Elemental

Particulars

Elementals are the type of Others that Innocents can easily forget being made up of the stuff of reality and creation.<ref>The elemental schools deal with the simple forces, but unlike Incarnations, they embody the physical world, not human and worldly conceits. The common elements are earth, water, fire, and air, but there are many sub-derivative elements, such as cold, lightning, light, dark, smoke, sound, and metal. They are said to be those that bridge the gap between spirit and reality, or Creation and reality.

Elemental practices and Others tend to be short lived in their manifestation. They happen in the short term, often do a lot of damage, leave the environment sharply changed (flooded, burning, ruined), and pass without remark. Innocents don’t necessarily see elementals, and when they do, they tend to forget them far more easily than they do other Others. This applies broadly to most things Elemental; the ‘realms’ of elementals, the practices, and the systems surrounding them. With this short life, however, comes a lot of raw, accessible power. - PACT DICE: Elemental</ref>

Types

There are presumably are many breeds of elemental as there are elements.

Elementals have changed over time, they used to resemble animals, now more likely to be human. The types of element have also changed, electricity is more common, as is polluted water, radiation and acid rain.<ref>Vanishing Points 8.4</ref>

Time passes differently for elementals given that they aren't bothered by human concerns,<ref>“Is it rough?” Avery asked.

“Is it painful?  No, I have no body or nerve endings.  Is it tiring?  I have no brain.  I used to be one thing and now I’m a mess of another and certain affectations help me stay coherent in that.  If I’m to be a corruptive ooze that seeps into patterns and processes, I’ll be a gentleman corruptive ooze.” - Excerpt from [[Shaking Hands 9.z]</ref> and most aren't sapient enough to care either.<ref>Portentum "a sign, token, omen; monster, monstrosity". An Echo looks to the past, but omens mark future events. Between, if echo and omen find equilibrium, there is room for something to be held. Big, horrific events. Spirits, other echoes or splinters of the original echo may fill the space, or an elemental may settle in - usually less sapient or sentient forces, who value the hallow formed more than they mind the monotony of that particular existence. Most are tortured or put through the wringer as the echo and omen twist them and put them through the same events over and over again. - Wildbow on Discord</ref>

Lesser Elementals

Blake Thorburn encountered a lesser elemental that resembled a racoon made of debris, mostly sticks and leaves bit with some trash, stones, teeth, and a beak where it's mouth should be. It was able to sense the connections formed by people looking and dart out of sight before it was clearly seen, but by focusing his Sight, he was able to examine it briefly before it fled.<ref>“Look to your three o’clock without turning your head,” she said.

I did.

Something that might have been a raccoon scampered down from the top of the garage to the far side.  It probably wasn’t a raccoon.

“It’s gone,” I said.

“It’s there, it’s just out of sight.  Keep looking.”
[...]
I caught it a second or two faster than I might have if I wasn’t already focused on the area.  It looked like the slop that you dug out of a gutter after a rain.  Leaves, branches, twigs, and a bit or two of trash.  There were only shadows where eyes were supposed to be, and a few pieces of stone, some teeth, and a bird’s beak where it was supposed to have teeth.

It stopped in its tracks, seemingly startled, as if my vision had transfixed it.

A moment later, it bolted, disappearing around the corner at edge of Hillsglade House.

“You looked too hard,” she said.  “You made a connection, and it noticed.  A lesser elemental.  Now keep looking.  Softer.  Relax, and try to see where the longest lines are.  If you don’t focus too hard, it’s easier to see them.” - Excerpt from Damages 2.4</ref>

Intermediate Elementals

The Sisters of the Torch employed an intermediate flame spirit in most of their rituals as their go-to power source.<ref name=":0">“Apparently the sisters have this elemental they all use in their rituals.  An intermediate flame spirit, the eponymous ‘torch’ of the group, their go-to power source.  J.P. went for a walk, came back, and the elemental decided it wanted to set up shop in one of the Astrologer’s pieces of equipment, rather than the housing they’d prepared for it.  Apparently there’s a lot of power flowing through her systems at the moment, enough to bait an Elemental closer.” - Excerpt from Void 7.4</ref>

The Eye was considered a moderate elemental.<ref name=":2">“I am the Elder Sister, Lord of Toronto.  You should know who I am.  These three women are elementalists in my employ.  This is the Eye of the Storm, a moderate elemental.” - Excerpt from Judgement 16.3</ref> Elementals like the Eye, fueled by powerful traumas or resentments, are common during wars.<ref name="WoG">

Eyes

Spirits like the Eye from the Toronto Fire are common-ish in wartime. They generally reflect lingering trauma and sentiment. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

Greater Elementals

Some Dragons are elemental or mostly elemental in nature, thought to be formed from elementals that take in more than they put out in an endless feedback loop. Elemental dragons are particularly common in Asia. Most dragons incorporate elements of elemental, spirit, animal, nightmare, and other components, rendering them immune to attempts to counter them with their opposite.<ref name=":1" />

The greatest Elementals are found in elemental Storms, and can be on a par with deities, but manifest for only a brief time. Some speculate that they may survive after the Storm fades, travelling between different Storms, while others believe they are simply short-lived.<ref>Storms will keep going because they turn inward.  Winds will loop inward instead of venting out, fires will focus toward the interior of a structure instead of spreading.  They can cover wide areas, enough to occlude a small settlement, but they can be as small as a single building.  It often requires something catastrophic.  This is, at the most extreme end, the uppermost tier of elemental power.  The things that live and are comfortable in storms are akin to deities, but as fleeting as their storm.  We don’t know how many live for a few hours or a day, and how many recede into other territories or realms, waiting for another storm to wake them, before they emerge there. - excerpt from Vanishing Points 8.4</ref>

Uses

Elementals can be summoned just as any other creature could and used to that effect as minions.<ref name=":3">“Okay,” Ty said.  He sprung to his feet, moving out of my field of vision.  “Elemental?  Ghosts?”

“Wind elemental,” Alexis said.  “Anything else is going to be awfully hard to explain.”

“Got it.”

“I’ll get the supplies,” Tiff said.  “Myrrh?”

“Myrrh works,” Ty replied.

“We’re low on myrrh,” Alexis said, adding her two cents.  “Incense works too.”

“Got both,” Tiff said.
[...]
He finished drawing with chalk, and spoke, “Sylph Elatus.”

The air distorted, a slight fog, a movement of dust, tracing the vague outline of a young boy. The boy darted forward as Tiff opened the library door by hand. - Excerpt from Malfeasance 11.8</ref> They can be used as a power source for rituals.<ref name=":2" /> Like a ghost, they can be bound into objects, which helps to stabilize them in the material world.<ref>I reached for my hatchet, touching the handle.“Bound spirit?” he asked.  “Wraith?  Ghost?  Elemental?  I’m actually pretty good at dealing with those.  I’m kind of shit when it comes to fighting, but if you try using that, then you’re going to be down one trinket, and that looks like pretty intricate work.” - Excerpt from Breach 3.5</ref><ref>Elementalism: The practice of those who deal with the forces of nature, from calling down lightning to creating fire at their fingertips. Conjure spirits of certain elements. Spirits are otherworldly and do not fit easily into the material world, and thus need vessels to be crafted and to operate from. While they become weak points of a sort, both strategically and as a target that can be sundered or stolen away on the battlefield, the vessels often offer minor benefits to those who bear them. - Pact Dice doc by Wildbow</ref> They can be used to animate a vessel, for example the Terracotta Soldier.

Constituents

Those tied to elements who cultivate and empower it when able, while generally short lived a few example can exist for centuries.<ref>Constituents are denizens of the Elemental, often briefly-lived Others who dwell in Storms and close to ongoing elemental disasters. They tend to be silent (in a manner of speaking- they may be accompanied by the sound of crackling, whooshing, or by roiling noises) or relatively soft-spoken, and move with a focused determination for the minutes or hours they live. They appear as distorted and broken humans (most often), animals (uncommon) or abstract forms (rarely), often fragmented with the fragments connected by one or more elements. This distortion is in part because they are horror-adjacent, existing in the midst of what is essentially a realm-based distortion, the Storm.

As agents of the Storm [or the ongoing elemental incident, but we'll use Storm for brevity], Constituents manifest with a full but sometimes dull or single-minded awareness, undertaking actions that, when poring over wreckage, might be explained away as human error or accident. Secured flammables may be unsecured, damming measures unhitched. In many of these things, it is a question of very minor sabotages for maximum gain, where exaggeration of the Storm's effects are the sought-after 'gain'. They also oppose those who would disrupt or take away from the Storm, and are often a Storm-Chaser's biggest and/or most common opposition. They can be found in the midst of the storm, or ahead of its path. If the Storm is sure to destroy everything in its path, they may take no issue with showing themselves to people or forcing people into the Storm's way.

Perhaps most dangerous to practice and practitioner, however, is that the Constituents will effectively 'sacrifice' ongoing practice, magic items, and Others to the Storm. This can take a number of forms. A demesne dragged underground in an ongoing series of landslides is a great deal of potential power that has to go somewhere. A trove of magic items dragged into roiling sea and buried in silt may be sent to the Abyss, with the Abyss effectively 'paying for' the gift by feeding power to the Storm and constituents. Bound Others may be co-opted by a Frost Storm, bound in ice instead, and this may potentially create more Constituents, though practitioners are still working out the process and verifying the theory. Successful transmutation of one practice's power to something Elemental can add hours or days to the ongoing Storm, or turn a non-Storm event into a Storm.

Constituents may achieve more awareness with more sacrifices or more ability to feed more things to the Storm, and it's possible that they may recur, exist more independently of the Storm or other elemental disasters, or even become the nascent locus of a future Storm. This can be the result of things like the aforementioned sacrifice to the Abyss, becoming part bogeyman, or a result of a great deal of power and clarification. Recurring Constituents can hold onto a specific element, even in off-type storms (a Constituent of Electricity tearing down power lines amid a Frost Storm) or hold onto another identity, changing their element appropriately (A Constituent that always appears with a rose-like pattern to a mask, long limbs, and a black dress, backed by roiling smoke on one occasion, sandstorm on another). - Wildbow on Discord</ref> They are some of the most common elementals for practitioners to interact with but this doesn't mean they're the most common elemental.<ref>Constituents were a regular concern of elementalists, those practitioners who dealt with elementals.  They appeared most commonly with a Storm, but an elementalist or more powerful elemental could make them more lasting, or they could occasionally find some human-shaped vessel to occupy for a little while.  The majority of non-stable Others seemed to exist as patterns or shapes that needed some outside source of power to keep going, like ghouls needed some proportion of life and death, or incarnations encouraged whatever their universal human constant was and then drank of that idea.  Constituents, by contrast, were power, and fought constantly to find that form and pattern.

Elementals tended to be fleeting, existing as points where more abstract energies met reality.  Fire springing to life, earth moving, water surging, wind blowing where there’d been nothing before.  They could mark the leap from spirit to real, and had a long history of interacting with man, especially in those dangerous domains like natural disasters or poorly understood technology.  Constituents weren’t the most common kind of elemental, but they were the most common kind a practitioner would deal with, because the usual elemental would burn themselves out in however long it took to freeze a car and its inhabitants in winter or give more direction to a rockslide that was hitting a town.  Constituents at least stuck around for a few hours, instead of minutes. - Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.4</ref>

Rudiment

...

Notable Elementals

• Sylph Elatus, a wind elemental resembling a slight distortion and cloud in the shape of a young boy. Summoned using a chalk diagram, burning incense (especially myrrh), and saying its name.<ref name=":3" />
• The Eye, a destructive elemental fueled by the lingering trauma of a great Fire, is one of the major players in the Toronto Council. The Eye was considered a moderate elemental.<ref name=":2" />
• Namesake of the Sisters of the Torch employed an intermediate flame elemental, the 'torch', in most of their rituals as their go-to power source, until J.P. Corvidae interfered.<ref name=":0" />
• She Who Drowns in Moonlight, Lord of Thunder Bay<ref>“Certain regions are disqualified, because they are already under the power or sway of Lords or other Practitioners.  Thunder Bay, for example, is managed by an elemental.  Perhaps that elemental is violent and powerful enough to rule, but it is beholden to other interests and roles.  Other areas are too messy, to untouched by humanity.  They have less strength than John and offer less stability or longevity than the Choir.” - Excerpt from Lost for Words 1.7</ref>

References

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