The Campaign Builder's Guild

FUNDAMENTS
Foundations of reality and the substance of magical action

ELEMENTS
Material or "worldly" subset of fundaments
Constituents of life in order of priority

EARTH: flesh bone sinew; structure stability; human beings
WATER: humours; interconnection; "the status quo"
FIRE: motivation; power violence attraction; thesis
AIR: intellect imagination; inspiration invention; philosophy art

Sir Gules barges into your classroom, because you killed his brother and he wants your head. With EARTH you could burst his sword arm like a fleshy balloon. Ostentatious, inelegant. Messy. You're an esteemed wizard, your students are watching, word will get around. You could be more subtle. With WATER you might sap the strength from those arms, induce a coughing fit, blur his vision. No... He expects such tricks from a wizard. He would fight through it, and confront you though enfeebled. What if you drained his FIRE, sapped his will to fight? You killed my brother, but so what? What was he to me but an obligation and a burden?

A magus can likewise manipulate the events of history. Cause a renowned princess' beauty to waste away, destroying her family's hope of a favourable marriage alliance (earth or water). Twist the love of a lord for his kingdom into covetousness and self interest (fire). Intrude upon the thoughts of a master strategist with trivia and distractions, spoiling the morning's manoeuvres and costing him the battle (air).

With sufficient magical power, it even works on a culture-wide scale. WATER governs social bonds, hierarchies, mutual interest and trust. FIRE describes the common purpose. AIR describes society's capacity for inquiry, its expressiveness and attentiveness. Without WATER, people do not readily or comfortably associate with one another. Without FIRE they do not act upon collective belief or interest. Without AIR civilisation cannot adapt to changing circumstance. You can change a person's relationship to any of these cultural elements, or deform that culture as a whole.

A powerful magus, not yet semidivine, might be able to manipulate all of those things. A True God might not be able to alter even one.

All creatures comprise some combination of elements:

EARTH
primordials; walking corpses
EARTH/WATER
plants; fey; the tiny organisms which thrive invisibly in their trillions within human bodies
EARTH/WATER/FIRE
animals; many monsters
EARTH/WATER/FIRE/AIR
human beings; demihumans; the most dangerous monsters
EARTH/FIRE
golems and other simulacra

e.g. the fey
Many wrongly suppose that, because faeries scheme and argue and lust moreso than mortals, they must possess the same inner Fire and Air that compel human action. But though the fey are flexile and reactive they always revert to their original state. Faeries cannot change and better themselves, nor can they deteriorate. Even their passions are an empty simulation of Want.

as for the other fundaments...

LIFE, DEATH, TIME, [WHAT?]

[ooc]/hijack[/ooc]

uh,

eh

oh, LC, at least there are good responses.   count those darn blessings

Quote from: LordVreeg
oh, LC, at least there are good responses.   count those darn blessings

What happened here was this: I made two posts' worth of information about a potential setting this could be used in, and then I changed my mind and redacted my own suggestions because I decided they weren't quite what I wanted them to be.

I absolutely wasn't making a comment on anyone else's ideas in those two missing posts, and it didn't occur to me to think that my dummy-text could be interpreted as a lack of approval. Terribly sorry about that misunderstanding!

Aww man now I'm curious!

I'll repost it, when I've had a little time to refine it.

There are two, actually: a sci-fi flavor, and a fantasy flavor.

Quote from: Lmns Crn

Quote from: LordVreeg
oh, LC, at least there are good responses.   count those darn blessings

What happened here was this: I made two posts' worth of information about a potential setting this could be used in, and then I changed my mind and redacted my own suggestions because I decided they weren't quite what I wanted them to be.

I absolutely wasn't making a comment on anyone else's ideas in those two missing posts, and it didn't occur to me to think that my dummy-text could be interpreted as a lack of approval. Terribly sorry about that misunderstanding!

always ok, man.  Thanks for clearing.

I was also noting that at least you got some good, thoughtful responses...