Git Ya One: the Life Element

So we've finally come to one of the more exotic and unfamiliar of the elements. Sure, we've got the 'nature' school of magic, like what shamans and druids in Warcraft use, but that's probably the closest analog. The biggest setback to living in any fantasy universe would probably be their lack of medical science. Since magic is science in the world of Arbiter, we can't just leave the void of pharmaceuticals unfilled. That's where the life element comes in!

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Color: Green
Sin: None. Well, more like 'all.'
Virtue: Ditto

Nature and applications: Unlike the other elements, life doesn't have a narrow personality. Different forms of life have different demeanors, and even different individuals in a particular species can have wildly variant personalities. However, one thing is certain: users of the life element are known to be domineering. The ability to dominate is essential for any life mage.

  Life is a transformative energy. If earth is exposed to life magic, it becomes flesh or wood or something of the like. Water becomes blood or sap or honey, and air becomes breath. Life is the missing variable between the basic elements and the crops, beasts, and people of the world. If any substance is outside the control of a sorcerer of the physical schools, it's probably because life transformed it into something new.

  Though many healers only wield the light element, the best menders use life. Light only fuels and accelerates a patient's ability to heal itself, while life can correct the problems the body can't correct on its own. For instance, a blind man might see if a life mage uses their own eyes and brain as a template to teach their patient's body to rewire itself into a seeing configuration. Life leaves no scars, won't let a broken bone mend crookedly, doesn't create rogue cells that consume its host body. Increased efficacy requires increased resources, however; unlike light, life requires more materials than just the patient's body. As no sorcerer is able to conjure something from nothing, they require some sort of meat or fiber if they hope to mend someone's flesh and tissue.After all, life is an energy, not a material.

  A novice might correct a scrape, an intermediate might save a dying soldier, but there's no telling what a master can accomplish. Life mages can take a human and make them into something more. Bull horns, eagle wings, cat eyes, chitin, bark, fins; some cultures worship life mages as gods, and others shun them as abominations, but there's no denying their potency. These wizards can incorporate the ecosystem into their own being, absorbing the material of any flora and fauna they've dominated into their own bodies. As long as they have a subservient life-form available, there are few limits to the ways they can alter their bodies.

  As evidenced by their propensity to heal, this control isn't limited to their own bodies. Life users can cause individual blades of grass to combine and grow into vines to constrict an enemy, command a herd of buffalo like a personal army, or even create a new species of bird from an existing egg. The only limit is the ability to dominate the life of whatever they wish to manipulate.As such, there are no known records of a person being manipulated against their will.

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So hopefully this gives you an idea of what life is, why it's an energy magic and not a physical one, and why it's the only element that doesn't have a personality. It's supposed to really play into the idea that 'to live is to be a magician,' because life is a magical element and to live is to wield oneself. Just like the other elements are conscious and can be appealed to, we too are an element that can be appealed to. While electricity is closely tied to intelligence and thought, life is tied to individuality and soul. The life element in Arbiter is sort of the proof of a soul, something we don't necessarily have in the real world. Still, the soul is a resource, just like the water, earth, and air are resources the soul uses to create and maintain its body.

So basically, life users steal souls. The Shang Tsungs of wizards!

And just like Shang Tsung, I doubt we'll have anybody be able to harvest another person's soul unless they're basically dead anyway.

Life opens up the possibility for shapeshifters, for variations on humans like giants, orcs, goblins, minotaurs, or werewolves (we can do better than that, though: weregerbils, for instance!), and a much greater variety of wildlife (dragons, wyverns, griffins).

And, again, it fills the void left by a lack of genetic and medical research. This provides an alternative for the sorts of things you might find in sci-fi: splicing, bionic limbs, augmentation. Maybe you can even prevent or reverse aging with it. Probably couldn't cure my baldness, though, because that (and ONLY that) is too good to be believable!

This element could get really fun with hybrids, too. Modify the body in a way that generates charge that can be stored in some kind of electric gland (maybe by harvesting electric eels), make yourself an extra bladder in your tummy so you can shoot water bullets (learn from the archer fish), integrate metal into your skeleton and maybe even your skin; at this point, I'd wager I've made life seem super strong, but maybe the social consequences help make up for any disparity in power?

So. How would you like to see life used? To phrase it another way, how would you augment yourself or your minions with a power like this? Anybody wanna comment on some more technical applications, like how we might explain any of these transformations to someone with a background in biology? I apologize if this one seems more robust than some of the others, but again, this one seems new and exotic compared to the more classical ones. Make your voices heard, m'friends!