Element

An element is one of four classes of natural phenomena.

The four elements are Fire, Ice, Air, and Earth.

Crawl's documentation suggests that Ice may be a specific form of the Water element; however, in the game, water magic is a lost and unknown magic.

Elemental magic

Each of the elements has a spell school associated with it, and a person who specializes in elemental magic is called an Elementalist. There are four playable Elementalist classes, one for each element:

• Fire Elementalist
• Ice Elementalist
• Air Elementalist
• Earth Elementalist

Elemental schools have specific oppositions:

• Fire opposes Ice, and vice versa
• Air opposes Earth, and vice versa

A player specializing in one element will have difficulty learning the opposing element, equivalent to a -4 aptitude penalty or malus.

Besides affecting spell power and success, elemental magic skills also help with controlling summoned elementals (from both the Summon Elemental spell and summoning items), and increase the bonus melee damage from the corresponding magical staff. Wielding a magical staff in an elemental skill also boosts the power of that school's spells.

Elemental monsters

These are monsters whose existence is associated with an element. Any of them can be summoned by the level 4 Summonings spell Summon Elemental, or by its associated summoning item:

• E Fire elemental, created by a lamp of fire
• E Water elemental, created by a phial of floods
• E Earth elemental, created by a stone of tremors
• E Air elemental, created by an fan of gales

History

In earlier versions, a player specializing in one element would also have difficulty with the other three elemental schools.