Earth, Wind & Fire

Question: The Elemental Purviews (Earth, Water, Fire, Sky) all seem to have fairly narrow ranges, especially at higher levels. Even a Legend 11 God can't raise an island from the sea without spending thousands and thousands of points of Legend. An Earth God can't even command a volcano to erupt because he can't control that much lava. What do y'all think about large-scale world-shaping powers in the elemental purviews?

I think that that's what purview Avatars are for!

I completely understand the desire to do as many amazing things at every level as possible, but elemental purviews are especially tricky for that because they're so fluid. By the time you're Legend 11, you're already doing such huge phenomenal things that it becomes difficult to come up with defined boons. We've actually had to step back a few times and say things like, "Okay, yes, a boon that creates rivers sounds really awesome at level 10... but Avatar."

Because, when a purview is as fluid as the elemental ones are, it's very easy to fall into the trap of doing everything immediately all the time, but that's what the Avatar is specifically for. Making enormous, world-changing, permanent gestures is the stuff of legend - Legend 12, in fact, because there is not a single god out there who creates an ocean or forms a sky or thrusts up a mountainrange in an earthquake tantrum who is not Legend 12. The limiting in scope of lower-level powers in elemental purviews is frustrating when you want to view yourself as already slinging the environment in all possible ways like you could do it ten times before breakfast, but if you can already do that, what would the Avatar do, then? Just... do the same thing, only maybe more of it at the same time? The most massive, insane, crazy, if-you-can-imagine-it-you-can-do-it malleable powers are reserved for Avatars, because that's what Avatars do. The line is just blurrier than it is for less freeform purviews.

Besides, I'd let most of the things you're mentioning happen with ingenuity and good stunting. You may not be able to just Magma Control all that lava out of the ground to spew over your enemies, but if you had the Intelligence to figure out how, I'd totally let you use your Echo Sounding and Landslide to smack a fault so that the volcano erupts on its own. Depending on the situation, it might be harder or more expensive - but that's why Avatars are awesome, because twenty Legend gets you whatever (whatever) you want.

Believe me, I've struggled with it in the past, too, but I'm pretty sold on Avatars handling those kinds of things now. I can't think of a single god in myth who does things like raising an island from the depths or fashioning a storm so massive that it blows up parts of the earth who I wouldn't also peg as being Legend 12. Those are the kinds of showstoppers that only the biggest and baddest get to make with impunity, and luckily that's exactly where Scions are headed: big badassery.