Why Do We Love and Hate Elemental Magic? 

I feel like an alternate solution to the second issue might just be to change the setting? The clichés are probably due at least in part to how people view the elements in our real world- fire can be uncontrollable, and destructive; water can stop the fire and be calm. If your setting is on a tiny island constantly buffeted by storms, rough seas, and rain, water isn’t associated with niceness and calm anymore. It’s a powerful unpredictable stormy force. Fire can’t stand up to the torrential downfall outside. It’s not fiery, hot-tempered and destructive- it’s small and precious and warm.

It’s worth noting that in the lore, mages do actually exist without necessarily being tied to visions (or even elements). Mona’s divination powers for example are completely separate from her hydro vision, Albedo’s alchemy comes from a nation that isn’t tied to any of the seven elements, and while Signora gets half her power from delusions (artificial visions), her other half comes from her study of ancient volatile magic. So while Genshin’s magic is more accessible to a variety of characters, it also has more traditional mages (as well as people like Xiao and Yae Miko who are supernatural beings naturally imbued with different elements, or Childe who harnesses abyssal powers from harsh training).

I've never really thought of vision holders as mages even though they technically are, likely because yeah they don't fit into the regular archetypes of Mages and Wizards with magic. Interesting video, very insightful.

"How can Genshin screw up in story telling sometimes when they make so much money" You could ask that question so many large companies. Truth is, the most talented writers are busy writing their own story and hard to purchase with money. Also they have improved since Sumeru. But Genshin's worldbuilding and lore are definitely awesome.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this channel grew big. It has good production, a good script, and good ideas.

The thing I like about Genshin’s elemental system is that is tied not just to gameplay, but also to the characters and the world around it. The nations ruled by the respective archon have their own set of ideals that correspond well enough to the elements they represent

I like how elemental magic in Genshin Impact isn't just limited to the creation and manipulation of nature's natural elements. It's also energy projection, illusion manifestation, telekinesis, teleportation, elemental mimicry, telepathy and even pocket dimension generation.

7:31 I just wanted to correct this (maybe you knew and kept things generic by referring to the power of this world like "Gods", but anyway). A minority of people can obtain Visions only because of some sort of genetic predisposition or something like that, the details are a secret. Gods don't give Visions, that's a common misconception in the world of Teyvat itself, hence why a lot of players still believe it, even though it's false (I mean players often don't even read the dialogues, so that's not surprising). From the dialogue with Venti after the Mondstadt Arc: Venti: As you know, Visions are external magical foci that only a small minority of people possess. They use these Visions to channel elemental power. Venti: In truth, every wielder of a Vision is one who can attain godhood and ascend to Celestia. We call such people allogenes. Paimon: Allogenes? Paimon's never heard of them before. Venti: Hehe, that's because this is a secret that only archons are privy to. We don't need primitive tools like Visions. Venti: Instead, each archon has an internal magical focus that resonates directly with Celestia itself... known as a Gnosis. [...] From Raiden's line "About the Visions": Raiden: Really? So in all this time, no new Electro Visions have appeared in the outside world? Well, what I can say on this topic is subject to certain constraints, but... it is not by my will that Visions are granted or denied. The key is people's desire, and... well, there's another side to it too. Btw it doesn't really change the content of the video, I just wanted to avoid misinformation on Genshin's lore. Nice video so far!

One theory about how character receive their Vision is their back story all have some kind of “theme.” For example, Electro generally have characters that view the world differently or anemo infamously have characters who have experienced some kind of loss of a loved one or close one and became isolated in some way. It’s not always like that but that’s the theiry

Ah, this is very inspiring for a writer who has struggled to move past the cliched and shackled ways of handling elements. More videos like this, please :)

found this video from a genshin subreddit, and wanted to thank you for your analysis! Interesting how many magical systems have same 3 traits, and i loved how you analyse the genshin's elemental magic! Not gona lie, when you first mentioned the hybrid system of magic, i thought that you would mention genshin's two different system : the elemental via the vision and the pure magic. The magic is something that isn't mentioned much, but in the world of genshin some people knows how to use magic, that are unrelated to the elemental vision. There are witches, for example, and i think one of Amber's voicelines mention that Lisa tought her some magic. Probably if u look into it you would find more mentions of non-elemental magic in the world of genshin. Again, thank you for your work, that was an interesting video!

they definitely paid way more money to whoever wrote the Act 3 Sumeru main story. but i treat the game as a journey not as a storytelling, so i just enjoy the flow with self-insert as the traveler. besides the great world building and how much effort they put into the detail to make it feels alive, the elemental reaction system is also what makes me still play this game for almost 3 years now

just a bit of a correction, dendro is not only a plant power, si more of a "reality and memory powers" and so the powers of dendro is more about nature than ONLY plants, actually the dendro god skill are based in computers tropes than nature

One of the current theories as to how your get a specific type of Vision is that it has to do, at least in part, with your history, but that still leaves a huge amount of room for different personalities or character growth. Like, I think that every Anemo character has lost someone close to them, but no one is going to mistake the nervous introvert Sucrose with the teasingly analytical Heizou or the twisted Wanderer, despite them also all using the same weapon class. Similarly, Pyro characters seem to be very career oriented, but that ranges from funeral directors, to chefs, to housekeepers/fixers, and former military captain Diluc is still a powerful pyro user, but he's gotten disillusioned with the job he was dedicated to at the time he got his Vision and has since quit and become a vigilante instead.

seems the developers are also getting more and more creative when associating elements with their god's ideology, The first two chapters (wind as freedom and earth as protection) are stereotypical, but they chose Eternity in contrast of brief thunder and lightning (which turns out the "eternity" is to cherish the transient and dynamic nature of ever evolving human society) and associating Grass with computer science and dreams is something beyond my expectation, but quite logical if you think about it. Hence the Matrix references everywhere.

I get why you said it was more game play/design related - but your analysis of weakness/resistance and Genshin's magic really inspired me with my world building. Conflict is really hard for me to generate - and I think that answered several of the problems I was facing and opened up a new world of possibilities for me

While I did love your opinion on the elemental gameplay, as someone who plays games for the story and the writing, it pains me to see takes like yours on that department xD And hopefully you will be willing to reconsider? Ashikai is my favorite lore expert/theorist in genshin, and she was the first to show me how astoundingly good Genshin's writing is if you know what to look for and don't expect the storytelling to be linear and streamlined. And in this video where she is interviewed for another channel (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rFmC_5c5eQs.html&ab_channel=SevyPlays), she says one thing that really sums it up for me: "genshin is not an adventure game, it's an archelogy game." The quests as they are could even be called bad writing, but that's because most people won't approach it like an archeologist and go hunting for information and unreliable narrators' perspectives and all of that, in literally every item in the game that actually offers explanations. It's not streamlined at all, and it's one of the reasons why it's so dear and special to me due to how realistic it is, but also breaks my heart because it's what the general public doesn't bother to learn and hates de most. Now, I agree that the quests are not always super well set up, the 3 act in Inazuma's main quest suffered specially (even though there were real world justifications to explain why Hoyoverse was in a low point at the time), but they recovered quite well, with Sumeru's main quest having really good writing in my perspective. I would also ask you to consider that the game is Chinese, not western. This matters for 2 reasons: - First is that a lot of the things that get translated to english are either really poorly translated (there are tons of fan articles and threads on that, the amount of misunderstanding that the translations cause is scary), and a lot of the dialogue that sounds verbose is also a consequence of, well, the english and chinese language working in very different ways. - The second reason is that western lessons on storytelling and tropes that work won't necessarily be what the chinese community values, and while I don't know much about Chinese culture, having grown up with anime before this big boon, I can definitely say that non-western stories often don't adhere, nor should adhere, to our standards. Our way of doing things is not inherently superior. As Genshin characters say frequently, this game is about the journey, not the destination. Many of the moments that the story offers are just meant to serve bonding moments and the small things that we will be able to look fondly back upon. Not everything is meant to drive the story forward, and I personally think that western stories could learn a lot from that, but clearly most people don't share that sentiment so perhaps it wouldn't be such a good idea. Also... man, so many explanations for things are exclusive to limited time events. I would say that my top of favorite moments are from those. That is definitely one thing that I consider bad about Genshin. This is it from me. Apologies for the wall of text, and you don't have (and probably won't) reply but I still hope that you read and that other people come across this as well and are open enough to at least admit that genshin's writing can hit pretty differently depending on how you approach it.

What you mentioned kinda sums up why I haven't gotten too tired of genshin. Mostly on the hard magic system part, creating different dances or rotations for the characters I collect is endlessly fun for me and it becomes an extra fulfilling challenge to incorporate not so popular units into established rotations to see how the dance can change.

I love it when new types of elemental systems are created. When it's different from the usual fire/water/plant cycle. I also write and in my universe I've been trying to make "magic" more scientific. One doesn't just create water pulses out of nothing, but rather has to utilise what already exists. Say for example condensing the water in the air to form a bubble of water. I'm aware that it has been done before but I still think it's neat. My story puts most focus on a different type of "magic" which could be tied more to biology. Take light and dark for example. If a creature is light or dark depends on its species and its habitat. Like how we call owls nocturnal because they hunt at night. There's also an "element" in my world called demonic, and it works like a genetic trait. It changes the appearance and abilities of the one with the trait (just how genes code our appearance and personality) and it can be passed on though offspring or it can be acquired thought certain means. But unlike in most cases, demonic does not equal bad/evil. Just how light doesn't necessarily mean good. Every "element" exists on a spectrum and cannot be defined by one type of behaviour (but it doesn't mean stereotypes don't exist). There are even some species that ARE their own magic system, such as the dragons. I'm trying not to ramble too much so this explanation is super unpolished 😅 In short, there are many tiers and categories of forces in my world, some of them are elemental which are inspired by physics, while others are more like traits based on biology. Some are even closer to concepts like what makes up the world itself (space, time, life death etc) which can't normally be controlled by anyone.

Found this on the genshin subreddit but your content seems really interesting. I've been struggling with my worldbuilding lol

I'm glad this video exists. I also have an elemental magic system as well but I tried tweaking them to stand out, but with purposes. In my magic system, each element represents a theme of personal, philosophical developed in which the more you understand an element and what they represent, the more you are enlightened by it. For example: Fire is the elemental of Change, as one can alter almost any material into whatever the need by "cindering", they lean that changes are a part of life, for good or bad, and that knowing what you can and cannot change will help you become a better person. Or how Earth is an element of growth, patience, and/or maternity. To not rush or force anything but to wait and give care to what you're doing so that the seed you planted will become a mighty oak, so to speak. Air is about clearing your mind and finding joy or peace in anything like playing or singing in the rain. Water is about finding ways to adapt and to thrive when in a difficult situation or different environment. Im still working out the details, but essentially, each ekement has like one singular ability, but it's how you apply that ability that makes it stand out. Like you have to get creative with your techniques or develop strategies to use your magic effectively.

Your insights into worldbuilding are great. Your ideas on the patterns of genshin's elements really opened my eyes.

Great presentation and production values, but more importantly, the actual content is well-thought out and considered. For all the hate that Genshin gets, including its own community, this video is a good argument for what it does well, especially its world building and combat system.

Thought the counterpart for Zhongli being stoic would be Itto being a Chaotic Himbo

You did a fantastic job explaining the basics of Genshin's magic system! All the information in this video is accurate to how the game presents it to any new player (even though, as a player progresses through the story, they start learning more about the nature of visions and where they come from, but that's a topic for a different video...) Love the points you made in the video, made me think more about the game's world building. Side note, I wonder if it would be interesting at some point (maybe when the game is closer to the end of its story) to do an analysis of the way it's telling the main story by contrasting the journey of the protagonist (which we get to play) vs the journey of their twin (which we get to discover as we progress).

I saw this video from your Reddit post, and I love how analytical it is. But can you at least give an exception to your mentioning of weak writing in Sumeru? Because the writing in Sumeru’s story quests is phenomenal. It’s like the exact opposite of Inazuma’s rushed story quests.

As an engineering student, I loved the engineers engineering engineery stuff.

This is truly an amazing video! It helped me with my game world-building. I'm fairly new to world-building and I had all these questions about how to make the world and elemental magic feel interesting and somewhat similar to existing stories but not cliche. Your knowledge and delivery are great, you got yourself a new subscriber!

Thanks for this, Jorian! I'm gonna incorporate this to my writings.

The Fourth Aspect that makes elemental magic boring is that there are not interesting spells, everything is just... throwing elements. No teleportation, no transmutation, no gravtiy spells, no mental/ psiquic spells. etc

Great video!!! I love the way that something so small as questioning how one acquires magic can have such profound changes. I would love to see a deep dive into different magic acquisition systems. The way you go so in depth with your examples is truly wonderful as it exposes stories and worldbuilding that I would have never though of or been exposed to and it broadens the scope of the impossibly possible.

Eu fiquei o vídeo inteiro pensando "ele tem nome de brasileiro" kk eu nunca tinha visto o genshin dessa forma, apesar de ter notado e gostar muito da forma como as visões são distribuídas. Pela primeira vez alguém conseguiu colocar em palavras tudo que precisava ser colocado sobre sistemas elementais! As vezes eu brinco sobre criar histórias, etc. E em uma dessas, resumindo muito a história eu imaginei um personagem alegre mas que manipulasse o frio. Basicamente seria por causa da relação dele com sorvete (o mundo é meio Jojo) kk Eu gostei da ideia mas não sabia o pq... Mas agora você me mostrou o motivo! Foi pq ela fugia do padrão "gelo = personagem frio, refinado, etc", nesse caso o gelo refletia a alegria dele. +1 inscrito! Nos próximos vídeos eu comento em inglês, hoje o sono não me permitiu kk

I mostly hate elemental system,and prefer Magic system that change the fundamental state of the world rather than Throwing Fireball,Rock,Water,and conventrated air at each other with some alteration

An explanation for why the writing may seem stale, or too long, is that the game is Chinese, and in Chinese there are words that might explain something in less than what English needs, and the translations might be too literal sometimes.

The system behind my elemental magic system comes from its origin in my fantasy world. Back before magic became part of my world, there were many wars taking place. But one day, a man happened upon a tear in the fabric of their dimension. On the other side was an informed world of pure energy, with no catalyst to harness it. So when the man reached out his hand to examine the rift, all of the magic in that realm flowed through his body and tore his soul apart, shattering every fragment of his being, and instantaneously stitching it back together piece by piece. As the magical energy left his body, it was released into the world. A world with abundant catalysts (humans included among the catalysts), but no magic. Until now. The magic that was now free on this world fused itself into everything that would accept it. Everything natural to this world was a prime host for the energy of the other world. Natural objects which hosted natural energy. Although the energy wasn’t natural to that specific dimension, it was still a natural energy. As a natural energy, the magic could only take the form of something natural. Any attempt to force it to do something outside of the laws of the universe would result in the “shattering” of one’s soul. To make a fire with magic, they needed to heat up the air around where they wanted the fire. To make ice, they first had to absorb a form of water and freeze it. Every form of elemental magic needed to be carefully executed to avoid disaster. And that’s why they need to undergo intense training to avoid such tragic situations. I have many other magic systems, but this is my most relevant and reasonable magic system.

there is this theory about genshin vision element users have in common like fire corresponds to passion where we can see the lawyer/cook/funeral parlor owner etc. have overwhelming passion on what they do, an adventurer that despite having the worst luck, he still pushes on the geo users or earth have steady and unyielding personalities like zhongli who stick with contracts, yunjin who is strict about her opera performances, ningguang who have strong mind and will to go from rags to richest and the others, cryo or the ice that have some sort of existential crisis where the nun does not want to do any cathedral work, an adepti who lives among human, a human who lives among the adepti, an exorcist who have too much yin energy so spirits run away as soon as they see him, a bartender who hates the wine industry and so on. anemo or the wind element which represent freedom have the opposite for its users where a guild master locks herself to serve her nation, an alchemy student who is so invested in alchemy she does not have time for herself, and most of them have dead friend(s) who they blame themselves because of it. electro users are quite hard to explain but most of them are quite the rebel where a child is to be told to stop daydreaming but then she decided to become one of the character of her favorite story, a sailor who is always being kept in check but then slayed a sea monster in her own, a best student in the academia with so many people that have great expectation but then decided to left the academia to live comfortably. hydro or the water element have users that are loyal to their beliefs or duties, a deaconess who is loyal to her archon, an astrologist who is devoted to the stars, a leader who is devoted to his nation, a duelist who is loyal to his queen. and lastly dendro or the plant users have in common is that they harbor some type of secret or is mysterious on their own and is smart in their own way, a scholar who is a walking mystery, a herbalist who is adept at plants(obviously), the archon herself holds the secrets of the world thru irminsul(world three), a pharmacist that seeks the secret for immortality these are just the few characters and these are just a theory but we can see that vision element "determines one's will and aspirations"(this one is lore accurate)

Magic System Pitfalls: 1.Too ridged and predictable 2.Revolves around raw power and not utility and problem solving 3. Chosen ones, characters with heavy duty plot armor

Magic coming from fame sounds like it can lead to a commentary about online content creation and/or social media influencers, which could be a MASSIVELY impactful type of story to tell right now.

Oooh, I love this! I this helps a lot! I have been working on a magic system and I have had issues thinking about how to avoid personality cliches... But I think I figured out something? I know that people have different layers to their personality, so I thought the core of ones being could determine what element they born with and how they interact with others and their environment changes how they can use their abilities. For example the core of fire is passion and it can be expressed in various ways: such as a gentle mother providing a welcoming home for her children through causally using her flames to make warm meals. Other fire users could be an imaginative artisan that pours their soul into creating beautiful sculptures and vases from molten lava, or a seemingly stoic soldier focusing all their energy towards firing direct explosions at an invading army to protect the country he loves... Of course since passion is the core of the their magic, the amount of it they have determines the strength of their magic. Any critiques?

Great video, I actually loved the little game design section! Thank you so much for putting this together Joriam!

Came from Reddit stayed for the quality content!!! Keep up the awesome work

me: wow, he has such great points and shares the same passion I had for Genshin when I played! Joriam: I'm a Brazillian writer-- me: OXI Mas sério, o modo que você elaborou na distribuição de visões e essa "soft magic" foi tão bem feito que já me inscrevi

1:14 is it bad that I was actually interested in the engineers engineering their way out of engineering problems?

Really interesting video, well structured and loved the examples. Keep going!

I feel like I need to explain the confusion about my name. Sam is in fact my Real-name, what happened was someone hacked my account and changed my username back to an old name I no longer use. It was very disturbing and I'm glad you still called me Sam. 💛

o tema é maravilhoso e o seu entusiasmo em explicar deixa o vídeo melhor ainda obrigado pela nova perspectiva em magia elemental

I'd agree with you on Genshin's writing quality a year ago, but it got miles better for Sumeru.

It’s not about how many times it’s done it’s about how it’s different and each portrayal is relatively unique

My magic system takes elemental magic to a way different level. 7 elements- Kinesis-control a matter Duplication-dupe matter Materialization-change matter into another matter Crystalization-break the f4cking air to form spikes and barriers Chi control-control chi and focus or transfer it Astral projection-be so connected with spirits including yours. Portaling- never bother learning this if your not a royal blood With this magic system the "sorcerers" can be creative and have endless possibilities(whilest also being restricted with rules like-you can only control one specific material at a time unless you have mastered your element to great extent)

... ok, but I'd totally read a story, or multiple, about those engineers, is that only me?

Interesting video that reminded me that my magic system has a lot of elemental based magic in it XD Although I supposed it is not really bad to have since elemental magic tend to be the type of magic that is easier to visualise.

The problem I have with this approach is that now I am asking myself why some of those characters's magic are tied to one element in the first place? I mean, why does the catgirl's magic needs to be tied to nature instead of just being box magic or why the dancer's magic is tied to earth instead of just being dance magic for example. If you bring elemental magic to the table, the elements kind of needs to be somewhat relevant instead of just being some spice spread on top of it. Pokémon elements in game mechanics might be simple and unoriginal but the elements in Pokémon's designs are much more than that: you don't just have Rock-type Pokémons looking like big rocks but also mountains wolves with fur as hard as rock, fossils brought back to life and more.

There is one important thing to note about magic systems in writing IMO. Magic in our world is part of the spectrum of explanations of the natural world, alongside and often combined with or indistinguishable from similar disciplines like philosophy, religion, science, etc. These disciplines are not metaphors or expressions of the human world eg. personalities, character arcs, plotlines etc. which are the things of storywriting. So in writing, you should either tie it to worldbuilding literally, or to the story metaphorically, but be careful doing both. Otherwise you end up with weird conclusions. Like polar and nonpolar molecules don't mix. If there is a magic system based on this for some reason, tying it to character will lead you to conclude that people who have more fat in their diet are the enemies of people who like soup, or something. And I guess vinaigrette consumers are the chosen ones to end this blood feud? Idk it feels forced and confusing to me. The laws of the universe don't have to apply to the human realm necessarily.

Oh, agreed, this aspect of the worldbuilding was one of the things that really drew me into Genshin, although it is also true that I wish the writing would use it better...but that's a whole other rabbit trail. One thing I'll add is that I do believe that there is meant to be a connection between the character and the element they received, just not in a stereotypical mono-personality way. The Pyro (fire) characters are passionate about doing some particular thing for its own sake, without really looking to some final goal, and they are also very attached to and motivated by family. The ice characters are fighting more for survival and self-actualization, and they often have a complicated relationship with family, either trying to separate themselves from a bad situation or trying to find themselves in the face of great expectations. The water characters strive for excellence and will often take great care to present a certain image of themselves to match, hiding their intentions, weaknesses, and/or true feelings in the process. Saying that to say, you can see these commonalities between characters, but they can still embody that ideal in very different ways and have very different personalities. So, it keeps things interesting and gives fans a lot of depth to analyze. So yeah, I do wish that more stories would take something like this, kind of like the possibilities you were suggesting at the video's end. Having a commonality beyond just the shape of the thing they shoot from their fingertips can be very fun worldbuilding fuel when you consider the many different possibilities beyond just 'the fire person is hotheaded'

Honorable mention to Limbus, which thematically (and literally with EGO/abnormalities) ties elements to sin- so sloth is earth/metal, Lust is acid/poison, gluttony is plants/clams, eletricty is envy, wrath is fire, ect. This gives a strong design unity to both charecter thematics and the various EGOs they use and enemies they find without limiting themselves to the element’s stereotypes- or rather giving a whole new set of stereotypes, symbols and implications to each sin/element that allows them to be used for fresh visual language The weirdest part is that greed is not an element, being replaced with gloom/water/ice: I have no idea if this reflects a mistranslation, a deliberate exclusion, a lore-important oversight, or a gatcha company trying to cover it’s ass😂. It seems to have been folded in with gluttony, but at the same time I wouldn’t call depression a sin.

MDS!!!! Eu não tinha ideia que vc é br!!!! Vi um dos seus vídeos e já tinha começado a seguir kkkkk. AMO seu conteúdoooo!!!

You are simply incredible, I'm so glad to have found your channel. Keep doing what you do! Proud to see a fellow brazilian doing such a great job

It could be a system where everyone has an element and there’s 3 aspects of it. Creation, control and transformation. Creation is making your element appear out of nothing, or with your internal energy. Control is manipulating elements around you. Transformation is changing part of your body into your element. So two people who have air as their element would both be able to fly. But it would be different depending on what aspect they use. With creation they would force air out from their body and fly as a jet engine. With control they would cause powerful winds to carry them. With transform they could turn their legs into wind in the shape of a cloud or tornado. I have been thinking of this system in a world similar to Solo leveling and many other manhwa like it. Where there’s these game like portals with monsters in them. So everyone, maybe everyone over 18, gets these powers, and they’re level 1. At level one you can only use 1 cubic centimeter of your element for each aspect. But you can level it up by beating monsters. So if you want to level up you have to be creative with how you use your limited amount of element. If you have what it takes, then a bullet doesn’t need to be that big to be effective. So while there’s people whose hands are flamethrowers and others are throwing mountains at monsters in the portals, your grandma can also use her finger to light candles.

Tbh genshins elemental system aka the visions is closely related dc's lantern cores than to avatar's elemental system, both are recieved by the person's will and individuality and the vision's magic is based more on construct than manipulating elements like the avaters do

nossa só no final eu fui descobrir que você era Brasileiro hahaha muito boa a revisão!

About mages all being wizards or not. I think one cool idea would be to have a worldbuilding explanation on why magic got widespread, so not just wizards in a "magical university" can learn it: Was some human trained by an elf called Flamme whom spreaded magic to mankind, almost like a magical Prometheus spreading fire, because she loved magic so much, and now her elf disciple is collecting all sorts of folk magic as a hobby? Has the printing press been recently invented, and just like how it happened in our world, there was a fierce competition among the press owners in whom could make more books and profit from it, but books in this case are magical grimoires? Magic has always been around, because it's literally that world's "science", so even an old villager lits her candles for prayer and start her hearth fire with a snap of her fingers, and thus, all those old firestarting methods were never invented. Maybe humans and other humanoid creatures domesticated elemental beings and through a symbiotic relationship, one can use sylphs to cast wind magic or salamanders to cast fire magic, at the cost of vitality or something. So the creature will slowly eat away your life force with the more you ask it to make magic for you, and those creatures are sentient beings, so they might like you or not.

Ah não, percebi um leve sotaque ao longo do vídeo, mas nem me liguei, já assisto conteúdo de vários lugares mesmo, o importante é entender mesmo. Mas aí no final o cara manda do nada "I'm a brazillian writer", que que véi, vivo achando wild BRs por aí kkkkk Parabéns pelo vídeo btw, muito bom

I'm writing a story with a Hybrid magic system. Some forms of magic are hard magic systems and some are soft magic systems. some magic is like science or math and can be calculated where as some is mystical and mysterious. The types of people who use either of the groups of two systems are kind of different in that one is logical and the other is whimsical

How to get a vision: Pyro - Passion Hydro - Protect someone Dendro - Knowledge Geo - Don’t care about your vision Cryo - Be a walking contradiction Electro - Be delulu Anemo - Have a dead friend

14:57, You should check out Cassette Beasts. They have a similar sort of interaction system and a few more elements. (Poison, plastic, astral, _glitter_, just to name a few) to go with the standard set. Might line up well with that third point of yours

You should read Tamora Pierce’s Emmelan books. The main characters have crafting magic derived from their work- sewing, blacksmithing, gardening, and weather-with the last two leaning more elemental. Before they can be proficient in their magic, they must be proficient in their craft as that is the source of their magic. This system also live along side the more common and traditional academic magic. It’s a really wonderful series about four orphans becoming family. Also the magic system seemed a bit similar to the one described in your video. Also I hadn’t really thought about it before watching your video, but the personalities of the characters have more to do with their backgrounds than their associated elements. For instance, Briar (he chose his own name) the plant mage, grew up in a street gang from the age of 4 and his solutions to most problems is either violence or theft and it takes him a while to out grow this mindset. His work in the gardens and his teacher ground him , despite his teacher not having the most gentle personality. I really think that you would enjoy these books. Thank You for your wonderful video.

I think the reason Avatar is loved is it’s based on martial arts, not just magic.

Thanks, I'm gonna watch the rest of your videos now.

The topic was wonderful and I enjoyed listening and the added subtitles really helped. Thank you!

My favorite Elemental Magic system is the one in anime Mushoku Tensei. What i love about it is that it's deceptively simple at first look but way more complex once you look deeper. At first it looks like simple elemental + healing + summoning system until you realize those are only human made frameworks around not fully understood force of nature, created to make magic easier to use and learn, not an intrinsic parts of the system. Just like in real life "Newton's laws" are neither built in to the fabric of the universe, nor even accurate representation of phenomena it describes, but just an useful human made framework that makes it easier to understand physics.

I find it helps that while the 7 gods that grant the visions to people are directly tied to certain nations, the people that they choose aren't tied to where they're born. Yoimiya, Yanfei, and Diluc are all Pyro vision wielders, but not only are they all from different nations, none of them are from the nation that holds the Pyro Archon

MANO Esse é o primeiro vídeo seu que eh vejo e assisti achando mó interessante, mas quando tu falou que é brasileiro eu quase pulei da cadeira Um genuino r/suddentlycaralho moment Agora eu estou *extremamente* curioso para ouvir sua voz em português kkkkkkk Muito bom o vídeo!!

My wild card is anxious gambler that get his magic from custom dice he forge. I have parkour magic being used by a guy with a bad leg and no control, acting as a pseudo spider sense that startles him. A tone deaf song mage who comes from a long line of innovative musician mages. He wanted to be an alchemist but his family is forcing him to screech like a banshee in an attempt to “awaken his sleeping song”. Nothing is asleep. A girl who found out her prosthetic channel magic even though machines, cyborgs, and other handicapped people can’t use magic through anything artificial. So she’s Kung Fu fighting rollerblader. Everyone’s Kung Fu fighting but she’s fast as lightning.

this is why i love Warhammer Fantasy's magic system.... it has part elemental magic, part conceptual magic. and these two approaches blend seamlessly.

I like Boboiboy's approach in this elemental power concept where the elements are stronger the more fitting his mood is to each of them.

The elemental interaction in Genshin Impact is partly based on Wu Xing or the chinese elements, where each elements is strong but also weak at the same time to other element depending of the quantity or if is Yin or Yang based. In such cycle also includes interactions where buffs and debuffs can ocurr, with balance as a key part of their philosophy.

Every story I have even entertained since Avatar has had some form of elemental magic and I am incapable of not including it somehow 😂

Came here from your Reddit post, good job!

14:18 Magic by imagination Me: Green Lantern in the house.

Adventure times elements is a funny spin on it I guess, representing the four classic temperaments rather than the elements themselves(fire, ice, candy, slime)

As an electrical engineer, I was actually curious where you were going with your engineering team example. XD

4:59 Pokémon had its own approach with it that avoided the pitfalls too golden owl made a good video on it

Irmão eu jurava que tu era gringo até vc falar q é brasileiro no final do video. Adorei sua visão sobre assunto, o video ficou bom dmais!

My world is definitely more traditional when it comes to it's elemental system. My setting uses elemental soul, so EVERYONE can cast magic and it functions more like a muscle. Not everyone is gonna focus on it but everyone can cast magic. A cook might not have much use in it so they'd use flames to cook, which would be cantrip (in D&D terms) level of magic. But a battle mage might be able to cast 3rd or 4th level fire spells because they actively train it and use it for combat. And while sure I do use emotions like anger/passion for it, that's more an empowerment tool then a "this is this characters personality" kind of deal. As all elements have a positive/negative emotion that they get stronger with. But it's not needed to use because they only apply bursts of power rather then actually train the elemental soul, useful for emergencies like adrenaline in the real world, but too much of it and it becomes exhausting and unhealthy. Then there is also the science aspect of it, which makes casting magic easier. Again let's use fire here, you NEED breathable air to be able to light a fire using magic, and a fuel source whether it's your own elemental soul, or a camp fire, you need some source of fuel. And heat ALWAYS comes from your elemental soul if you're using fire magic. So while mines traditional in a lot of ways it's also not in others. Creating a imo, unique middle ground between the two. And don't get me started on elemental combinations as that is it's own whole thing too

Great video. Elemental magic is my favorite; I can't just leave it behind.

The way i like "explaining", more like artfully describing, the drastic variety is just to put the variety back in the element. Water can be a calm, celestine lake like the top of Jueyun Karst, but it can also be the destructive, drowning storms we see threaten Liyue at the hands of Osial, as well as a soft, practical rain that gives nature it's life and color. Geo can be a hard, stead-fast cliff like the stone spears holding down Osial when we arrive in Liyue, and it's also the beautiful mountains that make up its landscapes, not even mentioning the beaches of beautifully nature-crafted sand that stand fluid yet stubborn in their existence. Ice can be the dangerous hailstorm on Dragonspine and the beautiful, delicate snowflakes that inspire wonder instead of fear, as well as ice cubes that can make things more pleasant or even last longer. Pryo can be a raging, uncontrollable firestorm, but also a beautiful, dormant volcano, a joyous firework, or home-y hearth in the center of your home. I could go on. Variety exists in these elements, in all of us, and i'm glad Genshin made that immensely clear to me as i've played.

Hey man, a friend of mine is creating an original story and is trying to devise a power system but is unsure of how to proceed. Here is what he has so far. I recommended him various other power system videos, but he feels some of them don't necessarily touch upon the issue at all. Characters even in the beginning of the series are significantly above the average human in terms of strength, showcasing superhuman levels of strength and durability that would kill the average human, due to their Arks granting them superhuman characteristics with elemental manipulation. It's nothing too original since elemental powers are basically the standard norm for most shonen works but he wants advice on how to make it unique. He is considering taking the Bleach route where the owner's weapons basically have their souls attached to their weapons but he feels that would be far too complicated. For each weapon, there's also a "release" command that was majorly inspired by Bleach where a user's power is multiplied by a factor of ten at the cost of increased stamina consumption leading to fatigue. He has played a lot of mobile games and is a fan of Arknights power system of Originium Arts but doesn't want to copy it entirely. He is basically considering scrapping and starting all over since the power system he wants basically contrasts heavily with the story arcs he has in mind and is too complicated and riddled with what he knows are plotholes and basically is trying to come up with more drawbacks, limitations, and what is established. For example, his main OC protagonist, who uses water and ice, can effectively feed his team with water thus eliminating the need for most water bottles to hydrate and keep on going, yet on the downside, it consumes his stamina, yet he also wants more drawbacks and trying to find ways to innovate the system rather than come up with new powers. Though again, he is considering rewriting and scrapping the entire system of elemental powers since he reads a lot of fanfiction and is aware that the system he is using as a general concept has been done to death. Any advice would be appreciated

I think that an interesting idea for an elemental magic system would be tying it to ritual self-harm. For example one would have to permanently get burnt in a ritual to optain fire magic, and the more severe the burns the more powerful the magic. Maybe it would be even possible to obtain certain special abilities for loosing certain senses. Maybe if you drowned in a very special way you would be resurrected with mastery over water, but your body would be dead and magically slowly yet inevitably decomposing. To obtain magic of storm people would have to be struck by lighting. The cost would be a rain that follows everywhere they go and a need to charge with lightning, which unsatisfied would lead to their deaths. There could also be like magic of nature related to parasites. I think adding a cost to elemental magic creates conflict while allowing it to be available for all, which in turn would dramatically change how the society functions. Also the ritual aspect would tie nicely to different cultures and their religions; for example I think some cultures would despise water magic because they would see living after death as something profane.

I love element systems, though I think what Genshin (for the most part) does well, is give a new sort of characteristic to an existing element. For example, in Teyvat, Electro is the element of 'eternity', which is paradoxical due to how short a lightning strike lasts. On paper, it's weird to think of Hydro as the element of 'justice'. Some do make sense, like Anemo being the element of 'freedom' and Pyro as the element of 'war', but it's always cool if there's iterations on these sorts of characteristics. Honestly, I feel like more element systems should look further than just base characteristics of each element they use. Why not make earth not an element of endurance, but instead creativity (with how earth is used for things like pottery and sculpting), why not make darkness an element of mystery rather than simple 'absolute evil'?

Gonna be honest, I'd read/watch/play the engineer story. It gives me the same feeling as a lot of pulp scifi works with their rennaisance man engineer-adventurers.

Regarding the 1. Issue, most, if not all magical stories at least involve or straight up focus on violence/combat. So it wouldn't be unreasonable for most significant characters being fighters. As much a fire stamping lawyer is a novelty, does it make sense, especially for the entire profession? Otherwise, I would advise letting your characters figure out, how to utilize their elemental affinity for their goal/job. If there is no way, then don't it to their job, but instead their hobbies or just to their daily live. Don't restrict their life(style) due their element. 2. Issue. From 14:00 it's sort of implied that elemental power is aquired from certain emotional states (in cliches at least). Did I get that right? That's new for me. Rather than focusing on which emotions or character traits equals which element, focus on how their power reflects the character (partially). An example: a prideful earth user creates usually a gigantic rock, while an insecure ones cast multiple small pebble or sand. The 3. Issue was interesting to think about. Nothing meaningful to add. If you are looking for deep or fleshed out power system based on simple premise, I recommend fire force, where everyone is an unique fire-base user and world trigger, which showcases power customization excellently.

The magic system for my fantasy story isn't purely elemental. I liked the idea of having a majority of the spells classified as one element. This just means that mages of that element have an easier time casting those spells. However, I haven't decided what elements I want to include.

Another great video! Always come back to your channel to inspire and encourage me in my writing and story telling. Thank you and keep going my friend :)

Genshin's elements system seems to be based on personality types as well, I've noticed a consistency with a specific character trait with the following: Pyro (Fire) = Extreme passion Cryo (Ice) = Living contradiction/identity crisis Electro (Lightning) = Persistence to achieve or reach a goal even at all costs Hydro (Water) = Upholding a standard to its best form, "doing it justice" basically. Anemo (Wind) = Being willing to let go of something that's really dear to you Dendro (Plants) = Unparalleled curiosity & open-mindedness Geo (Earth) = Loyalty & devotion The seven elemental gods of teyvat also further this by being quite literally, the most extreme embodiments of these character traits. In particular, Nahida who is basically the plant god, being a child is an excellent creative decision, as young children are usually super open minded about anything

It's worth noting that a lot of your proposed benefits come from genshin's roots in the Xianxia setting (chinese high fantasy, I can't reccomend you actually get into reading it unless you can stomach modern chinese culture, gender roles, and repetitive/schlocky storytelling) Which is based far more on Taoist philosophy as their spiritual base as opposed to the west's basis in hermetic alchemy and christian philosophy as their basis. It's sort of magic via philosophy vs magic as a science. Learning, improving yourself, and dedicating yourself to a path (a dao) would be how one acquires and improves their "magic" in a xianxia system. It's important to have your path picked and dedicated to, but you must not narrow your focus too much. As having a wide variety of experiences will ultimately help you in the formation of your own, personal dao. Also, if you pay attention to who the visions are provided to and for what reasons, you can actually reverse engineer the criteria for most of them. Where as with western magic, that's much more of a "I am specifically studying magic" kind of thing. You can do magic because you studied it so thoroughly. You don't need a breadth of experiences, just depth of experiences in this one particular topic. It might be a broader topic than most, but ultimately your familiarity and ability to perform the functions at their highest level determines your power with them. Basically it's math competitions with spectacle. At the end of the day, the real answer to the conundrum is: Actually think about how magic affects the world you have created, and how people interact with it. If it's much more like a science where anyone that says the chants, does the motions, and burns the right incense can do the spell, then how and why does that work? Is there a god writing out all these spells and filtering them down to different peoples as and how they need them? Are there strange energies worked into the world around people that are released through the burning of the materials and guided through chants and somaticism into the proper effects? Could someone find alternative means to pull these energies from elsewhere? Could someone with enough practice and familiarity with these spells cut out the verbal and somatic components if they can guide the energies off thought and will alone? Does that apply to make different categories of spells easier for that particular caster? So on and so forth. The more you can answer these kinds of questions, the harder your magic system, and the more you can extrapolate them to how that affects your particular setting, the more cohesive your magic will feel with the world.

I am working on an elemental hydra. What makes them unique is their main theme on unity, despite their contrasting personalities and different magic styles that conflict with each other, they need each other to help solve not only their individual, personal quests, but the main quest of reuniting a broken world and the races that are constantly at each other's throats. despite being a multiheaded hydra, each head has their own separate physical form that can manifest themselves by separating from the main body. This is useful when they need to separate to solve puzzles or tackle enemies that require a specific combination of elements. Separating is useful, but leaves them vulnerable with smaller mana pools and stats overall. The main body formed by fusing two or more heads is useful as they share each head's mana pool and can modify the body depending on which head is in which position, the central head is the one who controls most of the bodies and decisions, while the right head is the sniper which controls the wings and uses long ranged spells and attacks to strike enemies from afar and the left head is the shield that protects and controls the arms and legs of the body for offense and defensive purposes. Each head has their main preference for position, but their spellcasting variability can enable them to take on different positions with varied effectiveness of their element. Each head is made of two elements: fire and earth, wind and lightning, water and ice- and they are more a manifestation of those elements with a lost soul chosen to be incarnated with those elements to create each of the heads.

I feel like genshin’s biggest problem is just having way too much dialogue. Every little thing has to be explained in a paragraph long dialogue box, whether or not it’s relevant to the situation at hand, and it leads to me becoming impatient and skimming or even just skipping some of the dialogue, especially with how long it takes each arc to actually get somewhere. This leads me to occasionally miss important plot points, creating bad writing where there might not even be any. For example, I didn’t catch the reason for the traveler to go to inazuma to see the raiden shogun, so while the overall story in that area was interesting, After the fact I was left wondering why it even happened in the first place. Traveler’s whole goal in the story is to find their sibling, and going to inazuma, I had originally assumed was because I missed dialogue that there was some kind of clue pointing to the raiden shogun knowing something. During that arc, traveler seems very out of character, denying to help the people of inazuma fight back against oppression, despite having meddled in the affairs of 2 other countries prior out of good will. I assumed that whatever thing raiden shogun knew about our sibling must have been super important if traveler was willing to willfully turn down people in need because they are “only here to speak to raiden shogun” as they put it. Despite that, we end up helping the rebellion and caring about the people of inazuma anyway, so why bother stretching it out for another hundred dialogue boxes just to be out of character? Also, when we finally do get the chance to speak with the raiden shogun, We don’t even ask her anything about our sibling or anything, so if not that, why did we come to inazuma in the first place? The people we would realistically be chasing would be the abyss order, since we know that’s who our sibling is affiliated with, but instead we go to inazuma to fuck around in foreign affairs for an arc, and while I’m just starting the sumeru arc, it seems like it’s going to play out in a similar fashion of “cool, but what was the point of that?”

I love elemental magic! I like how Elementsthegame does it.

Just wanted to point somethings out, first off Zhong Li is not an incarnation of the earth god, he just is the earth god. Second visions don't have much to do with the stereotypical ideas of the element, they more have to do with a common experience between the character and the god. Some examples are how all anemo(wind) characters have lost or will potentially lose a loved one, all hydro characters reveal the truth or have a personal secret, all geo characters are at the heart of a group or organization, all electro characters have a sister or have ties to another female character, all cryo characters are at odds with themselves or their predecessors, all pyro characters have a passing of the torch thing going on whether that be an item, a job, or even ideologys, I don't remember what dendro(plants) has but there's enough information for the rest of the theory to hold up. Anyway good video and thank you for reading the ramblings of a stranger.

I would like to see more game design tangents please ^^