Dragon Elements

[Gaea]

Every dragon is aspected towards a single element from birth, with no exceptions. While their element is usually the same as one of their parent's, this is not necessarily always true - blood carries power, and ancestors of different elements sometimes override the immediate parents' element. The grand list of elements is Fire, Lightning, Ice, Water, Air, Earth and Magic. Each has a long and storied history, luminaries and legends alike. Each also has a number of varieties of possible expression; not all Fire dragons simply breathe fire, though all represent the element in some form or another. Each dragon has some degree of immunity to its own expression, but not that of other dragons of the same element: a Fire dragon will not melt itself with its own breath, but is vulnerable to another Fire dragon's attacks.

• Fire dragons, to the surprise of absolutely no one, tend to revolve around fire. The most common, and indeed perhaps archetypal, form of expression is a stream of roiling flames - incendiary or simply impossibly hot, dragon fire is difficult or impossible to put out and quite effective at incinerating anything in its path. Heat is another relatively common focus; rather than breathing fire outright, these dragons can emit sheer heat, boiling their surroundings and foes alike with only half-visible waves of high-temperature magic. While rare, some also represent more of a "molten" theme, breathing what appears to be magma and dripping it from their bodies, though elemental expression from the earth itself, such as volcanic eruptions, tends to be more in Earth dragon territory. Elemental Avatar abilities tend to be related to their breath attack - a pure fire dragon might be surrounded by a storm of fire, while a heat dragon might simply be surrounded in a haze of absurd temperatures, while a magma dragon could exude huge quantities of magical magma off their body.
• Lightning dragons represent the fury of the storm, or at least generally have something to do with lightning or electricity in general. Their default breath attack is a burst of lightning, which can be anything from a sustained stream to a sudden bolt or even more esoteric forms like orbs of electricity or a series of charged orbs. Evocation and Avatar abilities will generally reflect their breath form to some degree; thunderstorms are common for Avatar abilities, though huge lightning arenas or domes of thunder are perfectly acceptable. Evocations tend to be focused around or emanated from the dragon itself, whether a massive charge that strikes nearby foes, charged bolts when struck, the like. While lightning strikes can leave fire behind in their wake, primarily heat/fire based abilities are more in the purview of Fire dragons.
• Ice dragons generally revolve around themes of cold in some form or another - much like fire dragons, the most common forms of expression are either their namesake element itself (read: lots of ice) or the temperature associated with it (read: damn it's cold). Breath attacks can range from either flash-freezing to a hail of razor-edged ice shards, and tend to leave longer-term remnants than most other dragon types - magical ice takes much longer to melt, though it isn't much more durable against impacts than the non-magical variety. Weather manipulation is most commonly some take on a blizzard, or at least very low temperatures around them, but more esoteric options like a circling swarm of ice shards or a constant rain of icicles have also been recorded.
• Water dragons are relatively rare in Elibe, perhaps because their preferred element is often further away than for most other types of dragon - though no one really knows how many of them live underwater, so perhaps the rarity is simply in continental Elibe. Whether or not they are near the water, their ferocious power is not diminished; Water-elemental dragons often fight with jets or geysers of high-pressure water, bringing their element to the world more permanently than most with Evocation and Avatar abilities with spontaneous tsunamis or waterspouts. Given the permanence of their abilities, there is a certain degree of responsibility expected from Water dragons more than most other elements, especially around civilization. Any dragon can raze a village, but Water dragons are much more likely to accidentally destroy one when fighting uphill from it.
• Air dragons, more commonly known to humans as Wind dragons, control air itself as well as its movement. Much like human Wind magic users, they do not have the precision necessary for abilities such as asphyxiation, but the ability to control and create tornadoes and hurricanes is a fair trade-off on their part. Their breath attacks tend to be somewhat weaker in terms of direct damage than other types, but often provide additional benefits in terms of controlling or denying mobility to opponents even without the 200 post status effect upgrade - though there are certainly air dragons who have traded utility for sheer power and can stand on par with any other element in raw damage, at the cost of their utility. Air dragons tend to have attacks that are difficult but not impossible to perceive, whether quick-moving blades of wind or a simple but sustained gale-force blast of wind to uproot opponents.
• Earth dragons attack with the force of the world itself, usually representing one aspect or another of the planet directly or indirectly. Rock and crystal are prominent themes, with breath attacks aspected to each; rock dragons tend to breath a bunch of rocks, while crystalline dragons may instead launch a storm of shards. Earth dragons with a predilection for magma are fairly rare, but far from unheard of; they tend to make larger use of molten terrain or even volcanoes, at least as Avatar abilities, and have less of a focus on fire than on the earth aspect of the theme. While relatively uncommon, some earth dragons represent the more corrosive, entropic side of nature, launching acidic assaults.
• Magic dragons are a somewhat odd breed as dragons go - where most elements have a clear primary theme, Magic dragons range quite a bit within their looser theme, representing raw, primal magic more than a particular element. While shimmering blue energy in some form is one of their more common expressions, some may - purely aesthetically - represent more specialized forms of magic, such as Anima magic, though they are always easily identified as Magic dragons rather than actual masters of their apparent element, such as ghostly blue flames or spectral lightning that fades away. Evocation and Avatar abilities range to a greater degree than most other types as well, though there is still a common theme of "raw" magic; everything from massive magical circles to a storm of rainbow bolts or energy detonations is possible and has probably been recorded at least once before.