Elemental Magic

Elemental magic is the magic of the physical world.  The most well-known types of elemental magic are air, fire, earth, and water, but lightning and ice mages are also common, as are types of magic which most people wouldn’t consider elements but which seem to fit better in the elemental category than any other, such as force.  Elemental mages are the most common kind of mage by a long way, maybe more common than both of the other families put together.

Out of all the families, elemental mages are the best at directly affecting physical reality – they’re the artisans, engineers, and soldiers of the magical world, and it’s rare for them to come up against a physical problem they can’t solve.  That said, their way of solving that problem is unlikely to be subtle.  Elemental magic is usually *very* obvious and attracts a lot of attention.  Keep getting straight flushes in a poker game and you’ll get some funny looks, but most people won’t think you’re using magic – they’ll think you’re cheating.  Go flying down the high street and you’ll get quite a different reaction.

Elemental magic tends to be well-suited to combat.  All elemental mages have at least some natural ability to hurt people and break things, even if it’s not what they specialise in.  More importantly they can use shields, which give them a good natural defence against magic (and against most other things too).  As a result, most battle-mages are elemental mages.

**Common types of Elemental Magic**

* Air Magic
* Earth Magic
* Fire Magic
* Force Magic
* Ice Magic
* Lightning Magic
* Water Magic

Below you'll see a few sample spells of the air magic and earth magic types.

**Air Blades**
*Action:* Instant or aimed
Duration: *Instantaneous*

Disciplines: Power 2, Control 1
Effect

*The Air mage manifests blades of hardened air, projecting them towards*
his target hoping to cut them up. This attack deals 1d6 points of lethal damage per mastery level and is
kinetic. This attack has a 10 meter range.

**Hurricane blast**
*Action:* Instant or aimed
Duration: *Instantaneous*

Disciplines: Power 1
Effect
*This spell allows the mage to batter a foe with a raw blast of air,*
crushing bone and muscle. This attack deals 1d4 points of bashing damage per mastery level and is Kinetic. This attack has a 10ft range,

**Hardened Air**
*Action:* Instant
Duration: Maintenance

Disciplines: Power 1, Control 2
Effect

*The air mage is a feared assassin for the simple reason, that this*
spell exists. It allows the mage to harden air and grip it to be used as an
impossibly sharp or pointy knife. This weapon can only be wielded by the mage
and has an armor penetration of 1. It otherwise functions as an ordinary knife.

**Implosion**
*Action:* Instant
Duration: *Instantaneous*

Disciplines: Power 3, Control 3
Effect
The mage conjures a vacuum
of air at a specific point, thus causing the surrounding air to rush to fill
this vacuum pulling anything in the immediate vicinity along with it in a
violent burst. All creatures within a 5 meter spread are hit and take 1d8 points of bashing damage per mastery level. The mage then rolls a power check against his victims maneuver defense, success means the victims are pulled towards the
epicenter of the blast.

**Flight**

*Action:* Instant
Duration: *Instantaneous*

Disciplines: Power 2, Control 3
Effect

*The caster gains the ability of flight, this grants him a speed of 10*
times his mastery.

**Whispering wind**
*Action:* Instant
Duration: Concentration

Disciplines: Control 1
Effect

*The air mage can send his words upon the winds, letting it carry to*
anyone within his perception and for as long as he concentrates they can carry
on a conversation over the distance. The conversation is near inaudible to
anyone but the intended recipients or the air mage himself. This spell has a range of 10ft per mastery level.

**Swift as the**
wind
*Action:* Instant
Duration: *Maintenance*

Disciplines: Power 1, Control 2
Effect

The caster is capable of
bending air currents in such a way that they aid his movements, allowing for
incredible speed. This spell increases his speed by +5, and grants
him +1 to melee attacks due to his incredibly fast attacks. Each mastery level grants and incremental increase. Mastery score 2 would increase his speed by +10 and grant him +2 to melee attacks due to his speed.

**Wall of Stone**
*Action:* Instant
Duration: *Instantaneous*

*Disciplines: Power 2, Control 3*

Effect

The Earth mage with this
spell is capable of pulling up minerals from the surrounding landscapes to form
a wall of stone. this wall is 1 meter wide, 50 centimeters tall per Mastery score as well as having 15 health per level.

**Caltrops**
*Action:* Instant
Duration: *Instantaneous*

Disciplines: Power 1, Control 2
Effect
 This is one of the most basic Earth mage combat spells, in spite of it's name it doesn't actually conjure caltrops as much as it conjures spiky protrusions up from the earth to hinder and slow opponents, or blow the tires of a vehicle . The mage is allowed to cover 1 m2 with spikes per mastery score. These spikes half enemy movement, as they rip and tear into their feet.

**Reinforcement**
*Action:* Instant
Duration: *Scene*

Disciplines: Power 2, Control 2
Effect

The earth mage is capable of
imbuing himself with unnatural hardness and strength, by accepting the
properties of stone and granite. This grants the Earth mage a bonus on Strength
equal to his mastery score as well as 5 Shield points per level, however he
also becomes exceedingly hard to move, without his say, he receives a +1 bonus
per spell level on all resistances towards being forcefully. At his leisure his
Brawl attacks can deal lethal or bashing damage, while under the effect of this
spell.

**Petrification**
*Action: Full round*
Duration: *Special*

Disciplines: Power 4, Control 5
Effect

Earth battlemages are often
feared for their incredible sturdiness and strength, however many mages forget
that they’re capable of much, much more terrifying feats of magic. Targets hit by this spell lose 1 point of dexterity per spell level, if they
fail their Spell Resistance as their bodies calcify and harden. Should their
dexterity be reduced to 0 by this spell, their body is completely turned to stone. They go unconscious and will no
longer need to eat or breathe to survive, they
are effectively immortal as they’re stood there as statues. Only *very*
rare ritual magic can reverse complete petrification, however dexterity damage
can be removed by another earth mage with this spell at the rate of one per round the new mage
overcomes the original caster's Spell Power + Spell Level with a Spell Power
roll of his own.

**Blacklung**
*Action: Instant*
Duration: Concentration

Disciplines: Power 2, Control 3
Effect

 The fire mage superheats the air in a victims lungs, causing it to ignite and thus suffocate the victim from the inside. Though they often tend to burn to death before that happens. For each Mastery score this spell deals 1d4 points of lethal damage to the victim, as his lungs begin to slowly melt and he chokes. Furthermore the victim takes a -2 penalty on all rolls in the following rounds, as the lack
of oxygen causes the body to panic.

**Heatwave**
*Action: Instant*
Duration: Instantaneous, special (Read text)

Disciplines: Power 2, Control 2
Effect

 The mage superheats an amount of air and sends it blasting outward, this attack blasts everyone in a 20m cone with soft heat causing them to become lethargic or downright knocking them unconscious. All targets within roll stamina against a DC of the casters Power, if they fail the resistance roll by 1 the target is stunned, if they fail it by 4 the target is knocked unconscious for a number of rounds equal to the mastery score minus the targets stamina score (Minimum 1). If they fail by 6 or more, the
target is knocked unconscious for 1 minute per Mastery score. Easily
flammable objects like paper and hair, will singe or outright incinerate.

**Force Wall**
*Action: Instant*
Duration: Maintenance

Disciplines: Power 2, Control 3
Effect

 This wall isn't dissimilar to that of an Earth mages wall of stone however it functions differently, this wall is made of pure force and directs
all momentum to the surface on which it’s anchored. This means that it can only
resist attacks for as long as the material it is anchored to can, however this
is only a concern with kinetic attacks as energy attacks carry little momentum.
This wall is 1 meter wide, 30 cm tall per mastery score.

**Momentum**
*Action: Free action*
Duration: Instant

Disciplines: Control 1
Effect

 The Force mage is capable of enhancing his body with increased momentum, thus allowing him to perform
extraordinary feats of strength and speed. For each level of the mastery score, his
speed increases by 3 and adds a an extra meter to distance jumping or half a
meter to height. This spell is often used in conjunction with Force weaponry,
allowing the mage to produce truly devastating charge attacks at the
Storytellers discretion.

**Deep Freeze**
*Action: Instant*
Duration: Instantaneous

Disciplines: Power 3, Control 5
Effect

 One of their most fearsome
abilities, Deep freeze causes the air around a human to dip to super cooled
temperatures. This freezes the moisture, causing it to cling to the target.
This spell deals 1d6 points of cold damage per level, as well as reducing the
targets dexterity by one per Mastery score, a successful Spell resistance roll, strength or stamina at a DC of the casters control, reduces the dexterity reduction by half. If this reduces the targets Dexterity
to 0, the target is completely encased in ice. Otherwise the dexterity damage
heals at a rate of 1 per 15 minutes. This spell has a range of 50 meters.

**Freeze**
*Action: Instant*
Duration: Instantaneous

Disciplines: Power 1
Effect

 This is usually the first
spell learned by most Ice mages, as it embodies the most basic tenant of their
craft. It allows the mage to lower the temperature of an object touched, to
such a degree that it freezes. Each Spell Level freezes one cubic foot of
water, or surface of some object. A human touched will suffer 1d4 points of
cold bashing damage per masteryscore, but contact must first be established with a
Dexterity + Brawl roll versus the target's evasion.

**Lightning Jump**
*Action: Instant*
Duration: Instantaneous

Disciplines: Power 1, Control 3
Effect

 The lightning mage assumes the shape and mass of a lightning bolt himself, using
the speed and power he can launch himself through the air, allowing him to
effectively fly for the short distance. Anyone he passes through takes 1d4
points of bashing damage per mastery score, anyone he misses or adjacent to that takes half the
number of dice. He can jump a distance equal to 5 meters times mastery score.

**Lightning Shield**
*Action: Instant*
Duration: Scene

Disciplines: Power 2, Control 3
Effect

 The mage can conjure up a
barrier of electricity to protect himself. The spell grants 10 Shield
Points.  However, as Electricity carries
no kinetic energy, this shield is only half-effective against physical attacks
and thus physical attacks deal double damage against the shield, but should
anyone hit the character in melee they risk being struck back by the shield. A melee attacker takes 1d4 points of bashing damage, for every second mastery score. (2d4 at 3, 3d4 at 5).

**Disintegrate**
*Action: Instant*
Duration: Instantaneous

Disciplines: Power 5, Control 4
Effect

 Water is an exceedingly
powerful solvent; it is often underestimated when it comes to its capabilities
of eroding matter. However, this power specifically serves to give water-battle
mages their reputation as exceedingly dangerous. The mage, or in extremely rare
cases adept, with this spell can harness the erosive powers of water and
disintegrate their opponents. The spell deals 1d8/mastery score of Critical Damage and
completely ignores any kind of kinetic defense, save those provided by other
elemental shields, as it simply breaks it down upon touch. Targets killed by
this spell is reduced to dust, as is any part of their bodies touched by it.
This spell can further more create massive holes in structures and objects, by
simply reducing the subject matter to dust.

**Water skates**
*Action: Instant*
Duration: Scene or Maintenance

Disciplines: Control 2
Effect

 This spell is also sometimes
known as slipstream, but essentially, they do the same thing. It allows the
mage to make use of water's effect on cohesion, causing his feet or shoes to be
slippery on any surface where they’d normally stick. To an experienced user
this can speed up their overland movement quite conveniently, as they skate
across any surface at rather extraordinary speed. This use of the ability
increases the mages base speed by 5 and lasts for a scene, at no cost. The mage
can also turn this spell on his opponents, causing their footing to be uneven
unless they succeed on a Dexterity resistance roll DC the casters Control, this leaves them with a -2
penalty on all athletic rolls involving the targets feet. It also reduces their
base speed by 5, unless they attempt to pass a reflexive dexterity + athletics
roll. Failure on this roll means the target falls flat on their ass. This
latter method of use requires maintenance on the part of the caster.