"Okay, well, there are five elements. Sweela is fire and mind, elay is air and soul, coru is blood and water, torz is earth and flesh, and hunti is wood and bone. Everybody in Welce picks an element that best represents their personality, but there are also five families that each represent or embody an element - respectively, the Ardelays, the Dochenzas, the Lalindars, the Frothens, and the Serlasts. And every one of those families is headed by a 'prime' with certain element-themed powers, who is not chosen in any conventional manner of heir selection but rather by a process of idiosyncratic magic."