How to Make Elemental Magic Fresh Again

What’s up, storytellers? I’m C. R. Rowenson, the magic engineer. This is Seamus. And it’s time to talk about magic. So I was going to shoot this alone, but you can see he was very insistent. So I hope it’s not too distracting for you.

This video is going to be another in the series that I am calling Make It Fresh Again. Today, we’re going to be taking a look at Elemental Magic, melting it down and seeing what we can shape it into. You ready? Let’s get into it.

As in all the other videos, I’m going to be using my three steps for twisting tropes. You can watch the first video in the series to learn more about it or honestly, you can just stick around. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Step one, understand the trope.

Elemental systems focus in on these fundamental forces or aspects of the world around us. In Western culture that is often earth air, water and fire. In some other cultures, such as the Chinese cultures, those use five elements of wood, metal, fire, earth and water. Or the classical Japanese element system is actually

Earth, water, fire, wind, and void. So there’s already a fair bit of variety, but they all kind of hit on those core elements of the world. Magic-users in these systems usually only have access to a single element. There are some cases where it deviates, but that’s usually

A special instance, either in the system or in the individual. Most of these systems have a kind of rock, paper, scissors set up where one element is always strong against one and weak against a another. And that way you end up with this give and take and a sort of natural balance,

Which is also a big part of elemental magic. This kind of magic also tends to have strong connections with nature and the environment, or at least parts of it. It’s also very consistent and stable in the setting. Users of this magic usually have some kind of immunity,

Or at least a resistance to the element that they are attuned to. Step two Should you change it? Elemental Magic is a classic for a reason. It’s intuitive and it makes everything feel more natural and to a certain extent

More rational because it provides some patterns into a world that might not have them. It’s also a it’s a staple, especially if you’re doing an RPG type system. People are going to expect to see these standard elemental powers, even if that’s not the core portion of the magic system.

Everybody wants to throw fireballs. Beyond that, this type of magic system doesn’t carry a ton of implications with it. It often has a lot of philosophies and other things that tie into it usually connected to the nature of the element in question. But that leaves for a fairly flexible magic system archetype.

So just look at what you’ve got. Consider how it fits in to what you’re trying to do, and you may not need to change anything. If you do want to subvert it and twist it, let’s move on to step three. Step three change the trope.

Obviously, you can just change the elements that are involved in the system. This is the most obvious place to start and leads to the most blatant differences between your magic system and the standard magic system. And you can always look through other parts of the world

To try and find different setups and different combinations and pairings of elements that different cultures and people have used. I do caution you to be careful with that, especially if you are lifting some real world cultures to make sure that you are doing it respectfully and appropriately.

One thing you can do is to make your elements more specific, and this can be to subdivide each of the individual elements into further pieces or to just focus in on one. So you could do an entire magic system just around the earth element, which have then broken down into things like mud,

Stone, sand, and maybe even silt. That would feel very different. You can also make your own elements This can be a little tricky, though, because you need your elements to be fundamental aspects of the world around your characters. And that’s a little tough to pull off sometimes.

It’s going to take some creative thinking and probably a bunch of brainstorming, but it can be done. For example, if you wanted to tell a story in a sci fi setting, specifically on a generation ship, the elements you might pick up would be digital signals, wiring, gravity and heat.

Not fire, just thermal heat. Those would be core elements to the lives of these people, which would be a very different form of elemental magic. We can also go in the opposite direction and broaden the spectrum of power that individual users have access to rather than limiting them to one.

You could decrease the magnitude of the power that people have, but give them access to multiple elements, at which point people would be looking for very specific blends of elements, and the users each would be their own class. A fire water elemental wielder would be different from a fire stone elemental wielder.

You can take that even further and make it so that depending on the two that you have access to, it gives you control over a third, which would be absolutely nuts. Gives you all kinds of different combinations and some things you can do and oh. Oh, God.

You could have somebody who was applying for a job and they respond with, Yeah, we see that you have Earth and we see that you have Earth. And Air. We’re really looking for somebody with Earth and water so that they can control mud and handle the growing of our crops.

And I apologize if that is triggering anybody who has been hunting for jobs. Too real. We can also change the source of the elements. In the standard system, most of the matter is going to come from the environment around the magic user.

But you could change it so that it has to come from the magic user themselves. Either they’re providing the water, the mass, or the thermal heat from their own bodies. Or it could be that they actually have to bring material from their homeland.

Meaning if you ship out too many elementalists to foreign soils, then you’re going to be devastating your homeland in the process. That would definitely be interesting. Most importantly, by changing the source like that, you are creating a choke point and you’re changing it from a infinite source to a finite, possibly renewable source

And your magic system, which is really going to force all of your characters and magic users to think more critically and carefully about how they wield their magic. And to me, that is always interesting. We could also change how the elements interact. This is your chance to throw out the rock, paper,

Scissors, elemental trope and replace it with something more interesting. When different elements collide rather than just negating each other, they might reinforce each other, generate new types of matter, actually make each other stronger, or maybe even create uncontrollable bursts

Of energy or new elements altogether that could honestly, that could be where void comes from. I lost my dog for a sun patch. I mean, I understand, but it still hurts. Going back to the point at hand, though, doing this kind of change up on how they interact

Would overhaul how the different magic users need to interact with each other. All of a sudden you would need people working together, engaging, and planning how they’re doing things, which would be a really nice change from the standard countermeasures from one user to another. There you go.

That’s a few ways that you can make elemental magic fresh again. But again, I can’t stress this enough. Consider if you even need to change it. I personally am a sucker for elemental magic systems. I love them and I’m not the only person.

Tropes and archetypes exist for a reason, especially with the very popular ones. There are likely going to be people out there. Target members of your audience that have seen this, love it and simply want more. So you don’t always have to change it. And again, TV tropes.

I’m going to leave a list of links below to a number of different TV trope. Articles on Elemental Magic, the rapid Rock-Paper-Scissors Effect that I was talking about and more. And I also want to know how you would make your Elemental Magic interesting. So please leave a comment below.

And lastly, if you’re building a magic system, elemental or otherwise, and you’re struggling, please let me know. You can reach out to me on my website. You can look up any of my books. I have one called Restrictions May Apply. That is a workbook specifically designed to help

You find the weak points of your system and shore them up with interesting limitations. Or you can check out the Magic System Blueprint, which is a tool to help you quickly get a holistic understanding of your system and how it fits into your world and story.

And if all of that isn’t doing it for you, I do offer one on one coaching and I’m going to leave a link and the description so that you can sign up for a free consultation with me if you are so interested.

If you have no interest in any of that, that’s totally fine too. I just want you working on your magic system That’s all I’ve got for now. Above all else, keep writing and stay awesome.