I don't see promiscuity as a crime, really) People who hate her do so because she's intrusive and impulsive and shamelessly stupid. Ya feel guilty for hating her because whenever she does something bad, it's simply because she didn't know any better. She never does anything with the intention to harm. She's only intolerable because she NEVER knows better, although my entire judgment comes from the clips they played during Beavis and Butthead...
Was probably a mistake to make that association, but Light, more than any other element, might need a strong example of why a given person may not like it, why not everyone can be a light mage. Which is why it might be okay to compare to Snooki right now.
So. When you guys hear 'light magic' or 'light element,' what comes to mind? What games, books, or shows immediately stand out? (right now, I'm either thinkin' Warcraft priest/paladin or Kizaru and the Pacifista from One Piece) Has anyone used it in a particularly clever way? Most importantly, can you think of ways you might make use of light in spellcasting? Perhaps in somewhat more real-world ways, like mirages or inducing seizures/hallucinations, or would you rather break the laws of real world physics like I did? (light is the fastest thing ever, therefore, the faster something moves, the brighter it should glow!)
No comments:
Post a Comment