The Six Elements

The world of Aurora is composed of **six primal elements**: Water, Wind, Stone, Fire, Lightning, and Life. The entire world is made up of different mixes of those six elements – the dead bodies of the six Primordials. Each element has specific properties that dictate what it does. Mages can manipulate elements by channeling elemental energy into them, bending them to their will.

Many properties of these elements result in behaviors that appear roughly equivalent to our laws of physics at face value. However, when examined on a more fundamental level, the makeup of the world is completely different. This creates a world that is very similar to ours but has distinct differences.

## Elemental Matter

Elemental matter is made up of the dead bodies of the primordials. The material elements (stone, water, and wind) are easy to find, but the energy elements (fire, lightning, and life) typically hide inside other elements. Energy elements can be found occasionally, such as when a fire is lit or lightning strikes, but when they aren't in this active state they sink into the material elements. Each energy element is absorbed by two of the material elements and rejected by a third (its opposite): fire sinks into air and stone and is rejected by water, life sinks into stone and water and is rejected by air, and lightning sinks into water and air and is rejected by stone. When a fire is lit or a mage summons a fireball, they aren't creating the fire out of nowhere and are instead drawing fire out of the surrounding air and stone.

### Aspects

The primordials were all made out of a singular element, but each element sometimes has subdivisions known as aspects of the element. Wind, Fire, and Life all have only one aspect, but the other primordials have multiple. Stone has three aspects: stone, crystal, and metal. Lightning has two aspects: the two colors of lightning, blue and yellow. Water has three aspects: water, ice, and water vapor. These aspects can have even further subdivisions - most notably Stone, who has many types of all three of his aspects, such as different forms of metals.

## Fusions

Elements can be found in their true forms, but to make the wide variety of materials found on the planet, elements fuse together and create new, emergent properties. For example, lava is a fusion of stone and fire, and clay is a fusion of stone and water. Each fused material is unique depending on the proportion of each element involved and can possess unique properties which cannot be predicted just from knowing their components. However, the elements involved in the fusion tend to contribute specific traits to the fusion: wind, water, and stone fusions are more likely to be gaseous, liquid, and solid respectively, fire fusions tend to create gas-like products or intensify other elements, life fusions usually makes things that can adapt to their environment, and lightning fusions are unstable and frequently explode.

Fusions can also be unstable or stable. Unstable fusions slowly separate into their base elements, such as clay, which will slowly separate into its stone and water components if left to settle. Stable fusions will not separate and require external forces, such as a mage pulling the elemental components apart, to completely separate. Stone fusions are typically stable, but there are exceptions, such as the clay mentioned above. Fusions, even unstable fusions, are still different from mixtures. Fusions are much harder to separate than simple mixtures; a water mage can pull the water out of wet sand easily, but you would need to be a water and stone mage in order to effectively split clay into its component parts.

Elements that are opposites (water and fire, life and wind, and stone and lightning) typically won't fuse with each other without a third element in the mix to mediate. The exception is water, which is uniquely versatile and can be coaxed into fusing with fire.

### Adamant

>  *For more information, see Adamant.*
>
>

Adamant is the ultimate fusion of all six elements: an indestructible, diamond-like substance with exactly equal amounts of each element. It is extremely rare but it can be artificially synthesized in small quantities. It also accumulates soul energy in a lattice faster than any other known substance besides soulcrystal. However, the soul energy lattice isn't as tightly woven as soulcrystal, resulting in a lesser resistance to magic instead of a complete negation. It can be found naturally at the core of the planet as the prison of the Void Dragon.

### Living Things

Living things are usually a fusion of all six elements, where each element has a different function. Lightning runs your nervous system and brain, fire transmutes the food and air you intake into energy, life lets you heal, stone makes up bones and some parts of flesh, water pumps your blood, and air is a required intake (breathing). The elements also effect how beings think based on their higher properties. Elementally-influenced humans have more of one element or the other, resulting in altered appearances and unique magical and physical traits related to their element(s).

## Higher Properties

The secondary characteristics associated with each element are called their higher properties. They were unlocked after the Primordial truenames were discovered, when each primordial was invoked in its entirety for the first time since their deaths. This act fundamentally altered the way magic worked and revealed the higher properties, extensions of the primordial's very nature that allow for more precise control over how the element acts as a building block or in spells. The higher properties are the basis for more complex magic that can be performed with each element. However, for the mage to perform magic related to the higher properties, it is essential for the mage to truly understand the nature of whatever element they are trying to manipulate. Essentially, since the primordials are dead, their matter is mindless and lacking the complexity they had in life. Basic magic draws on the simple physicality of the elements, but if the mage controlling it is thinking like the once-living primordial, the matter will awaken more fully and act in more complex ways. To invoke the higher property, the mage needs to be in sync with the element’s principle.

### Transmutation

The higher property of Fire is transmutation. Although it may seem as though fire destroys whatever it touches, the material itself is never lost; instead, the fire transmutes the material from one form to another. Fire also represents the principle of emotion, reflecting how emotional states can change without fundamentally altering the mind. Transmutation magic is used to transform one form of an element into another form. For example, a fire mage could transmute a metal to another metal, or, with more effort, to crystal, because all of them are forms of Stone. Fire magic can also be used to forge and temper other elements, strengthening and purifying them. It can even transform one form of lightning into its opposite.

### Communication

The higher property of Wind is communication. Wind magic can be used for long-distance message spells. Ancient and forgotten knowledge can also sometimes be extracted from the wind with a careful ear, and even fragments of truenames belonging to dead souls. Most of this information is delivered in incoherent fragments, however.

### Stability

The higher properties of Stone are stability and solidity. Unlike all other forms of elemental magic, effects done to Stone are permanent: a mage can form Stone into whatever they would like, and the final product will remain unless some other force changes it. Stone's stability also mirrors the mental principles of loyalty and conviction. Stone magic is sturdy and reliable, and can be strengthened even further by the willpower of the mage. Stone's higher properties mirror the lower ones, but apply them more broadly.

### Mirroring

The higher property of Water is mirroring or phase changing. Water exists in a myriad of extremely varied forms (an iceberg is not the same as a hot geyser), and this is reflected in its higher property. Water can mirror the properties of other elements, such as mirroring stone as ice and wind as steam. As well as phase changing, water represents the principle of erosion, but the effect is difficult to invoke on small scales, so phase changing is considered more relevant to magic.

### Attraction/Repulsion

The higher property of Lightning is attraction. Two kinds of lightning exist: yellow and blue. They behave identically when separate, but each is attracted to the other and repelled by itself. Most mages have a preference for one or the other, but are capable of creating both. This higher property is found in how we form connections in our minds and how we focus or disconnect from the world. Lightning can be used to infuse certain materials with magnetic attraction or repulsion, or bounce very quickly from one point to another.

### Adaptation

The higher property of Life is adaptation and evolution. At its most basic level, Life tries to stay alive; its higher principle is the same concept, but will go to much more drastic lengths. This principle drives evolution, mutation and elemental adaptation, but it is almost completely unexplored due to the extreme danger of experimentation with Life energy. It could theoretically be harnessed to produce true shapeshifting, but this has never succeeded.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Magic (comicaurora.com)
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 So are there general laws of physics in Aurora’s world, considering that it doesn’t operate on the ones we have? (tumblr.com)
3. ↑ Are certain elements effective against others? (tumblr.com)
4. ↑ got a meaty question from the discord for ye... (Tumblr.com)
5. ↑ Hi Red! I was working on the wiki and I was curious about the ways the elements act when they fuse with each other... (tumblr.com)
6. ↑ When talking about clay you said that was an unstable mix between water and stone... (Tumblr.com)
7. ↑ How easy is it to 'Purify' any given element? (Tumblr.com)
8. ↑ So looking at how the Storm is laid out, fire and water are opposites, as are stone and wind, both of which make sense in terms of the dynamics between the two... (tumblr.com)
9. ↑ So are there general laws of physics in Aurora’s world, considering that it doesn’t operate on the ones we have? Like, have people observed that elements and forces tend to behave certain ways? (tumblr.com)
10. ↑ What are the properties and uses of Adamant? How difficult is it to obtain or create? (tumblr.com)
11. ↑ if elemental fusions collect more soul energy, does this compound the more elements in the fusion?... (Tumblr.com)
12. ↑ Page 1.7.19 (comicaurora.com)
13. ↑ "any deficiency will kill you if it’s too much" to "wind deficiency - asthma and aphasia" messages in #aurora-discussion in the OSP discord server.
14. ↑ The Seventh Element (comicaurora.com)
15. ↑ So how did mages figure out the primordials’ true names? Actually, how does one discover anybody’s true name? (tumblr.com)
16. ↑ I think I cracked what stones second property is, and just want confirmation... (tumblr.com)
17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 17.5 Hey so a bunch of asks back you mentioned something about higher principles... (tumblr.com)
18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 You've mentioned before that the elemental magics have higher applications, like fire having a transmutative property. (tumblr.com)
19. ↑ What's the difference between blue and yellow lightning? (tumblr.com)