Element (ConceptClass, 5)
From Compile Worlds
Part or all of this page is not relevant to Kawachan.
After the transition to Kawachan2, it will ultimately be moved to another domain{{#if|Metaphysics|" (Metaphysics)"}} where it is more relevant.
An element, sometimes incorrectly referred to as "an" affinity, is a metaphysical alignment. Element systems are not a trivial matter, and this page discusses Keiji's two attempts so far to create a "complete" system.
The original 16-element system
There are four primary elements (or tier 1 elements), which can be discretely combined to produce the sixteen pure elements or continuously combined to produce any compound element. These can be grouped by tier, and can also be represented by a four-bit binary number.
Elements by tier
- Tier 0: Null
- Tier 1: Fire, Water, Earth, Air
- Tier 2: Ghost, Lava, Dragon, Nature, Ice, Force
- Tier 3: Psychic, Poison, Steel, Electric
- Tier 4: Void
Elements by binary representation
- 0000: Null
- 0001: Fire
- 0010: Water
- 0011: Ghost
- 0100: Earth
- 0101: Lava
- 0110: Nature
- 0111: Steel
- 1000: Air
- 1001: Dragon
- 1010: Ice
- 1011: Electric
- 1100: Force
- 1101: Psychic
- 1110: Poison
- 1111: Void
The new 12-element system
Perhaps surprisingly, it seems the way to improve the system was to remove elements instead of adding them. The original system suffers from having almost every element apart from the classic four being extremely arbitrary. The new system organizes elements into six overlapping rings covering the edges of a cuboctahedron.
- Ring 1: Fire, Lava, Earth, Water, Ice, Air, Fire
- Ring 2: Fire, Electric, Ghost, Water, Poison, Dragon, Fire
- Ring 3: Psychic, Ghost, Earth, Nature, Dragon, Air, Psychic
- Ring 4: Psychic, Ice, Poison, Nature, Lava, Electric, Psychic
Another way to organize the elements is like this. The primary condition is that any permutation of the lines below results in a pair of elements that have no ring in common. Derived from that are the observations that inside each pair of brackets are a pair of opposite elements, and the elements in the left-hand pair have absolutely nothing to do with those in the right-hand pair.
- (Fire or Water) and (Psychic or Nature)
- (Lava or Ice) and (Dragon or Ghost)
- (Earth or Air) and (Electric or Poison)
One prime advantage of this system is that it doesn't class Null as an element in its own right. Null is simply lack of element, and is located in the center of the three-dimensional cuboctahedron.
