Magical Elements Second Stage

Previous Page: Magical Ellements First Stage

Intro

There are several types of Second-stage elements. The most common are the elements that expand on a basic element. These are by far the most common to get if you have the basic element it expands upon, but it's not impossible to get if your first element is unrelated.

The Second type combines aspects of multiple first-stage elements to create a useful new element with new applications and uses.

The Third Type is elements that are not really related to any of the first-stage elements and are therefore unique. These are also the rarest of the second-stage elements.

Second Stage Elements

Ice

Rarity: Common for Water mages.
Ice is water’s hardened will. An Ice mage not only freezes water into shields and spears, but also manipulates it, directing it, and turning it into a weapon. Ice mages can freeze river coatings to cross hazards, sculpt ice bridges, or even glaciate small ponds to trap foes. At advanced levels, an Ice mage can create entire sculptures, illusions made of pure ice and snow.

Strengths:
Ice is versatile in both offense and defense. It can create barriers, control crowds by slicking terrain, and deliver cold-heavy damage over time. Its finesse ability allows for stealthy entrapments or battlefield reshaping as well as swift and sharp attacks.

Weaknesses:
Dependence on water sources limits its range—dry areas cripple its power. Ice requires precise mana use. Dribbling frost can stall a spell entirely, and overextending can shatter barriers mid-fight, exposing the mage.

Metal

This is a partial Conjuration type.
Stability: High
Degeneration: Crumbles into a fine powder before evaporating.
Weight: High

Rarity: Common for Earth mages.
Metal magic hones Earth’s strength. Mages twist molten ores into complex armor and weave alloys of unparalleled strength. On the forge line, a metal mage can collapse multiple scrap metals into reinforced weapons mid-battle. On the battlefield, they can animate steel spikes to entrap, generate whirling metal shields, and even use their opponents' armor against them. In its phantom state, the metal is lighter, faster, but fragile. Permanent forging requires real metals and external sources of heat.

Strengths:
Metal masters produce battlefield-grade gear quickly, repair damaged structures, and manipulate enemy equipment. It’s excellent for duels and siegecraft.

Weaknesses:
weak without a metal source, slow with one. Phantom metals wear out quickly under heavy use and forging is time-consuming.

Plasma

Rarity: Common for Fire mages.
Plasma is controlled fury—superheated mana is easy to shape and utilize, although it is hard to keep still. Plasma spears carve through enemy ranks; molten plasma shields vaporize incoming arrows. Plasma mages can liquefy small amounts of iron on the spot, or send out bolts that momentarily melt steel before condensing back to blazing ember.

Strengths:
Plasma offers explosive power, fast response, and both offensive and defensive firepower. Shields of leaping plasma scorch enemies.

Weaknesses:
Unpredictable and draining. Plasma surges can overwhelm the caster; even shields are fuel-hungry. High risk of collateral damage—casting near allies demands precision and restraint.
Plasma, if kept stationary for too long, will explode, making shields very dangerous, and only capable of providing temporary protection.

Storm

Rarity: Common for air mages.

The storm takes pushing air to the extreme. It allows the mage to create massive behemoths of force that have the capacity of raining destruction on a massive scale, if their personal power and control is great enough. Masters are able to focus these torrents of unrelenting force, greatly increasing their deadly potential. The storm isn't just air though, with it comes rain, thunder, and lightning, but only for the strongest of storm mages.

Strengths:
Massive area control, environmental dominance, and cutting-edge raw force. Storm is the king of field control and mass suppression.

Weaknesses:
Storms require scale—and thus attention. They stir up chaos, affecting allies and terrain alike. Using lightning risks stray blasts, and pushing weather takes heavy mana and willpower.

Abyss

Rarity: Common for Dark mages

The Abyss is not darkness. It is absence. An unraveling. A void where things vanish not just from sight, but from memory, presence, and cause.

Abyss mages generate zones where reality is less defined: sound is muffled, light bends, thoughts blur. These “Abyss Fields” can cause disorientation, erode magical structures, and distort time slightly within their radius, all things that contribute to disorientation. A skilled Abyss mage can cast someone into a field and make them lose their sense for the rest of the battle.

In high mastery, they are able to distort the flow of mana, disrupting their opponents' ability to use magic, especially if they are less experienced.

Strengths: Mental disruption, anti-magic capabilities, distortion of time/space/light.
Weaknesses: Dangerous to control, easily disrupts allies, and the caster themselves must maintain mental clarity lest they become lost in their own abyss.

Flare

Rarity: Common for Light mages

Flare is not light. It is revelation. A violent, magical scream that exposes all.

Flare mages wield revelation as a weapon—not just illumination, but exposure. Their magic builds to peaks—flares—that blind, burn, and overwhelm their opponents. They are able to brand others' memories, both revealing and searing away memories.

They can create flare fields, where all is seen by them. They force illusions to break, showing the truth.
These fields are especially devastating to dark mages, who rely and shadow and secrecy to do their craft effectively.

Strengths: Anti-stealth, illusion-shattering, burst offense, memory-searing utility.
Weaknesses: Extremely obvious, high mana drain, ineffective in subtle or stealthy environments.

Magma

Rarity: Uncommon for Earth and Fire Mages.
Magma is molten Earth unleashed. Mages melt rock into flowing rivers of magma, shape them like water, and then cool them into jagged armor or molten blades. Mid-tier use includes magma fissures that shred terrain or lava spheres that incinerate field obstacles. Mastery yields eruptive shields—hardened magma that cracks into molten splinters on impact.

Strengths:
Destructive and defensive—formidable in siege and open combat, and perfect for terrain alteration. They are able to melt both real matter — rock and sand, or phantom matter, if they are an Earth mage, which is much safer.

Weaknesses:
Overheating is a constant threat. Users frequently suffer burns or heatstroke. The process is draining, and mages often struggle to turn their used magma back into solid rock, which can be destructive.

Flux

This is a Conjuration type.
Stability: High
Degenration: Dissapates like vapor.
Weight: Very Low

Rarity: Uncommon for Light and Air mages

Flux is not merely a combination of light and air—it is a new magical substance born from their union. It creates a soft, gassy magical medium known as flux: a translucent, ever-shifting vapor that carries the properties of both light and wind but behaves like neither.

Flux is highly versatile and expressive. Mages can shape it into curls, spirals, and streams, push it across wide distances, and tune its hue and opacity to mimic anything from dazzling mirages to crude illusions. It can display moving patterns or symbols, refract or diffuse incoming light, or be condensed into brighter, denser clouds to obscure vision or signal others. Its aesthetic applications are vast, and in the hands of a skilled caster, it becomes a canvas of light, motion, and meaning.

Although non-flammable and non-breathable, flux is not harmless. It can be used to suffocate, disorient, or distract, especially when directed with precision into confined spaces. It clings to surfaces faintly, leaves trails in air currents, and carries no weight of its own—making it difficult to detect unless seen. Once conjured, it persists for a time even without active concentration, though its form will destabilize and dissolve if the caster moves too far away or loses focus.

However, its softness is also its weakness. It cannot deal damage directly, nor can it stop attacks; it is a tool of misdirection, distraction, and beauty, not brute force. And while it synergizes well with both light and air magic, it requires fine control and imagination to truly shine.

Strengths: Wide-range utility, visual manipulation, illusion support, high synergy with light/air
Weaknesses: Low direct power, lacks physicality, requires strong control and creativity

Tar

This is a Conjuration type.
Stability: Very low (increases as it gets more solid)
Degeneration: starts boiling, spattering, and eventually evaporating.
Weight: High

Rarity: Uncommon for Water and Dark mages.
Tar is oppressive and sticky. Mages summon thick black ooze that ensnares, blinds, or seals. Tar can block wounds, trap limbs, or form barriers. Advanced tar mages create selective permeability—only letting air through, or enzyme-dissolving acids. High-tier tar converts into stone-like resin for temporary fortresses, and it can be used as a super glue, fusing matter together before evaporating.

Strengths:
Tar, even with its weaknesses, is hard to counter, it can easily snatch weapons away and glue people's boots to the ground. It is excellent for setting up defensive positions and constructing siege weapons, and even has usefull applications off the battlefield.

Weaknesses:
Unwieldy and slow, defensive, but little range. Tar-based defenses can be broken with pressure or fire. It loses its defensive capacity when its on its own, and it has few direct methods of attack.

Electricity

Rarity: Very Rare
Electricity mages unleash lightning that arcs toward metal and moisture. At basic level, static arcs stun nearby foes. Mid-tier users can attack, overload armor, or send pulses through water to electrocute groups. Masters can trap electricity in charged orbs for delayed blasts, or create lightning netting that zaps anyone entering it.

Strengths:
High-speed offense, tracking damage, and exceptional effectiveness against armored or water-clad opponents.

Weaknesses:
Its path is unpredictable in dry or insulated settings. Too much moisture diffuses it. Mages risk accidental electrocutions.

Silk

This is a Conjuration type
Stability: Low
Degeneration: Strands thin out, occasionally popping into fine strands, until they disappear.
Weight: Low

Rarity: Very Rare
Silk mages weave cloudlike threads of magical filament. Initially soft, these fibers can be spun into ropes that restrain, nets that catch or filter, or balloons that support weight. Or it can be spun into a fine hardened strings, than can cut and strangle, or be attatched to the environment, pulling the mage through the air. Hardened, silky lattices can act as armor or cushioning. Silk weavings are used for non-lethal restraint or construction, but degrade when far from the caster’s control range.

Strengths:
Flexible, fast-to-conjure utility, and a wide set of applications. its thin strands are often hard to see in the midst of battle, making them hard to counter.

Weaknesses:
Its incredible versatility is undercut by its lack of defensive capabilities. no matter how hard it is made, it struggles to stop arrows, let alone swords or axes, forcing the mage to rely on evasion with ropes, which is a hard skill to master, and completely impossible in flat terrain.

Glass

This is a Conjuration type.
Stability: Very High
Degeneration: Doesn't degenerate on its own.
Weight: High

Rarity: Very Rare
Glass mages conjure crystalline structures—they form transparent walls, mirrors, and lenses. Low-tier use includes sightlines, light-focusing prisms, and basic weapons. Higher-tier mages build teleportation links between glass anchors, create optical traps, or craft reflective barriers that bounce spells or sight lines. Glass blades can refract or fragment on strike, but be telekinetically controlled individually.

Strengths:
Brilliant in vision control, teleportation. Great for scouts and surveillance.

Weaknesses:
Fragile—it breaks under heavy force. Complex to form, and teleportation requires precise linking, and it lacks other utilities.

Plant

Rarity: Very Rare
Plant mages can create unique plants with customizable properties, thorns, vines, poisons, or healing drafts. The more powerful or complicated to plant, the more complex it is to make. Even simple plants often require several attempts to get right, but a plant has been grown once, it can be grown again in the same way at will, as these mages can mentally log successful plants, and discard failed ones from their memory.

Strengths:
Infinite adaptability—healing, entrapment, camouflage, food supply. Great for long-term campaigns.

Weaknesses:
Slow to deploy, mana-intensive, and dependent on environmental variables. Once created, plants level out—they need maintenance and can wither without care, all create plants are infertile, and will not reproduce on their own..