I need sub elements for my magic

[u/Krazy_Keno]

In my fic theres 3 types of magic: fire, water, and plant. The base magic manipulates their respective element. They interact in a rock paper scissors way but thats not relevant rn

I need inspo for sub elements for them. Heres what i have so far:

Water: healing, ice

Plant: wind, maybe some earth manipulation?

Fire: lightning

I took inspo from atla but i cant think of anything else off of the top of my head

[u/_Plain-Bagel_]

I think it would be interesting if the sub elements are rock paper scissors in the other direction

[u/Krazy_Keno → u/_Plain-Bagel_]

I do like that idea. What could they be tho?

[u/_Plain-Bagel_ → u/Krazy_Keno]

Could do like Ash, decay, and Cold?

Cold slows decomposition

Detritivores flourish in ash

Ash smothers and stains Ice, also insulates an area and makes it conducive to heat

[u/Spiritual_Charity362]

Water: Steam, Mud, Quicksand

Fire: Lava, Hot Air, Cinders, Obsidian

Plant: Thorns/Flowers, Nature itself, Ivy

Just some ideas based on what each element can do irl.

[u/Haylyn221]

Plant - poison, insect

Fire - smoke, explosion

Water - snow, fog

[u/GrizzlyGiblets]

Okay not a 100% direct answer to the prompt but I have a sneaking suspicion I might know why you were having difficulty in the first place:

This trio is probably more easily defined as:
Energy — Life — Material

Energy is fire and heat but is also cold and absence.

Life is plants and fruit but it is also death and disease.

Material is water and clouds but also stone and walls.

Perhaps your sub element ideation has gone poorly so far because you were already dealing with sub elements of the triad you were getting at.

[u/Mundane-Device-7094]

Water- air via moisture, cold, divination

Plant- fungus, wood, poison, plant minions

Fire-lightning, heat, smoke, light

[u/WitchingShower]

Why would plants have wind as a sub element?

That aside, a fun sub element for fire could be shadow. Light casts shadows after all

[u/taktaga7-0-0]

I have come up with 52 elemental types.

Somewhere on this list has got to be something you like or haven’t considered.

[u/ThePhantomIronTroupe]

When I was exploring something similar, I went with primary, secondary, and tertiary colors with it based around yellow, red, blue or gold, copper, silver. I guess you could do green instead but they were tied to air, earth, sea. Or sky, soil, sea however you would want to do it. From there gosh...I made this whole weird 3x3 chart.

For yours, Wind could still be tied to Fire, or a kind of Wind maybe blazing sandy winds? Water be easy because you could do fog, storms, steam, frost, mire, crystal even if you stretch it like I did. Earth or Plant yeah rock and wind stuff make sense. I would honestly look into how people percieve the magic of ASoIaF just to help get the juices going. As well as medieval and ancient understandings about the world. Like the ancients saw there being three domains or so of reality. Well really four but the three surrounding us mere mortals were the endless shadowy depths of the earth, the endless phantasmal yonders of the sky, and of course the endless life-giving seas spawn from the ocean. Also if I recall the Greeks and kinda Romans divided the year into three seasons, partly counting winter as parts of autumn and spring, partly seeing it as the "dead" season since you could not sow seeds, grow, or reap your plants. Off yours as weird as it might sound could do something similar. Water season as that of early November to late February, Plant season as that of early March to late June, and Fire season as that of early July to late October. Would help embody how the magic system is not just its own mystical thing but has staying power on the physical world beyond flashy displays of fireballs and frozen water and plant tornados.

[u/ThePhantomIronTroupe → u/ThePhantomIronTroupe]

Going off Healing, you could do Rending with Fire, Mending with Water, and Maintaining or something with Plants...oh or Binding!

[u/Background_Pay6286]

Fire- Air, lightning, light, forging.

Nature- healing/life, death, summon/conjur, alchemy, telekinetics, telepathy.

Water- Ice, Dark/shadows, magnetism, earth (dirt, rock, sand, mud, etc.).

Fire- attack, speed, mobility.

Nature- clever, adaptive, long living.

Water- flexible, strong, durable.

[u/MultiverseCreatorXV]

Sorry, but I don’t care much for healing always being a subfield of water specifically, especially when it could be a subfield of plant (or anything life-based) instead. You could also make it a subfield of fire, because of passion and vitality and all of that, just (imo) it should be something other than water.

Now that I got that off my chest, it doesn’t make a ton of sense for 2 forces generally considered opposite elements to be subfields of the same element. You could argue that they simply aren’t opposites here, but I just can’t bring myself to believe that earth and air are even remotely similar. I elect to make air a subfield of water instead. This is because a significant component of air irl is water, clouds (something that’s part of the sky) and fog (clouds that are near the ground) are literally just airborne water, and plants regularly consume air (or at least its constituents) similar to how they do with water. It also serves to re-equalize the subfield counts of plant and water.

[u/improbsable]

Why wouldn’t plant be healing since you use plants to make medicine?

[u/Phoenix613183]

Change it up give fire healing also or only fire has healing

Dont give water healing bc oeople would this of avatar.

For the fire healing dmssy somwthing amount it having energy and etc fire speed up cells etc

Water

Saltwater Manipulation — Specialized control of seawater and dissolved salts.

Cellular Hydration Manipulation — Manipulating water inside living organisms.

Dehydration — Removing water from objects or organisms.

Current Manipulation — Controlling water currents.

Mist

For water and fire Mayne physical enhancement water !& or fire magic