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Color: Red
Sin: Gluttony
Virtue: Passion
Heat is an energy element, one that represents perseverance. The universe is mostly a cold place, and the natural order seems to suggest a cold future. Still, despite the odds, heat persists and strives to spread its warmth to its maximum potential.
Heat constantly seeks and consumes fuel in order to maintain its crusade. It has an agenda, and in order to achieve its agenda, it ruthlessly amasses all the resources it possibly can. Something so obsessed with survival never hesitates to abandon morality the moment it becomes a burden, so fire and its wielders have developed a reputation for hatred, rage, and cruelty.
The truth is different, of course. Like all the elements, heat possesses a full range of emotions. While each has its preferences, there is always a balance, and for all the hate and anger, there is an equal amount of warmth and charity. The flame's true nature is one of passion.
The practical applications of heat are fairly obvious. Igniting a substance is a matter of appealing to the ambient heat in any environment, asking it to collect itself in the desired object. Likewise, cooling or even freezing a substance can be achieved by asking the heat to abandon it. They're invaluable for mundane tasks like food preparation or storage, but also potent in combat. Entire armies can be countered by a sudden wildfire or unexpected sub-zero temperatures on a summer night.
While the methodology is often the same, the effects can vary wildly. For instance, if a wizard is given time with an organism, they can raise the temperature of appropriate organs or tissue to incite a variety of emotion. Intensifying focus, altering pain thresholds, exciting blood flow; heat sorcerers are known for their ability to seduce the opposite sex or enhance a warrior with a berserker rage.
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I've been pretty vague, I suppose, but as always, things depend on the environment. Plus, when we think magic, fire's probably one of the first things we think about. I'm not going to try too hard to reinvent this wheel, just perhaps explain its methodology a bit differently.
While the ubiquitous fireball spell will be harder in this series - you'd need a credible fuel to keep that flame burning, which means bringing resources or being a hybrid mage - there are plenty of other applications. Since heat is everywhere (ice is still 'hot' in Kelvin's terms), there is no such thing as an environment where a heat user would be neutered. He just may want to opt for ice in an arctic environment and fire in a tropical one. The obvious power and versatility is hopefully curbed by the cost. For instance, if you're concentrating the ambient heat to make a fire, you need to be mindful of damage you might do to the objects you're siphoning that heat from.
Once the wood is burning, it's true, you're generating more heat. If you're trying to survive a cold night, though, draining all the heat to ignite the log might mean you freeze to death before the fire can start paying your body dividends on that down payment. Or maybe you just neuter yourself; you might freeze a little bit of the Amazon into an ice blade or something like that, but you'd be using too much concentration to keep it solid to really wield it very well.
On a side note, two words: party favors. This guy must be a hybrid, prolly has a special bladder for storing propane.
So what we thinkin'? Does the allocation mechanic make sense? How could you see it being used in the field, in terms of combat, survival, or just plain vocation? Feel free to incorporate any hybrid requirements you want, as well. Also, for you chemists out there, what are some of the funner chemical reactions that occur at specific temperatures, or which materials have a particularly spectacular phase change (solid to liquid or whatevs)?
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