☱ Lake makes systems settle into clean compartments, sorting the mixed into what is retained and what is released, or preventing that settling to keep things suspended and flexible.
Identity: Settling actor
Phase Affinity: Metal (corral or separate)
Trigram Story: Push then settle corralling. Acts then leaves boundaries. Take a mixed, moving input, then force it to settle into separated lanes.
ManifestationsMagical UsesMental InfluenceOverlay Aspects on a MindDrain Aspects from a MindMental ShieldEconomicsTrigram DetailsTranslations from Benebell Wen
Manifestations
Objects: Filters, centrifuges, combs, spinning wheels
Body: Kidneys. Lymph nodes. Inner ear vestibular system.
Thoughts & Emotions: Calmness from filtering out agitating emotions. Disgust for social and emotional toxicity. Slow to anger, and pure and clean when it lands.
Conflict management: State the boundaries of the conflict then listen and self adjust as needed.
Magical Uses
☱ Lake transfers trigrams from one, mirrors the trigram, then applies the mirror to another. These are the transfer mirrors:
See each trigram for examples of how ☱ Lake could use their trigram transfer ability.
Mental Influence
☱ Lake is able to manipulate the mind in ways that no other caster can. They can drain a mental aspect and then apply the mirror to the same aspect on a different target.
Overlay Aspects on a Mind
Ground onto someone’s Wind aspect. Stewarding. It dampens novelty hunger, increases patience, and installs a “continuity reflex” so the person defaults to reliable plans, stable routines, and keeping promises instead of chasing the next clever pivot.
Thunder onto someone’s Tornado aspect. Committing to a stance. It injects boldness and visible conviction, making them act fast and then brace, so their mind shifts from “keep sorting and cutting” into “declare, hold, and defend.”
Abyss onto someone’s Mountain aspect. Bend the rules. Open up to new ideas. It turns certainty into curiosity, making them absorb contradiction without collapsing, and letting new interpretations gestate before they emerge.
Mountain onto someone’s Abyss aspect. Structure containment. Clearer personal boundaries, stronger self-definition, and the ability to stop carrying everyone else’s weight. The mind effect is “I can hold depth without drowning in it.”
Lake onto someone’s Blaze aspect. Safe channels. It doesn’t extinguish passion, it makes passion accountable: slower escalation, cleaner consent, more ability to sit with shame without turning it into spectacle, and a reflex to repair harm instead of doubling down. The mind effect is “tell the truth, then choose the boundary that keeps everyone safe.”
Wind onto someone’s Ground aspect. Loosens over-attachment to continuity and procedure. It increases tolerance for change, helps them take in new information without feeling destabilized, and installs a “flexibility reflex” so they can adjust systems without experiencing it as betrayal of duty.
Tornado onto someone’s Thunder aspect. Bravery more surgical and less self-destructive. It channels raw force into lanes: better targeting, better timing, and a sharper instinct for where pressure should land to create separation from bad options. The mind effect is “hit the exact seam, not the whole wall.”
Blaze
Since ☱ Lake casters can drain ☱ Lake from any aspect, they are able to then overlay☲ Blaze onto any aspect. The following are examples of overlaying ☲ Blaze onto different aspects of a mind:
- Ground: Ignites duty into zeal. The person becomes intensely protective of routines, roles, and responsibilities, but with impatience and moral heat. They push others to comply because “it matters,” and small deviations feel like disrespect.
- Thunder: Turns action into eruption. Faster decisions, higher confidence, more risk-taking, and a tendency to mistake adrenaline for clarity. They become inspirational and volatile, escalating conflict because movement feels like safety.
- Mountain: Heats rigidity into righteous certainty. Boundaries become hard lines, tolerance for ambiguity drops, and the person becomes harder to persuade. They can feel unbreakable, but also brittle, snapping when challenged.
- Blaze: Overclocks the whole system. High charisma, high libido, high intensity, high creativity, low inhibition. The mind runs hot, sleep and patience collapse, and they become prone to fixation and burnout.
- Abyss: Brings secrets to the surface. The person becomes confession-prone, performs vulnerability, and may weaponize truth as drama. Shame turns into spectacle, and they can feel compelled to expose what they normally contain.
- Lake: Turns discernment into judgment. They feel driven to name what is fair, what is owed, who crossed a line, and what the consequence should be. Useful for decisive arbitration, dangerous when it becomes punitive moral theater.
- Wind: Ignites networking into mania. Rapid social reach, fast coalition-building, compulsive messaging, and a tendency to spread influence like wildfire. They connect people brilliantly, but can become intrusive and manipulative.
- Tornado: Heats separation into purging. They cut options aggressively, enforce categories, and simplify the world by excluding whatever feels “impure” or “inefficient.” In high doses it becomes authoritarian clarity: clean lanes, no exceptions, no mercy.
Drain Aspects from a Mind
Ground from someone’s Ground aspect. Removes steadiness and duty gravity. The person struggles to maintain routines, follow through on commitments, or feel anchored in responsibility. Plans drift, promises feel abstract, and long-term structure loses emotional weight.
Thunder from someone’s Thunder aspect. Reduces initiative and spark. The person hesitates, second-guesses, and avoids bold moves. Conflict response dulls, and they may feel oddly passive or unable to commit to decisive action.
Mountain from someone’s Mountain aspect. Softens boundaries and endurance. The person has difficulty holding a firm “no,” maintaining limits, or sustaining resistance under pressure. They become more permeable, more persuadable, and more easily reshaped.
Blaze from someone’s Blaze aspect. Dampens passion and appetite. Drive lowers, charisma flattens, libido cools, and emotional intensity becomes muted. The person feels less inspired, less reactive, and less motivated to pursue what excites them.
Abyss from someone’s Abyss aspect. Removes depth-processing and internal absorption. The person becomes less reflective, less secretive, and less capable of holding complex emotional material. They may feel shallow, overexposed, or unable to contain difficult truths.
Wind from someone’s Wind aspect. Weakens networking instinct and adaptability. Social coordination drops, communication feels effortful, and the person may isolate or struggle to read relational currents. Their ability to link people and tasks becomes sluggish.
Tornado from someone’s Tornado aspect. Dissolves clarity of separation and lane enforcement. The person has difficulty prioritizing, cutting options, or maintaining clean boundaries between categories. Decisions blur, thresholds soften, and they feel mentally scattered rather than directed.
Lake
Since ☱ Lake casters can latch on to any lake aspect from any other aspect, they can drain from anywhere and then apply ☲ Blaze to the same aspect elsewhere.
- Ground: Reduce sense of fair obligation and clean stewardship. Duty becomes hollow or confused, promises feel negotiable, and their internal “ledger” of what must be maintained starts to blur. Without Lake’s stabilizing honesty, Ground tilts toward either stubborn inertia or quiet resentment.
- Thunder: Reduce self-judgment and moral calibration from action. Thunder still moves, but without reflective pause it becomes impulsive or reckless. The person acts without checking consequences, because the internal mirror that weighs impact has been siphoned away.
- Mountain: Reduce principled boundaries. The person still resists, but they lose the sense of why the line exists. Boundaries become arbitrary or emotionally brittle instead of ethically grounded, making them easier to shame or manipulate.
- Blaze: Reduce accountability from passion. The person still feels heat and desire, but without the inner boundary that says what is fair, safe, or reciprocal. Passion turns self-indulgent, dramatic, or destructive because no internal corral remains.
- Abyss: Reduce reflective clarity. Abyss keeps absorbing and holding depth, but loses the ability to articulate truth cleanly. The person becomes secretive without insight, heavy without understanding, and more prone to internal distortion.
- Lake: Creates moral confusion. The person struggles to discern fairness, loses confidence in contracts and agreements, and may feel uncertain about what they owe or what others owe them. Social navigation becomes slippery and anxious.
- Wind: Reduce cooperative ethics. Wind can still connect people, but the instinct to balance exchange weakens. Networking becomes manipulative, opportunistic, or transactional without conscience.
- Tornado: Reduce boundary legitimacy. Tornado can still enforce lanes, but without internal justification those separations feel hollow or tyrannical. The person may over-control to compensate, or lose confidence in their authority altogether.
Mental Shield
Identifies intrusion and corrals it to be separate from core self. Target can feel the dissonance.
Economics
Faster processing with less waste. Settling and separation that normally takes hours or days becomes minutes, so breweries, dye houses, tanneries, and kitchens run more batches per season.
Water becomes reliable. Lake casters can clarify silted water, manage cisterns and reservoirs, and keep canals functional, which raises public health and reduces labor lost to illness.
Mining and materials scale up. Ore washing, slurry separation, clay refinement, and aggregate grading become faster and more precise, improving yield and quality tiers.
Manufacturing quality jumps. Paints, inks, glazes, plaster, mortar, and composite mixes become consistent because bubbles, grit, and phase separation are controlled on demand.
Infrastructure maintenance costs collapse. Lake draining prevents pipes, filters, sluices, and locks from clogging until the correct catch point, reducing downtime and catastrophic failures.
Bureaucracy becomes sharper. On the human side, Lake’s mental settling reduces panic cascades and rumor churn, making guilds, courts, and command chains more stable under crisis.
Trigram Details
Wood story: Push then settle reinforcing. Reposition, then make the new boundary self-reinforcing.
Fire story: TODO
Earth story: TODO
Metal story: Push then settle corralling. Acts then leaves boundaries. Partitions energy and reseats it into defined limits.
Water story: TODO
Translations from Benebell Wen
Meaning: Exchange
Qi quality: Reflecting another in an equal and opposite manner.
Qi in nature: Marshes and lakes
Direction: West
Ritual tool: Fan
Land forms: Riverbanks, marshes, wetlands, valleys
Sound: Chimes, sound of bells, clanging
Personality traits: Charismatic, does not take criticism well
Immortal association: Zhong Li Quan (Also Jidao), The Warrior
See LakeAsMirror