Your tenacity on this point makes me suspect that my earlier carrying-on was at least partially plausible to you and you're perhaps having a bit of a denial problem. I don't recall anyone "demanding" five elements, and as both Winter and you note, you seem to be the only aggressive "four-elementer." Really, why the heat?

That silliness aside, I believe that the way things are named is as important to the total experience of a game as how they work. Language shapes thought, after all. So I have a fair degree of sympathy with your rhetorical pitbull trip here even though I remain convinced that Life/Death is either the fifth element or it is two things, the fifth and sixth elements (the latter interpretation presenting an art problem or a design decision to merge them again).

Well, my concept of the elements was based of off a comparitively old PS2 game known as Jak, in which "Eco" came in four colors (red, yellow, green and blue) with "light" and "dark" existing as a synthesis and abscense of them, respectively. It also appears in early-Renaissance medicine/science with fire, air, water, earth, and Ether. This system always seemed to make the most sense to me, and I assumed it would be used in other places. The initial concept art featuring

This lead me to think that I could get ahold of a little clout on the forum (and thus a possible alpha slot that I rather want due to the lack of interesting things to do over the summer) by being "prescient" about the layout of the elements. The existance of only four crystal medallions, as well as the appearance of the runes along the border seemed to confirm my theory.

Also, I like to debate just for the sake of debating, and as I said abive it's been a loooooooooooooong summer.

The problems is that is life/death is a type of magic different from the four classic greek elements, then life/death is also one. At least games tend to associate magic types with elements (and sometimes subelements). The lack of shard for life/death could mean that it's not an element but considering that it's based in living (or dying) beings, a shard per se wouldn't make much sense. And that is neither evidence of life/death being an element is it could be just a.. er.. byproduct? of the interaction of the four elements.

All depends of the point of view that Brad/Stardock wants to use but all I have read seems to point as five(six) types of magic/elements. Until more accurate and explicit information given. After all, a rock may be strongly earth oriented but it's not alive (earth magic appart) as it would need something "extra" for that. Everything would be composed of those four elements in different proportions yet only a few would be alive. Why? Is a matter of proportions? Is there anotehr element?

And what does Dark Energy has to do with all this?

Nothing. But I'm not in the mood to recite my list right now.

The way I look at it, life magic is derived from things living, growing, and being happy. Death magic is derived from (for lack of a better term) suffering: the more miserable and brutal the ecology gets, the more ambient death magic there is. In short, life magic appears in "Garden of Eden" environments where the cycle of life is peaceful, largely benevolenmt, and..... (again for lack of a better word)....... fair. Death magic florishes in places that are "red in tooth and claw", where the natural order of things is brutal, competitive, unfogiving, and "unfair".

Ok. I still don't agree (I think there are 5 thematic magic elements), but I don't care enough to argue with you on that point.

And ultimately, if Brad/Stardock decides to call Life/Death the fifth (/sixth) magical element, it's their call. Whether or not you think it should be that way based on whatever historical belief systems will ultimately be irrelevant. Also, talking about what makes 'the most sense' regarding magical elements sort of makes me chuckle. We don't have magic in the world, so none of it makes sense. And I'm of the mind that we know enough about the world now to get passed out-dated divisions of the natural world into arbitrary classes such as "earth, air, fire, water, void, light, dark" or whatever else might tickle our fancy - and so talking about what makes the most sense is itself nonsensical.

That sort of take is exactly why I've been longing so long for an Integrated Metaphysics dev journal. I suspect (and don't entirely like) that what you describe here is how Life and Death magic will work in the shipped game.

Still, one of the reasons I liked the idea of a unified fifth 'Life/Death' element is mainly because of my deep interest in ecology and a personal rejection of the idea that death is somehow evil in its own right (when I was a teenager, I wanted to live forever, but that idea seems both scary and silly to me now that I'm 'middle-aged'). Murder is evil, but death is part of nature--without death, the world would be limited to autotrophic organisms (ones that can live entirely on the raw materials around them with no dependence on the output of other organisms).

This makes a great deal of sense, especially in a magical world where an afterlife is more plausible. This is one of the main reasons why I feel that not all Men (life-users, if Brad's restrictions still hold) should be good and all fallen should be evil. Therefore, although unfortunately something like my earlier statement is most likely what will be in the game, I think that the above dichotemy would best be applied to only EVIL death magic and GOOD life magic, respectively.

I would point out GW that depending on feedback from the beta a life / death magic system similar to the other 4 elements isn't out of the question. The changes would be easily implemented considering the actual usage model for all the elements is exactly the same. The only thing that would need to be added is life & death shards and allowing the Channeler to pick a naturally regenerating type of mana from all 6 elements.

Edit: You could even have a single shard for life/death that could be "calibrated" for the mana type you want.

Interesting. I actually like the idea that channelers (and possibly other living things) are the source for Life/Death mana, and I don't see any need to enforce a 'universal shard' model for mana supplies. My thing about Life and Death being two sides of the same coin is mainly about wanting a middle way in the canon Elemental game. But some stories depend on a simple binary distinction, so I'll probably be OK with the Elemental canon if it does at least an average job on a Good/Life vs. Evil/Death story line.

I would prefer a system similar to  this.

If that is a no go then I'd take life/death shards. My last choice would be the current model where the Channeler is the life / death magic shard.

I actually quite like Channelers being the source of life/death magic. They could even have it that the ability to use life/death magic is what allows channelers to access the magical forces bound up in the shards.

I mentioned this in another thread, but I'll say it again: I like asymmetry in games. Most games tend to be so symmetric that even the things that are different are really just variations on the same thing - and that gets old. Having a school of magic that is used or accessed differently would, I think, make things more interesting. It's the same reason I don't want each school to have similar spells. Each magical school should contain very different spells. That's not to say that two schools can't both have many offensive spells - just that their offensive spells should function differently. It's one of the best ways to keep things interesting and to increase replay value.

I see the current model as reducing variability. I assume that a large portion of life / death magic will be similar across factions. Perhaps not exact replicas but very similar which is a reasonable assumption. My goal with the two different models would be to allow the Channeler to pick what core element he wants. This I would hope affects your spell book noticeably. The way I see it right now everyone will get certain Death or Life spells with some unique ones thrown in. Always having a 50% chance of guessing the core magic your enemy is using seems boring. Where as a 16.7% chance of guessing his core element seems much more fun to me.

I don't particularly hate the Channeler = life/death shard model but I'm not a fan either.

Well ultimately it depends how it's all handled. For one, Stardock said that want much of faction diversity to come from the magic system - so there might actually be quite a difference between their available spells, even their core spells.

They could also do something like have everyone start out with life/death, but have the types of spells available to you largely dependent on what other shards you have or schools you're proficient in. I see your point that starting out with just life/death magic every game could get repetitive - especially because you'd likely end up most proficient in the element you start out with.

So if there isn't much intricacy to how life/death is handled, or if you can't choose other elements to start with then I agree with you completely. But I think things could be done to make this a non-issue.

I rather like the system we have now, which is why I want life and death considered non-elements: you choose life or death, but you also get to choose an actual element from one of the four. This works out to eight permutations, as opposed to the six you would get if life and death were treated just like the others.

Well if life and death were treated just like the others, then they could also do a MoM-like pick system where you can start out with multiple schools of magic. In which case there'd be more permutations than 8.

Wasn't it like Life/Death plus two other elements each civilization? That gives us 6 combinations for humans and 6 for Fallen (ok, one of those "Fallen" is supposedly human).

I don't have the time to do all the math, but just guestimating, you would still get more. I'll post the calculations soon.

Unless I missed a dev follow-up to the July FAQ, it sounds to me like your access to Earth, Air, Fire, and Water is based on controlling shards, not a choice during setup.

I don't do math well in my head, but I'm pretty sure that there will be lots more than 8 possible 'elemental combinations' regardless of whether Life/Death is one thing or two things. Earth, Earth+Air, Earth+Fire, Earth+Water, Earth+Air+Fire, Earth+Air+Water, etc.

The statement you are quoting assumes two things:

1. You can choose an "affinity" for one of the four classic elements.
2. That "affinity" affects your ability to channel the element.

We still lack info on the finer points of magic, so it's all up in the air. I could be VERY wrong, or I could be exactly right. I have no idea. However, simple permutations are only half of the story. Different methods of getting magic will in and of themselves add complexity to the game.

I haven't seen anything about you choosing some other schools of magic during game creation. Did I miss something?

No, I just sokehow go it in my head that we would have an "affinity" for one of the shard elements, in spell tree if nothing else.

As long as there is enough hand holding and documentation to explicitly lay out what does what and how to do a good number of generic changes, I will fall in love.

Apparently, Scoutdog's take is more or less his imagination (plus his distaste for making uncertainty clear when he types). My reading of the what's-a-channeler part of the July FAQ leaves me pretty convinced that there won't be anything like 'elemental affinity' in the game, unless it is possibly embedded in faction-centered spell collections.

Maybe part of what we'll get by choosing a faction will be something that makes certain shard types more valuable than others, but I'm starting to suspect that there might not be anything like choosing to be an 'element' specialist, a dualist, or a generalist. If my suspicion turns out to be accurate, I'll be a bit disappointed, but explaining why would lead me to discussing the Unmentionable Predecessor...

The way I read it, life mana comes from the channeler.  It doesn't say other mana can't, just that life mana isn't much of an option elsewhere.  If you have a minimum requirement necessary for imbuing land and such, that doesn't necessarily mean you're starting out with a leader that specializes in life.  It could be just like MoM's setup was, but you had a mandatory selection of one life or death point.

There are plenty of ways for the explanations given to lead to something besides a monoculture of life and death casters.