Elemental Hierarchy

A unified taxonomy of elemental forces structured according to the three methods of higher-dimensional interaction with Reality recognized within SystemRPG cosmology: Primal, Arcane, and Divine.
Each represents a typically distinct mode of interfacing with the fundamental energies of existence based on type. Primal typical mode is Physical, Arcane typical mode is Mental, Divine typical mode is Spiritual. Affinity choices can be for a specific parent or child node in the hierarchy, or even one of the three types, or just elements in general.
Each section that follows groups the elements into a parent-child hierarchy from most broad and abstract to most narrow or specific in focus or aspect.

I. Primal Elements

(Tangible / Experiential / Evolutionary)

Source: The living world — instinct, nature, and raw existence that sprang from the primordial ooze.
Nature: Tangible, experiential, evolutionary.
Scope: Forces that exist because the world must live, move, and transform.

Material

(Substance / Body / Structure)

• Earth (foundation / stability)
  • Stone (endurance / permanence)
    • Gem (resonance / purity)
    • ♦ Metal (strength / conductivity)
  • Wood (growth / flexibility)
    • Fungus (recycling / adaptation)
• Water (flow / adaptability)
  • Ice (preservation / stillness)
  • Mist (obscurity / transition)
  • Mud (mixture / grounding)
• Air (movement / freedom)
  • Cold (clarity / emptiness)
  • Wind (motion / breath)
• Fire (transformation / passion)
  • Ash (consumption / memory)

Energetic

(Force / Motion / Field)

• ✦ Light (illumination / revelation)
  • ♦ Heat (radiance / vitality)
  • ✧ Shadow (concealment / inversion)
• Lightning (charge / sudden change)
  • ♦ Thunder (impact / resonance)
• Acibas (vibration / resonance medium)
  • ♦ Vibration (oscillation / frequency)
    • ♦ Sound (communication / rhythm)
• ♦ Magnetism (attraction / polarity)
• Gravity (weight / inevitability)

Vital

(Life / Growth / Essence)

• ✦ Life (generation / persistence)
  • ♦Blood (sacrifice / circulation)
  • ♦Breath (invigoration / relaxation)
  • Plant (photosynthesis / nourishment)
  • Beast (instinct / motion)
  • ✧ Toxin (venom / decay)
    • Poison (infection / corruption)
• Spirit (animus / soulforce)
  • ♦Aura (? / ?)

II. Arcane Elements

(Symbolic / Conceptual / Transformative)

Source: The mind and meaning — perception, will, and understanding.
Nature: Symbolic, transformative, conceptual, hidden or secret knowledge.
Scope: Forces that exist because consciousness interprets and shapes reality.

Mental

(Insight / Cognition / Will)

• Thought (concept / reasoning)
  • Knowledge (memory / understanding)
  • Psionic (mindforce / focus)
    • Charm (influence / sway)
    • Intent (purpose / direction)
• Imagination (creativity / vision)
  • Illusion (semblance / glamor)

Conceptual

(Meaning / Belief / Intellect)

• ♦ Entropy (decay / renewal)
  • ♦ Destiny (inevitability / convergence)
    • ♦ Fate (threads / consequence)
      • ♦ Karma (recurrence / justice)
        • ♦ Polarity (opposition / balance)
          • ♦ Order (law / stability)
            • ✧ Time (sequence / duration)
            • ✧ Space (extension / position)
            • ♦ Law (structure / constraint)
              • Good (virtue / beneficence)
              • Evil (malice / violation)
              • Balance (equilibrium / justice)
          • ♦ Chaos (freedom / spontaneity)
            • ♦ Chance (risk / possibility)
            • ♦ Freewill (choice / agency)
              • ♦ Madness (insanity / crazy)
          • ♦ War (struggle / motion)
            • ♦ Peace (resolution / stillness)
        • ♦ Neutrality (poise / middle-way)
      • ♦ Dharma (duty / right-ness)
    • ♦ Art (beauty / expression)
  • ♦ Nature (pattern / emergence)
  • ♦ Death (ending / passage)
• ♦ Enigma (mystery / concealment)

Alchemical

(Change / Fusion / Revelation)

• ✦ Transmutation (Process of Change / Unification of Opposites)
  • ✦ Catalyst (Trigger of Change / Acceleration of Process)
  • ✧ Paradox (Duality in Harmony / Truth through Contradiction)
  • ♦ Antimony (Rebellion of Matter / Purifier through Conflict)
  • ♦ Reagent (Medium of Fusion / Binding Agent)
• ♦ Quicksilver (The Mutable Principle — Mind / Spirit / Alchemical Medium)
  • ♦ Silver (Refinement / Purity)
  • ♦ Azoth (Universal Solvent / Divine Fire / Secret Essence)
  • ♦ Orichalcum (Resonance / Amplification / Harmonized Alloy)
  • ♦ Platinum (Perfection / Ascension)
• ♦ Sulfur (The Active Principle — Energy / Passion / Drive)
  • ♦ Iron (Strength / Will)
  • ♦ Copper (Vitality / Attraction)
  • ♦ Gold (Enlightenment / Fulfillment)
  • ♦ Cinnabar (Manifestation / Hidden Fire / Transformation of Spirit into Matter)
• ♦ Salt (The Fixed Principle — Body / Material Stability)
  • ♦ Lead (Corruption / Foundation)
  • ♦Clay (Malleability / Form-Bearing Substance)
  • ♦ Tin (Transformation / Adaptability)
  • ♦ Crystal (Purification / Integration)
• ♦ Quintessence (Spirit of the Heavens / Sublimation of All Things)
  • ♦ Anima (Living Soul / Unifying Consciousness / Bridge of Spirit and Matter)
  • ♦ Prima Materia (First Matter / Potential of All Things / Raw Creation)
  • ♦ Spiritus (Divine Breath / Vital Spark / Animating Essence)
  • ♦ Vitreol (Revelation through Dissolution / Inner Reflection / Insight)

,

III. Divine Elements

(Mythic / Transcendent / Archetypal)

Source: Higher resonance — belief, myth, and archetype.
Nature: Transcendent, narrative, self-referential.
Scope: Forces that exist because meaning itself attains divinity and acts upon the world.

Mythic

(Belief / Story / Persona)

• Angelic (virtue / radiance)
  • ♦ Pride (glory / hubris)
• Demonic (defiling / unholy)
  • ♦ Lust (mania / longing)
• Devil (deceit / domination)
  • ♦ Temptation (bargain / seduction)
• Draconic (might / wisdom)
  • ♦ Power (secrets / potency)
• Fae (trickery / glamour)
  • ♦ Glimmer (allure / mischief)
• Deva (benediction / order)
  • ♦ Miracle (boon / intercession)
• Unicorn (purity / grace)
  • ♦ Healing (restoration / cure)
• Phoenix (cycle / ascension)
  • ♦ Reincarnation (renewal / return)
• Titan (perception / vantage / leverage)
  • ♦ Awareness (sentience / witness)
• Undeath (privation / persistence)
  • ✧ Necrotic (drain / wither)

Celestial

(Order / Heavens / Influence)

• Astral (Memories / Souls / Transcendent Essence)
• Cosmic (Heavens / Vast Order / Celestial Forces)
  • ♦ Stellar (fate, oaths, the Stars)
    • ♦ Solar (life / command / radiance)
    • ♦ Planetary (Worlds / Influence / Balance of Spheres)
      • ♦ Mercurial (speed / tricks / adaptation)
      • ♦ Venusian (beauty / bonds / fertility)
      • ♦ Martian (rage / victory / sacrifice)
      • ♦ Jovian (growth / thunder / fortune)
      • ♦ Saturnian (weight / endings / discipline)
      • ♦ Terran (foundation / stability / life-bearing worlds)
        • ♦ Lunar (dreams / cycles / reflection)

Heavenly

(Virtue / Light / Harmony)

• Sovereignty (rule / dominion)
  • ♦ Domain (territory / stewardship)
  • ♦ Judgement (justice / discernment)
• Radiance (illumination / glory)
  • ♦ Holy (blessed / righteous)
• Wrath (punishment / correction)
  • ♦ Tribulation (trial / endurance)
• Love (compassion / connection)
  • Will (devotion / perseverance)
    • ♦ Diligence (focus / labor)
      • ♦ Faith (trust / conviction)
    • ♦ Humility (balance / modesty)
      • ♦ Temperance (restraint / moderation)
    • ♦ Harmony (unity / resonance)
      • ♦ Charity (benevolence / sacrifice)
      • ♦ Kindness (gentleness / empathy)
    • ♦ Purity (clarity / innocence)
      • ♦ Wonder (awe / transcendence)

Infernal

(Sin / Corruption / Vice)

• Profane (curse / hex)
  • Hellfire (destruction / punishment)
  • Corruption (decay / defilement)
    • ♦ Blight (contagion / rot)
• Hate (fear / loathing)
  • ♦ Dread (terror / oppression)
  • ♦ Sloth (apathy / stagnation)
    • ♦ Gluttony (excess / hunger)
• Envy (comparison / resentment)
  • ♦ Greed (avarice / hoarding)
  • ♦ Jealousy (possessiveness / suspicion)
    • ♦ Vanity (self-obsession / vainglory)

Primordial

(First-Story / Arche / Originre)

• ♦ Soul (essence / identity)
  • ♦ Creation (genesis / making)
    • ♦ Day (light / reveal)
    • ♦ Dark (veil / rest)
    • ♦ Logos (word / reason)
      • ◇ Symbol (sign / form)
        • ♦ Name (true-call / binding)
          • ♦ Story (myth / meaning)
  • ♦ Destruction (undoing / release)
    • ✧ Discord (fracture / strife)
  • ♦ Dream (imaginarium / veilspace)
    • ♦ Desire (yearn / drive)
      • ♦ Despair (voiding / loss)
      • ♦ Delight (delicious / joy-spark)
  • ♦ Song (pattern / resonance)
    • ♦ Melody (line / theme)
    • ♦ Rhythm (beat / cadence)
    • ♦ Silence (hush / interval)
    • ♦ Wonder (awe / numen)
      • ♦ Hope (uptilt / promise)
      • ♦ Joy (elation / bloom)
      • ♦ Sadness (sorrow / weight)
      • ♦ Fear (alarm / caution)
• ♦ Luck (serendipity / omen)
  • ○ Fortune (boon / windfall)
  • ♦ Weird (wyrd / strangeness)
  • ♦ Wild (untamed / feral)
• ◇ Void (nothing / abyss)

Extrareal Substrates

(Beyond / Meta-Reality / Supra-Elemental)

Extrareal Substrates are something like Energies that come from Higher Dimensional realms beyond known Reality. The System is known to operate so vast an expanse across Creation due to its use of at least Aether to be able to inject enough Mana and Chi into worlds to allow operation of its various experiments. Each of the Extrareal Substrates are on an effectively equivalent power scale, which is above any within Creation.

• Aether (creation / manifestation) — the higher-dimensional generative substrate beyond reality; the source of all mana and the fountainhead of creation. The more Aether found in an environment, the more solid and real and powerful it becomes as long as it's Will and Intent are strong enough to not mutate into resources for others upon contact with it. As Aether evaporates it separates into a variety of condensates which can have Elemental Affinity. Pure evaporate condensates have fully random potential, and this is often called Chaotic Chi or Chaotic Mana. This is a mistake in grouping due to misunderstanding of the difference between Aether and the Conceptual Element Chaos.

• Nether (oblivion / dissolution) — the inversion in effect to Aether, entropic substrate outside reality; consumes and unravels meaning from the Memory of Creation to reclaim Essence into Uncreation. It will consume all of Reality eventually if it has its way.

• Other (anomaly / distortion) — the Anomaly substrate unrelated to known Reality; it's coherence when manifest in Reality degrades randomly in rate and interval with each step generating a proliferation in oddities and ambient Wild and Weird Aspect Chi and Mana to the local and nearby dimensional environments.

• Over (transcendence / omniscience) — the Information Redacted

• Under (eldritch / corruption) — the substrate which gives birth to eldritch abominations and horrors beyond comprehension from below Reality clawing their way up through any crack they can make. Those changed by the substrate can Information Redacted

Each exist outside the elemental hierarchy. They generate and dissolve all elemental phenomena but are not elements themselves. Only beings of System Administrator tier or equivalent are authorized by The System to comprehend or manipulate them directly. Beings and Items can have an Affinity for any Extrareal Substrate in the same way they can have an Affinity with any Element or Element Type.

symbol key

Use the following patterns with the hierarchy to map interaction effects:

• ✦ Keystone resonance (full-duplex, one hop)

  • Grants resonance both upward (to parent) and downward (to immediate children) in the same subtree.

  • Also unlocks a minor bonus when paired with its designed “mirror” (if one exists; e.g., Light↔Shadow).

  • Example already in file: ✦ Light (enables up/down + Light↔Shadow mirror effects).

• ♦ Conduit resonance (bi-directional, constrained)

  • Resonates up/down one hop like ✦, but no mirror pairing bonus.

  • Use for subnodes that are common tactical bridges (e.g., ♦ Heat under Light; ♦ Thunder under Lightning).

• ✧ Inversion resonance (counter-flow, “mirror” only)

  • No normal up/down transfer. Instead, gains special effects only when paired with its mirror/inverse (or its parent’s mirror).

  • Example already in file: ✧ Shadow (mirrors Light); ✧ Necrotic (mirrors Life/Healing).

• ○ Hopper (leapfrog resonance)

  • Use for nodes that share resonance only with equal depth nodes in adjacent branches in the same tree.

• ◇ Bridge (cross-domain)

  • Optional. Allows one controlled resonance hop across trees (e.g., Primal→Arcane) where you explicitly want it. Use sparingly for signature interactions (e.g., Art ◇ Symbol).

• Local (no resonance)

  • No symbol = no transfer. Use for nodes that should stay isolated mechanically (default you described).

Mechanical rules (succinct)

• Resonance check: when invoking an effect keyed to element X, compute a resonance set R from symbols on X:

  • ✦ → add parent(X) and children(X); if mirror(X) exists, add mirror(X).

  • ♦ → add parent(X) and children(X).

  • ✧ → add mirror(X) only (or parent(mirror(X)) if mirror is at a different depth).

  • ◇ → add one declared cross-tree target (you define the mapping table).

• Cost/benefit template (recommended defaults):

  • Substituting to any R target: +1 difficulty step or +10% resource cost.

  • If ✦ and using mirror(X): gain a unique “duality bonus” tag you can hook in class features.

  • Stacking: only one resonance hop per effect; keystones don’t chain beyond one level.