Mundus Sphere

The Mundus Sphere is comprised of the world's natural elements and their many variations. The elements are fire, water, earth, wind, light, and dark. This sphere is more diverse than most and therefore offers a variety of applications for those that utilize it. This sphere can be found abundantly in nature and when a Mundus Sphere mage is literally within their element, they can quickly become a dangerous force.

Azoth > Mundus > Vita

(The Mundus Sphere does well against the Vita Sphere, but has trouble against the Azoth Sphere.)

Thematic Basis
The Mundus Sphere was inspired by the classic elements, but those elements actually have a lot of variety and have surprising differences across sources and cultures. The theme here is essentially the basic forces of nature. Emphasis on basic, because unlike certain elemental systems, wood and metal most certainly aren't a part of this sphere. The notion of variations and combinations simultaneously allows a simple system to exist as well as the many other classic (and non-classic) elements to be included as well.

Basic Aspects
At a basic level, the Mundus Sphere consists of the manipulation and/or creation of the following elements; fire that burns, water in liquid form, earth without life, wind which is gaseous particles, light that permits sight, and darkness that shrouds. These do have many variations and combinations, but a Mundus Mage will generally start with one of these six basic aspects. Elements may be shaped into unnatural forms and given unnatural properties, a medium range fireball with some concussive force is a popular example of this.

Properly trained Mundus Mages are capable of manipulating these elements and even creating magical equivalents, but creating something that isn't there requires significantly more from the mage. Contrary to popular belief, Mundus Mages who are literally within their element aren't able to use magic without a cost, but the clever ones are capable of making it seem that way.

Advanced Aspects
For the Mundus Sphere, the advanced aspects tend to deal exclusively with the combinations and variations of the six basic aspects. It is extremely difficult to create the advanced aspects outright, and almost always requires the basics to be used as a starting point. The following isn't an exhaustive final list, but it will provide examples of such combinations and variations.
 * Fire - Electricity (when combined with light), Lava (when combined with earth)
 * Water - Ice (when cooled), Vapor (when combined with wind)
 * Earth - Mud (when combined with water), Crystals (when refined)
 * Wind - Smoke (when combined with Dark), Scents (when extracted from various things)
 * Light - Warmth (when manipulated), Lazers (when focused through crystals)
 * Dark - Cold (when manipulated), Physical Shadows (when concentrated)

Practical Applications
The Mundus Sphere has a plethora of practical applications, especially for travelers. Need a fire to keep yourself warm at night? Done. Need some water? Done. Mundus Mages can easily find work in enchanting things for others as well.

Combat Applications
The elements of the Mundus Sphere have clear combat applications in their natural forms alone, but a Mundus Mage's capacity to manipulate these elements opens up the door of possibilities to many more things. Some rather simple examples include forming an element into a ball and throwing it, or simply directing a stream of the element at a foe.

Natural Occurances
All of the natural elements have some untapped Mundus Sphere magics within them, but so do things like plants and the sun (which also contain Vita Sphere magics).

Trivia

 * Despite light and darkness typically representing good and evil, here they are simple elements.
 * Wind magic being gaseous particles is a way of clarifying what wind actually is. It is the movement of those particles. Thus, wind magic consists of various gasses, oxygen being one of them.
 * Earth doesn't actually include plant life. Plant life is a collaboration of Mundus and Vita.