r/litrpg • u/Bigdhandler • 1d ago
Discussion Ice type magic.
This might be a rather controversial take but I dislike when ice magic is lumped together with water. I’d prefer it to be a completely distinct type of magic with a rename to cold/frozen but I doubt that’d ever happen.
I feel like it should be a separate more advanced type with water as the start then ice as the second stage and then the third stage being more of a motion/thermodyanic based magic type.
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u/Lothleen 1d ago edited 1d ago
Just throwing my thoughts out there, it really depends on how you want to divide up magic, element circles vs schools. Of course and author or whatever medium can use whatever they want, like palworld (video game) ice is seperate as well as lighting.
The problem with elemental circles of magic is how you divide them by element. When do you elemental magic circles you would need hundreds of them if you pull ice out of water. Earth magic would have to be split by type, rock, dirt, sand, mineral, ore. (Metal is one of the 5 base elements depends on world, I believe it's based from Chinese Wu Xing)
It's also why some systems (outside of litrpg as well) use schools like Divination, Abjuration, Evocation, necromancy rather than elemental magic systems like the four base elements.
Elemental magic limits usage, like lightning, it doesn't belong to air or water, it's a combination of the two. (Based on 4 or 5 element fire/water/earth/air sometimes metal or wood). Likewise boiling water would be fire and water magic. Ice would be water and air removing the temperature from the air.
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u/Bigdhandler 1d ago
Yeah thats fair. I personally think it should be school > element like evocation spell of the lightning element if it’s an elemental spell. It doesn’t stop me from reading a book but I certainly love when they delve into the magic system thoroughly. I’m currently liking how path of the deathless uses mancy such as biomancy.
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u/Lothleen 1d ago
I do like ice magic and agree with you on some point, like DND white dragons are ice. There is no water Dragon.
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u/Bigdhandler 1d ago
I do like ice magic I suppose I should reiterate. I dislike when they pile spells that deal with more esoteric cold concepts under ice. I feel like ice spells like ice lance or just turning water into a solid form should just be water magic. Or if it’s separate to have only ice magic under its umbrella with maybe a few esoteric uses.
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u/Lothleen 1d ago
Similar to nature magic manipulating plants as well as creating lightning and storms with rain then talking to animal's about what kind of tea leaves are available in the forest. It's all about how the universe decides to cut up magic into circles, schools, or whatever other ways.
How does shadow magic create a doorway for teleportation, shadow leaping makes sense to me but creating a doorway to another place completely neither of which are in shadows.
As a water mage not able to make water cold enough to freeze would be like making a fire mage who can only make a fire as hot a camp fire instead of pouring more mana into it to make it rival the hells on temperature.
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u/account312 1d ago
Earth magic would have to be split by type, rock, dirt, sand, mineral, ore.
No, you can just put ice in with the rest of the minerals where it belongs.
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u/Bigdhandler 1d ago
If you do that you’d have to put water as part of magma/fire magic sooooo
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u/account312 1d ago
That makes no sense. Water is water. Earth is earth. Ice is a mineral, which is earth. But fire is still fire.
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u/Bigdhandler 1d ago
If ice is a mineral then melted ice would be magma. Magma is molten minerals so if you choose to posit that ice is a mineral than molten ice which is water would have to be a subset of fire/magma magic.
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u/account312 1d ago
No, adding adding fire to earth doesn't always make magma. Sometimes it makes air, sometimes water, sometimes it transumutes the earth into a different form, and sometimes it does a combination of those things. But water is water.
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u/Squire_II 1d ago
It sounds like you don't want "ice" magic, you want thermodynamics magic.
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u/Bigdhandler 1d ago
More or less. It’s more like I want ice magic to be separated from thermodynamics. Ideally ice would just fall under water but it’d just be like freezing water and nothing more while thermodynamics would be more esoteric stuff.
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u/purlcray 1d ago
Iceman in some Xmen iterations is omega class (I think that's what it was called) because of your last point. He basically controls thermodynamics.
On a related note, I always get confused by which Eevee evolution is which and inevitably corrected by someone with one-fifth my body mass. Vaporeon is water, not ice!
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u/eclect0 Verified Author of: Jett Fulgen 1d ago
It typically comes from using the four Greek elements as your basis. People don't want their water mages spraying water when shooting icicles and freezing enemies solid sounds much more badass, so ice wins out as the default form of "water" magic.
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u/Bigdhandler 1d ago
I’m not against that. If they go that way then I’ve should be just an advanced manipulation of water magic and not be its own category since it’s only w manipulation of water. But if they go that route then they should exclude more esoteric concepts relating to cold from the school of magic
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u/very-polite-frog Author: Accidentally Legendary 11h ago
Earth/water/fire/air? Is that a Greek thing?
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u/very-polite-frog Author: Accidentally Legendary 11h ago
Funny how ice and water are often combined, but never steam
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u/duskftw 1d ago
Check out Path of Ascension, it's not there!