Alora Fane

Inspiration is a double-edged sword! Should a seemingly good, new idea be pursued if it'd require some steps back to do so? Or should the current path be doggedly stuck to because that's the only way to reach the end??

I intended to write this on Friday evening so I'd have the whole weekend free to do some stuff I've been putting off (like replying to some messages, but what's new there!), but it looks like I'm writing it on Sunday afternoon instead because I spent the weekend doing stuff related to work! Pfft!

I started off the week by combing through the several digital pages of notes I've made and tried to address following the second Atonal Dreams alpha test, and combining them into a far neater list of discrete tasks I can rank and then tackle.

I ended up with about 70 tasks (I say 'about' because I kept adding more as I worked through them), some of which took two minutes, others two hours, as is usually the case. I managed to make good, satisfying progress with ticking them off.

But on Friday afternoon, the frustratingly fickle creativity muse decided to piece my mind with an inspiration arrow - or whatever - that I was completely unable to shake off, and I've spent the whole weekend playing around with some idea that could, I feel, improve Atonal Dreams... but which would also be a step backwards in some ways, at least in terms of time.

I already wrote a longer post on ∞ my Patreon ∞ on Friday - basically a stream of consciousness as I tried to work things out myself - but I'll 'summarise' (ha, as if I can do succinct!) here:

I've spent the past almost-a-decade-now playing around with variations of essentially the same idea, of a 'psychological' battle system with elements that represent facets of mind rather than just physical nature.

I think my earliest experiments with it were the unfinished Clarence RPG and Alora Fane: Creation, though what I had in Taming Dreams (from 2015, I think? And also unfinished, though slightly less so) is very similar to what I'm using in Atonal Dreams.

That is, there are 'elements', but characters also have personality 'runes', represented by a set of three letters - inspired by my deep but now outgrown love of psychological 'personality type' stuff like Myers-Briggs - and both elements and runes are used to determine damage.

Originally I had these elements:

And I reused those when I started Atonal (or then Divine) Dreams.

However, in February of this year, I revised them to these:

Which I feel are a big improvement, though they're only barely tweaked (basically just the names and ordering).

I haven't altered the runes (Real/Abstract, Tough/Feeling, Grave/Jolly) at all since I came up with them... though I've learned a lot more about personality since then (what with getting a Psychology degree and all; the Big Five is what the academics use). I've also refined my ideas about what I want to do with the Alora Fane world over the years.

Players - both actual and potential - have also responded with scepticism to the runes, and I'm not sure if that's due to perceived complexity or preexisting feelings about Myers-Briggs, but it's come up a lot.

There's also a lot of overlap between the runes and elements in terms of lore and gameplay anyway, plus skills in Atonal Dreams have both an element and a rune...

...but only elements get all this story/world involvement - the equivalent of elemental temples and such - while runes are just sort of sidelined, a gameplay mechanic only with no real influence on the outer world, which feels weird, lopsided.

So I had an idea:

What if I just combined elements and runes, so there are six 'elements', but characters have a balance/'concentration' of them (rather than a singular element), which are represented by the rune letters?

After many hours of frantic experimentation, I came up with these six possible elements that could play the role of both without disrupting any of my plans in a major way:

Rather pleasingly, though somewhat coincidentally, these are now in colour wheel (or rainbow) order!

Like with the previous revision of the elements, they're in opposing pairs:

Viscereal (from visceral + real) and Abstral (from abstract + astral) represent base animalistic desires vs spiritual and mental transcendence, which are a huge theme and motif in much of my work. There was no 'official' equivalent to MARDEK's aether element before; now there is.

Harmony and Discord are the same as before - peaceful order vs domineering chaos - though they also incorporate the Feeling/Tough runes now (which were always about compassionate consideration vs aggressive self-interest anyway).

Levitality (from levity + vitality) and Gravitoom (from gravity + gloom + tomb + doom) are essentially the previous Viva and a combination of the old Languor + Fear; liveliness, growth, and positive emotion vs death, stagnation, and negative emotion.

I still see them as a work in progress - I feel 'Gravitoom' sounds particularly and inappropriately goofy, for example, though it's odd how many dark, miserable words end with a silly 'oom' sound! And it's weird that four names are portmanteaus but Harmony and Discord aren't - but I do like what I have here.

Whereas before, skills had an element and a rune, now they'd have two elements... though I want to give some context to an example I want to show of that.

I'm usually working on one or two 'personal projects' alongside my main 'work' one, for which I allow myself the freedom to get bored of and give up... which usually is what happens. I've written about a few in the past, but just kept quiet about others so then I didn't get anyone's hopes up or interest piqued only to get bored and add another dead idea to the disappointment pile.

Recently, one of these personal projects has been a revision/remake of Belief, the original version of which I wrote about in ∞ this late-2019 post ∞, and which I was able to produce this gameplay video of in a fairly short time:

While it mostly got absorbed into Atonal Dreams, my mind keeps going back to the silly, human-centric idea where you have absurd social battles of belief rather than physical fights.

I won't talk about my latest experimentation in too much detail here (yet?), but I'm mentioning it because I thought it'd be a good opportunity to test out these ideas before trying to change Atonal Dreams, only to realise it was a bad idea after all and then I'd have to revert everything. That's what I've spent the weekend doing.

A look at the (silly, social) skills I've now got as a part of this experimentation gives an idea of how skills with two elements/runes instead of an element and a rune would look:

There were some overlaps in the rune and element colours before that bothered me - both the Jolly rune and Harmony element were yellow, for example, and both Fear and Grave were purple - so this addresses that, I suppose... though at a glance I feel some of these colours are less appealing, more acrid; that neon greenish-yellow is quite aggressive! But for what it's representing - lively extroversion and positivity - it's not exactly unfitting?

Maybe the other colours would have felt the same to eyes not used to them, too.

One annoyance though is that since there are three pairs, they don't have a fixed left or right side, like the elements and runes did (element was always on the left, rune on the right). And none of the possible solutions are hugely aesthetically pleasing. I just decided to put a 'primary' element/rune/whatever on the left and a 'secondary' one on the right, though currently they have no difference in multiplication strength or anything. So some have a G on the left, others the right. Hmm.

Oh, and I've saved purple and yellow for the borders of these skills, where they represent some other quality which is in this game but not Atonal Dreams. If I were to adapt these new elements into Atonal Dreams, yellow and purple would represent the light/dark tamed-or-not thing, and positive/negative stat (de)buffs, and wouldn't overlap with any element colours, which might be better actually than them overlapping with the colours of Harmony, Jolly, Fear, and Grave!

I often wonder whether this kind of lore trivia matters to others like it matters to me, or whether they consider it a waste of time to focus too much on. I know I'm not the only person who cares about it, of course, otherwise people wouldn't buy T-shirts with Homestuck element (or whatever they were called in that) symbols on them! And people make a huge deal out of Pokemon types. But maybe it's one of many things that depends on temperamental traits.

I for one have always cared about this aesthetic/lore side of things. The elements in MARDEK were a really important part of their world and lore, and I want the Alora Fane world's elements to be similarly important.

Combining runes and elements would streamline some things and give more narrative weight to them instead of dividing it; visiting a Discord elemental temple (or equivalent) would mean more if element balance was the primary aspect of your characters' stats. It might also reduce a feeling of mechanics complexity that most people have commented on in some form or another, too.

But it's tricky, because I've spent the past few weeks basically polishing what I've already got to get every tutorial as perfect as possible... and I'd have to go back and redo a bunch of them were I to make these changes! But it might also be better and speed things up in the long run, so... bleh.

They wouldn't be huge revisions, since the new element ideas are just combinations that fit with what I already have rather than entirely new things... but they'd still be revisions.

I'm unsure what to do next. I'm thinking maybe I should just spend the next week playing around more with my Belief remake side project thing exclusively, to see how I feel about these combined elements and runes... but then I feel bad about delaying the next testing phase/milestone thing even further.

Bleh, I don't know. Creating things isn't a simple process! I mean look at that Batgirl film! Or don't, because it was cancelled! Even though that was more likely due to executives deeming it unprofitable for sociocultural reasons rather than any kind of artistic dissatisfaction! I don't know or particularly care!!

8 COMMENTS

Maniafig222~2Y

I already talked a bit about these ideas on Patreon, but that won't stop me from talking EVEN MORE.

I still really do like the encounter system in Taming Dreams! Most of your development cycle of the combat engine so far has been inching closer and closer to it. Except for the converting enemies thing, which is a cool new idea.

Were the runes in Taming Dreams meant to be MBTI? Mardek outright shifts runes between chapters, and they exist on a sliding scale, so they really don't seem like MBTI. I guess they measure similar things, but it seems most personality typology systems do.

I never really thought Runes needed to be a plot element. It's just a way to measure a person's personality. That's just how people are, it doesn't need to be magical. I kinda like that, there's both some magical elemental stuff, but also grounded psychology. It's both ABSTRACT and REAL!!

The way they're described lean very heavily into a good/bad dichotomy between the elements, which is something I'm never fond of in these types of systems.

V is BASE and ANIMALISTIC and A is ENLIGHTENED and TRANSCENDED. That's strange since in Taming Dreams the antagonists were all A! I think one of the themes there was "chasing abstract and lofty ideals vs living in the here and now". Enki ditching his child to go on some errant, grandiose quest vs Sylvia being a sort of role model for a motherless Deugan.

Is Hamony/Discord a good/bad dichotomy or not? Every time I ask you say no, but you keep describing it in a way that makes it seem like it is! A lot of people today would probably associate order with domineering, that was pretty much Rohoph's whole character!

Gravitoom makes me think of those -oomer memes!

The 28 year old gravitoomer
>obsessed over death, refuses to die
>stagnated since becoming 18
>constantly crying, permanently pissy
>shitposts on social media, afraid to be sincere
>has touched 3 people since 2020, has 5 restraining orders

I think I read once that humans in general consider that sort of greenish neon yellow one of the ugliest colours? It feels like there's two blue elements so now yellow and green need to share one element.

I also keep thinking H meant HATE! G also seems more common than the other elements!

Homestuck elements are Classpects! They're also a weird and confusing mess, and nobody seems to agree on exactly what they mean! Part of me thinks the writer didn't either and was just kinda winging it.

MARDEK sure did have elements! But they were bad and dumb and stupid!! The elemental ones were super basic and bland, the moral ones were just Good/Evil except when Light decides to be an asshole, and Aether/Fig were super vague!

I already talked a bit about these ideas on Patreon, but that won't stop me from talking EVEN MORE.

I still really do like the encounter system in Taming Dreams! Most of your development cycle of the combat engine so far has been inching closer and closer to it. Except for the converting enemies thing, which is a cool new idea.

Were the runes in Taming Dreams meant to be MBTI? Mardek outright shifts runes between chapters, and they exist on a sliding scale, so they really don't seem like MBTI. I guess they measure similar things, but it seems most personality typology systems do.

I never really thought Runes needed to be a plot element. It's just a way to measure a person's personality. That's just how people are, it doesn't need to be magical. I kinda like that, there's both some magical elemental stuff, but also grounded psychology. It's both ABSTRACT and REAL!!

The way they're described lean very heavily into a good/bad dichotomy between the elements, which is something I'm never fond of in these types of systems.

V is BASE and ANIMALISTIC and A is ENLIGHTENED and TRANSCENDED. That's strange since in Taming Dreams the antagonists were all A! I think one of the themes there was "chasing abstract and lofty ideals vs living in the here and now". Enki ditching his child to go on some errant, grandiose quest vs Sylvia being a sort of role model for a motherless Deugan.

Is Hamony/Discord a good/bad dichotomy or not? Every time I ask you say no, but you keep describing it in a way that makes it seem like it is! A lot of people today would probably associate order with domineering, that was pretty much Rohoph's whole character!

Gravitoom makes me think of those -oomer memes!

The 28 year old gravitoomer
>obsessed over death, refuses to die
>stagnated since becoming 18
>constantly crying, permanently pissy
>shitposts on social media, afraid to be sincere
>has touched 3 people since 2020, has 5 restraining orders

I think I read once that humans in general consider that sort of greenish neon yellow one of the ugliest colours? It feels like there's two blue elements so now yellow and green need to share one element.

I also keep thinking H meant HATE! G also seems more common than the other elements!

Homestuck elements are Classpects! They're also a weird and confusing mess, and nobody seems to agree on exactly what they mean! Part of me thinks the writer didn't either and was just kinda winging it.

MARDEK sure did have elements! But they were bad and dumb and stupid!! The elemental ones were super basic and bland, the moral ones were just Good/Evil except when Light decides to be an asshole, and Aether/Fig were super vague!

Tobias 1115~2Y

A lot of decisions I've been making in recent years feel like chipping away at some giant mental boulder to get at some fundamental perfect thing hidden beneath, or something, and these new element revisions feel like a step further towards that, which is why I'm finding it hard to let the idea go; it feels like I 'have to' at least explore it in depth.

From what I can recall - though it seems like you remember details I don't; I'd forgotten Mardek changed runes! - the runes were inspired by MBTI, but they weren't meant as a direct representation exactly. Academics are fairly convinced that the Big Five are a genuine aspect of how minds work, in the same way we're convinced that diseases are caused by microorganisms, so things like MBTI were attempts to describe them without a proper realisation of what they were or how they worked. Runes were the same, kind of. A different attempt to get at that fundamental psychological nature.

(Actually, from what I remember, Mardek's runes changing was meant to show that Rohoph was beginning to take over.)

I also carried over the elements largely from MARDEK, but added runes as an equivalent for numerical stats, which is why they were different... but I feel much of that has been lost over the years anyway, especially when I gave skills both an element and rune on equal footing.

One of the things that bothers me about how academics speak about the Big Five traits is the seemingly undesirable/desirable dichotomy aspect of the terminology. For example, the agreeableness trait has 'disagreeable' at one end, but would someone disagreeable want to think of themselves as such? Even if it's accurate? Openness is the same, with its opposite being something like 'noncurious'. I liked Real/Abstract - which is essentially Openness - because it seemed more descriptive rather than judgemental; less like one side was a lack.

But sometimes traits just aren't desirable, or they are a deficit. Would you have any issues with a character having a low Intelligence stat?

Though I suppose it's different here since the elements are presented like equally valid alternatives rather than high and low ends of a linear scale.

One of the Big Five traits is literally Neuroticism/Negative Emotion (they don't seem to have consistent names, annoyingly), and I don't mind acknowledging I'm towards the negative end of that spectrum. Not a desirable thing at all, but many facts aren't.

Viscereal/Abstral is also Openness, though I clearly need to work on my brief descriptions! Most of my villains continue to be on the Open end, as am I.

But as puerile as it might be, I think there's something to be said for the basic good vs evil, light vs dark aspect a whole lot of fantasy (eg Star Wars!) explores. Stories could be seen as stylised exploration of the human condition rather than accurate depictions of nuanced reality, after all, and things like that allow for the exploration of different facets of how humans can be without exhaustive setup or context. Or something.

That neon greenish yellow reminds me very strongly of my childhood - or maybe 90's aesthetics in general or something? - because it seemed to be everywhere back then. It also brings to mind that Virgin vs Chad meme! (Though I just looked it up and Chad's pants are actually true green, as in #00ff00, or so it seems at a glance.) I've seen it in adverts or on product boxes, and I always notice it and think "why did they think THAT looked good??"... but now that I've spent some time with it myself, it's growing on me!

Making things up as he went along was literally the point of Homestuck, which I envy for the rate of output but absolutely don't envy the frustration that must have arisen from being unable to revise anything!

Anyway, I've been doing some mental refining of these new elements, trying to figure out exactly what they are, so I'll probably write a Patreon post about that later!

A lot of decisions I've been making in recent years feel like chipping away at some giant mental boulder to get at some fundamental /perfect thing/ hidden beneath, or something, and these new element revisions feel like a step further towards that, which is why I'm finding it hard to let the idea go; it feels like I 'have to' at least explore it in depth.

From what I can recall - though it seems like you remember details I don't; I'd forgotten Mardek changed runes! - the runes were inspired by MBTI, but they weren't meant as a direct representation exactly. Academics are fairly convinced that the Big Five are a genuine aspect of how minds work, in the same way we're convinced that diseases are caused by microorganisms, so things like MBTI were attempts to describe them without a proper realisation of what they were or how they worked. Runes were the same, kind of. A different attempt to get at that fundamental psychological nature.

(Actually, from what I remember, Mardek's runes changing was meant to show that Rohoph was beginning to take over.)

I also carried over the elements largely from MARDEK, but added runes as an equivalent for numerical stats, which is why they were different... but I feel much of that has been lost over the years anyway, especially when I gave skills both an element and rune on equal footing.

One of the things that bothers me about how academics speak about the Big Five traits is the seemingly undesirable/desirable dichotomy aspect of the terminology. For example, the /agreeableness/ trait has 'disagreeable' at one end, but would someone disagreeable want to think of themselves as such? Even if it's accurate? Openness is the same, with its opposite being something like 'noncurious'. I liked Real/Abstract - which is essentially Openness - because it seemed more descriptive rather than judgemental; less like one side was a lack.

But sometimes traits just aren't desirable, or they are a deficit. Would you have any issues with a character having a low Intelligence stat?

Though I suppose it's different here since the elements are presented like equally valid alternatives rather than high and low ends of a linear scale.

One of the Big Five traits is literally Neuroticism/Negative Emotion (they don't seem to have consistent names, annoyingly), and I don't mind acknowledging I'm towards the negative end of that spectrum. Not a desirable thing at all, but many facts aren't.

Viscereal/Abstral is also Openness, though I clearly need to work on my brief descriptions! Most of my villains continue to be on the Open end, as am I.

But as puerile as it might be, I think there's something to be said for the basic good vs evil, light vs dark aspect a whole lot of fantasy (eg Star Wars!) explores. Stories could be seen as stylised exploration of the human condition rather than accurate depictions of nuanced reality, after all, and things like that allow for the exploration of different facets of how humans /can/ be without exhaustive setup or context. Or something.

That neon greenish yellow reminds me very strongly of my childhood - or maybe 90's aesthetics in general or something? - because it seemed to be everywhere back then. It also brings to mind that Virgin vs Chad meme! (Though I just looked it up and Chad's pants are actually true green, as in #00ff00, or so it seems at a glance.) I've seen it in adverts or on product boxes, and I always notice it and think "why did they think THAT looked good??"... but now that I've spent some time with it myself, it's growing on me!

Making things up as he went along was literally the point of Homestuck, which I envy for the rate of output but absolutely don't envy the frustration that must have arisen from being unable to revise anything!

Anyway, I've been doing some mental refining of these new elements, trying to figure out exactly what they are, so I'll probably write a Patreon post about that later!

Maniafig222~2Y

I always interpreted Mardek's runes shifting as Rohoph influencing how he perceives the world, but not in a hostile takeover sense! Like how Mardek becomes more A and G between chapters 2 and 3 because Rohoph kept sharing such thoughts with the influencable Mardek during those years.

It's probably possible to frame some of those traits in a different way, like rather than agreeable/disagreeable it's doormattiness/assertiveness. One thing I thought of for the old AF:C sentiments is that the Aolmna named them, so of course they picked nicer sounding phrases for their own sentiment and the other 'positive' ones!

The thing about the Neuroticism trait is interesting, since I can imagine it's more so that it's just that the way our society currently works that makes it disadvantageous. Neuroticism probably was more helpful back when humanity was in a much more primal state and life was much more brutal and dangerous than it is now! In so many ways we are still just highly evolved monkeys living very artificial lives.

Earlier today I saw a GIF of a monkey looking at a camera with a really human-like face. All the comments were talking about how strikingly human the monkey looked! [LINK]

I never watched Star Wars but the Light/Dark side of the Force thing sounds dumb!! Making Good/Evil into some quantifiable, measurable metaphysical force always seems silly to me, and usually just leads to headaches down the line when someone actually tries to seriously engage with the system in depth. I've seen way too many Alignment discussions about Good and Evil where I couldn't believe the downright sheer absurdity of what people were sincerely saying!

It's rather impressive how good Homestuck turned out given its foundations seem so shaky! And funnily enough I think he did actually go and revise some stuff, but he always made it actually a part of the plot when a character would literally visit some old page and change it in-story. Weird!

It's probably possible to frame some of those traits in a different way, like rather than agreeable/disagreeable it's doormattiness/assertiveness. One thing I thought of for the old AF:C sentiments is that the Aolmna named them, so of course they picked nicer sounding phrases for their own sentiment and the other 'positive' ones!

The thing about the Neuroticism trait is interesting, since I can imagine it's more so that it's just that the way our society currently works that makes it disadvantageous. Neuroticism probably was more helpful back when humanity was in a much more primal state and life was much more brutal and dangerous than it is now! In so many ways we are still just highly evolved monkeys living very artificial lives.

Earlier today I saw a GIF of a monkey looking at a camera with a really human-like face. All the comments were talking about how strikingly human the monkey looked! https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/wu5ypd/gees_golden_langur_researchers_have_said_that/

I never watched Star Wars but the Light/Dark side of the Force thing sounds dumb!! Making Good/Evil into some quantifiable, measurable metaphysical force always seems silly to me, and usually just leads to headaches down the line when someone actually tries to seriously engage with the system in depth. I've seen way too many Alignment discussions about Good and Evil where I couldn't believe the downright sheer absurdity of what people were sincerely saying!

It's rather impressive how good Homestuck turned out given its foundations seem so shaky! And funnily enough I think he did actually go and revise some stuff, but he always made it actually a part of the plot when a character would literally visit some old page and change it in-story. Weird!

Falcon64~2Y

Though the first Star Wars films rather unequivocally framed the Light/Dark side of the Force as good/evil in pulp space opera style, later Expanded Universe content made them much more nuanced: essentially, the Light Side represents willpower, the lack of emotion, and an almost scary level of sterility, while the Dark Side represents strong emotions—while in the movies it's typically things like anger, emotions such as love can also let one access the "Dark Side" of the Force. The Jedi/Sith conflict was basically an ideological schism, with neither side thinking of themselves as evil.

In some ways, it's rather similar to the Seraphim/Blight Wolves thing in Alora Fane!

Falcon64~2Y

I like this idea in general, though I do share your concerns about making such changes at this stage of development.

I don't think "Gravitoom" sounds silly at all! To my mind, the "oom" ending brings connotations of finality, of being pressed down by something heavy. Conversely, "Levitality" sounds very flighty and vigorous, due to being composed of many CV syllables (which facilitate pronouncing the word fast), and using "soft" consonants (conversely, Gravitoom uses many "hard" ones). I also think Levitality's colour fits very well.

I feel dissonance with Harmony and Discord in this setup, though. Not only do their colours seem off for some reason, the fact that their names aren't portmanteaus makes them stand apart from the others. I've tried to brainstorm some ideas for portmanteau names, and realized that Harmony has the word "harm" in it, which has rather opposite connotations!

Tobias 1115~2Y

I don't think it'd actually be all that much of a change if I did end up revising the elements, but maybe I'm just lying to myself there because I can't let the idea go!

I played around with alternatives for Gravitoom, but could only come up with Ghravistly - combining 'gravity' with 'ghastly' - which sounds not-inappropriately unpleasant, but probably in a less fitting way than Gravitoom. That and Levitality are probably growing on me now, anyway!

I'm also dissastisfied with Harmony and Discord, and did some brainstorming of my own, but it was also fruitless (other than 'Harmonice' which just sounds silly). I also considered using O and C - a full and broken circle - for Order and Chaos and starting there, but none of the meanings I want work. 'Concord' and 'order' play well together, but in the wrong direction since I'd have a C there too (plus I'm using 'concords' for a different lore concept). I thought about using a portmanteau of the words Tempest or Tumult for Discord - so it'd have the T, like Tough - but nothing worked for that either.

I'll probably keep experimenting and maybe something will come to me, but it's a shame how fitting Harmony and Discord are, since they describe their intended meanings really well plus they have musical meanings too, which fits with other motifs and gameplay. It's also a shame that none of them are really immediately recogniseable mental things - like Sorrow or Passion or Fear - since that was the whole point of the elements!

I don't think it'd actually be all /that/ much of a change if I did end up revising the elements, but maybe I'm just lying to myself there because I can't let the idea go!

I played around with alternatives for Gravitoom, but could only come up with Ghravistly - combining 'gravity' with 'ghastly' - which sounds not-inappropriately unpleasant, but probably in a less fitting way than Gravitoom. That and Levitality are probably growing on me now, anyway!

I'm also dissastisfied with Harmony and Discord, and did some brainstorming of my own, but it was also fruitless (other than 'Harmonice' which just sounds silly). I also considered using O and C - a full and broken circle - for Order and Chaos and starting there, but none of the meanings I want work. 'Concord' and 'order' play well together, but in the wrong direction since I'd have a C there too (plus I'm using 'concords' for a different lore concept). I thought about using a portmanteau of the words Tempest or Tumult for Discord - so it'd have the T, like Tough - but nothing worked for that either.

I'll probably keep experimenting and maybe something will come to me, but it's a shame how fitting Harmony and Discord are, since they describe their intended meanings really well plus they have musical meanings too, which fits with other motifs and gameplay. It's also a shame that none of them are really immediately recogniseable mental things - like Sorrow or Passion or Fear - since that was the whole point of the elements!

ElektrikMagenta20~2Y

Some possibilities for new harmony and discord: harmity (harmony and amity) and rancord (rancor and discord)

Tobias 1115~2Y

I've been thinking about these a bit! I used to have Amity and Enmity, so Harmity appeals to me, plus it brings to mind 'armistice'... though it's annoying that both it and Harmony have 'harm' in, which is the opposite of what that's about!

I considered Rancord myself, but I don't think it sounds enough like Discord (more like concord, if anything). Plus the Dis- is also in Disagreeable, the Big Five equivalent, so it feels like I could do something with that... though nothing pleasing presents itself!