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Familiars
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Very simple, very swift. A being which is a summon granted the luxery to be an extension of its summoner.
Familiars are mage-specific for the very basic reason that things can't really spontaniously generate off of other things for no motivated cause. Their existance, by being like this, can turn out to feel complex to understand. However, it is easier if one thinks like this:
Any single thing's presense is in two places, which is that it is where it is, but also that it's in a place of nothingness. This nothingness place is an isolation, to that the object rightfully exists on its own, but this existance isn't a part of other objects' existances. To make a familiar, another object in normal environment is added, but in the nothingness of existing, the familiar 'grows' out as an abnormality of the first object, which is its summoner.
A familiar is a companion that benefits the master in several ways. First, regardless of if the summoning fashion is a temporary process, the solid right of presence is inevitably forced on the familiar, and it can, before long, be a natural enough creature that banishing it as a summon won't work out. This is a loyal minion who won't go away at a single unsummon.
Second, the familiar has a deep connection to its master because of the connectiveness of its existence to the master's. This direct form is very difficult to break, and the design evades efforts to dispell, unsummon, etc. Through this, the master and familiar can share things, like thoughts, commands, and so on. Advanced enough connections can supposedly allow sharing enhancements. (However, any action or enhancement done through the connection to the other end must contest with anything that normally removes it as normal, such as anti-magic.)
Third, because of this connection, coupled with that a familiar becomes its own individual creature, the familiar has mana pool and potential spellcasting abilities, which, by having, can be drawn to help enhance the master. (Lisui doesn't do this, she's designed to perform independently.)
There's several weaknesses of this, however. First of all, you need to have a base of skill. Essentially, you have to be able to summon in order to do this, or else you won't be able to generate a familiar without aid.
Second of all, you share everything in thoughts even if you don't directly command it. This can generate anywhere from minor disobeying issues to severe rebeliousness against the master, depending on the connection structure, when the master's emotions commands the summon differently than the present mind.
Third, the master is strained on the connection. Squishy wizard much? This goes a few more nudges in that direction. Since the familiar exists thanks to the physical body of the master being extended out, the source physical body is weakened a little all-around. Very powerful familiar creatures tend not to be made simply because the weakening would be crippling.
Forth, the summon design is discarded eventually, and that works double-edged. Because of the dependency, a familiar that loses connection with its master has only a very short time to live. If it didn't accumulate spare energy beforehand, the familiar will rapidly grow sick and die immediately. ---and accumulating energy only delays that. Because of the complexity of the summoning, a familiar is difficult to rebind to a master, especially with the specific connection design it'd only be compatable with, and many familiars don't survive the entire time cost of the process.
Fifth, when the familiar's disconnected, it causes a recoil called 'Familiar flu'. Familiar flu is the state in which an effect of a sort of turbulance occurs by existence mismatching, by shrinking away from including the familiar's existence. This taxes the body and hinders the master considerably, disabling the master for a duration that can last as high as weeks or months, or as low as many hours or a couple of days. There's many factors that determine how long familiar flu lasts, or how severely, (a master can in fact die by a nasty familiar flu on its own) but it's generally a sliding scale of how powerful a familiar is, and how much of this power isn't independently managed by the familiar.
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Elemental
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A planier distortion posing as a natural occurance.
Once again, I ask you to think beyond physical presence and go a little creatively. This time, it's about all that is physically around oneself. This type of world will henceforth be considered a 'plane'. In fact, it is the physical plane, specificly. The cornerstone idea of the plane, is that it's a single catagory of everything able to interact with one another. The idea of planes, furthermore, is that if there's a physical plane, then there may well be alternative planes, maybe few, maybe many, or maybe even none.
To hopefully help understanding, one example of alternate planes is this: if there's a physical plane of only material things, then apparently, souls exist on a different plane...There's a spiritual plane, where souls reside, but not the material things of the physical plane, and vice-versa.
The nature of planes that gives it mysteriousness, is that generally interactions don't happen plane-to-plane. Obviously connections forged across specific objects, like a physical body and spiritual...erm...soul, can be an exception.
The idea of the elemental, is another kind of way that there can be an exception, though. Planes can potentially be very different, and sometimes an underlying constant is part of its attributes that makes it an independant plane. For example, a plane of heat has the infinite presence of a certain high temperature of heat that is there just by virtue of being on the plane of heat, and that's its constant factor.
When an elemental is born, what happens is that such a plane with a constant interferes with the physical plane. The constant (an ice plane's cold, a fire plane's heat, wind plane's winds, etc.) materializes into the physical plane, and being born in it, becomes a solid existence to the plane. However, its existence comes from the standards of the source plane's constant trait, so it retains ties to this plane, and having this nature gives it the ability to draw out power.
Elementals when born like this, will then have a type of interference of distortive energies, because the planes should be separate but are acting as not. They will eventually stabilize by making ends meet on the condition that the planes interfere, but only so-far as the elemental's specific presence. (though multiple cases of similar 'contracts' from the same two planes can occur.)
The settled energies at first define the elemental's restrictions and individual maintance. Then it gradually develops from there, to take into account varied conditions. The developments keep going, and eventually include specific theories, good ideas, bad ideas, so on, and build up what becomes a primitive mind. Some elementals will stop there, but depending on life, it can develop to become much more and make an intellegent mindset.
This is the true 'birth' of an elemental, a creature which is simply made up of a single concept materialized.
Elementals can lash out by exerting their presense, and regenerating through their source plane, by simply striking with their presence in a usage akin to a fist, or, they can attempt to manipulate a set of similiar conditions (like fire near a fire elemental) and give it supernatural shoves via the power of the source plane's acting at the elemental's control.
Elementals can only survive in an environment that satisfies the constant. Elementals can be struck against, some ways more effectively than others.
If an attack disrupts the constant itself (such as a fire elemental being doused with water) then a weakness is struck and the elemental is severely injured, maybe even killed.
If the attack is something the constant can defeat (like a fire elemental attacked by oil) then the elemental is strong against the attack.
If there's a match of the elemental and the attack, then the elemental syncronizes, and instead of being hurt, is healed.
The surviving condition is very picky. A wind elemental doesn't just survive in an air-filled place: It has to be subject to a tornado. To attempt to override this, an elemental may generate a sort of container.
This 'container' is often made starting with the elemental witnessing the powers of another kind of creature. An elemental may have magic or psychic powers, spontaniously granted as much as a sorcerer spontaniously ends up with born with her own powers. (except more random, since elementals can't simply inherit powers from nonexistant parents) To see this from another creature may give it the idea of enhancing their natural talents with that species.
Using the powers its born with, the elemental then will take over the creature, or it will generate a mimic of the creature. (Notably, this means that an elemental which posesses no magic or otherwise kinds of powers will almost definately end up with no container) An elemental that cannot make a container will likely just have to settle with becoming so strong that it can wander from its home environment for brief times.
The container is then modified to actually contain the elemental, by syncronizing with it, and absorbing the elemental with these abnormal syncronization traits.
To distance the syncronization from overlapping the two existances, magic (or otherwise) powers is then used to enhance the container, the elemental may exert personal influence (which will nullify the capability of using its elemental powers), or a special object will be made in a process similiar to generating an elemental which will maintain the distance until the object is considerably damaged or right-out destroyed.
The container will then live on as a normal creature, except the life of the elemental is directly fueling the creature's life, making the creature slave to the elemental. Meanwhile, the creature can exert the elemental's powers safely through itself. (and takes on the burden of being vulnrable/strong to certain attack types as if the elemental) A container, unlike the elemental, is not disrupted by the simple environment so-long that its natural traits can withstand the environment. So a ice elemental inside an elf is in no danger unless if the ice elemental is stupid enough to send the elf into a volcano.
This covers most of everything, but there is one significant thing: the detonation theory. It works like this: (and has occured, dispite being called a theory) There is a single severe presence compressed into a body. The outside lacks this severe presence. If the container is gone, or no longer contains, the severe presence will release from the container and extend out to this surrounding area.
---Basically, the container goes from being a container to a bomb with a theme of an unusual thing exploding out.
This is achieved when the container is quickly killed or the stabalizer (enhancement, elemental's powers, or stabalizing object) is removed from functionality. The elemental will rapidly spread out. However, the life dependends on the constant being fullfilled, and suddenly not being fullfilled, the elemental is not reaching its required conditions. With the constant not being met, the elemental's life is rapidly disrupted. Through this disruption, the elemental will definately die immediately.
An elemental will not undergo detonation theory if it is killed by its weak-versus condition, because the elemental's powers is already exhausted against the attacking blow. So a fire elemetnal killed by water will not explode into an inferno, even in a dry and easily burnable environment.
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Lisui
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Now I'll draw the connections of these conversasions and the Lisui character.
Lisui is an independent type familiar...and a wind elemental. (And Crayis is apparently a cold elemental of some kind, though so far no direct confirmation is made IC)