Framework for Mystics
by Giampaolo AgostaIf I were to build a comprehensive framework for Mystics, I would base it on the Elemental opposition table, since that table is explicitly used to create a balance among the martial arts styles of the Mystics in the Master's Set.
Now, for the elements, we have the following circular dominance:
Air > Water > Fire > Earth > Air
And the martial arts have the following one:
Offensive > Wrestling > Defensive > Throwing > Offensive
As they are, striking a correspondence between offensive and air and defensive and fire doesn't look that good. But rotating the wheel doesn't change the relations, and we can get a better match:
Defensive > Throwing > Offensive > Wrestling > Defensive
This creates the following correspondences:
Air <=> Defensive
Water <=> Throwing
Fire <=> Offensive
Earth <=> Wrestling
This could create an opportunity to give some additional powers or abilities to Mystics beyond level 16 (either in the standard version, allowing them to have something like the demihuman attack ranks, or in the 36-level variant, where Mystics don't get any new ability after level 16).
It would be interesting to link this discussion to the "humoral theory", but unfortunately the elemental dominance/opposition in Empedocles does not match Mystara's.
In Empedocles, the oppositions are Air<->Earth and Fire<->Water, whereas in Mystara we have Air<->Fire and Water<->Earth (Air and Water are switched in the loop).
The relation with seasons is also different. In Mystara, we have:
Water -> Winter (Vatermont=February)
Earth -> Spring (Yarthmont=May)
Fire -> Summer (Fyrmont=July)
Air-> Autumn (Eirmont=November)
Whereas in humoral theory we get:
Water -> Winter
Air -> Spring
Fire -> Summer
Earth ->Autumn
Still, these correspondences can be used for the same purposes.
Here is the corresponding graph, including an Ochalean version of the Bagua (8 Trigrams).
The color coding is the same as above (uhm, probably Fire and Earth are too similar). I've added some options for Dragons as power sources for each Trigram.