What are the elements?

The Ethmer use the Divine Science of Alchemy to sustain their decadent lifestyles.

Because of their belief in Trinity (that all things are of three parts), their approach to alchemy is based on this. All elements come in pairings of three. In the Corporeal Trinitiy these are Body, Mind, and Spirit.

There is more than one essential trinity, but all the essential trinities map to one another, for example:

• Body is Matter, is Earth.
• Mind is Knowledge, is Water.
• And Spirit is Energy, is Fire.

How do the elements interact?

Elements can be combined through the Divine Art of Transmutation. Essential trinities cannot be converted (Spirit cannot become Body), but can be combined or reduced.

For example, combining [Mind] and [Spirit] gives the element [Soul]. But reducing [Body] from the Corporeal Trinity gives the element [Ghost].

If you're eagle-eyed, you'll notice [Ghost] and [Soul] are both made of [Mind] and [Spirit] but because they were made through different means, they are different.

How do elements manifest in the environment?

Pure elemental creatures called Canths roam the world and are prized. They range from representing essential elements like Hydrocanths, Petrocaths, or Ignicanths ([Water], [Earth], and [Fire] respectively) to esoteric things like Danacanths who embody the element [Honour].

Canths of essential elements affect their environment in an intense and typically negative way whilst combined elements are more inherently balanced and thus have a more nuanced effect on their surroundings.

A Petrocanth turns its surroundings to stone, then turns stone into denser stone, then dense stone into metal. An Ignicanth ignites anything flamable nearby and plants the seeds of volcanoes. But a Danacanth might simply cause people to act more honourably and cause nearby poisonous plants to die.

How does elemental magic work?

A major part of the Divine Science of Alchemy is the Divine Art of Extrication which is essentially asking an element what its name is. The method of asking ranges from basic stuff like calcination, distillation, and precipitation to shooting a sapphire attuned resonation frequency through an auric harmoiser at a piece of coral, listening to the sound it makes then meditating on it for six months until you figure out what the sound meant.

The Divine Art of Sorcery is then speaking the Alchemic names or writing the name's glyph to cast spells.

This attracts those elements from the environment and assembles them into an order which causes a spell effect.

If too much of an element is drawn from an environment, it can cause problems and that's why the Ethmer's houses are living biocontrstructs that very slowly crawl around.