Elementals and the Shroud

[Vyrerus]

A bit tangential but I'd like some clarification on a few, if possible: are the elementals to be found throughout the world? If not, how does conjury work outside the shroud?

As I understood it, conjury is a bit of a process in the sense that you have to go through the elementals to obtain the desire effect (flinging rocks at a target or manipulating gusts of wind to a destructive effect). I always took that to be one of the key differences between base conjury and white magic: the conjurer asks whereas the white mage takes. Of course, I realize that this last point might be one hell of an oversimplication, if not outright incorrect... in which case please explain the difference to me ^^;

Yes, but actually no. There are elementals that can be found everywhere, but they are not the same as The Elementals in the Black Shroud. There are elementals for every element, and this is true for The Elementals in the Shroud, but the ones in the Shroud seem to be more akin to restless nature spirits.

The ones in Eureka come out only to buff people who approach them with their blessing, and eventually blow themselves out existence. I don't remember there being very much lore on them at all.

As for Conjurers and conjury, well... not every Conjurer can hear The Elementals. Some can only hear certain elements. Others can hear them all. They had a robe color scheme system for it in 1.0, and I think it most holds true till today. All Conjury really is, is aetherial command over the elements of earth, air, and water. They use these, because they can be used to heal or to hurt without disrupting the ecosystem very much. White Magic is different in that White Mages directly manipulate the umbral aspect of a body's aether as a whole, i.e. cast Holy/Light aspected spells. It has been a really long time since I did the quest lines, but normally white magic is reserved for The Elementals chosen, the Padjal, because it's powerful and easy to abuse, as it was one of the magic schools that was abused in the War of The Magi.