Does anyone have any idea of the full properties of gems?

[Locke_C]

I saw this post, and video, a while back but I feel there's a lot more to it, and definitely something else to be gleamed from things. The yellow gem being 'death' doesn't seem to fit at all.

From what I can tell there's obvious meanings to quite a few of the gems,
red gem has heat or life or energy(?)
blue gem has coldness or ice and water(?)
purple gem has magical things and is great at conducting nightmare fuel
orange gems solve things lazily and instantly(?)
yellow gems have to do with the power of the sun and light(?)
green gems are about efficiency

But theres other random properties too, the magnifying glass from hamlet uses a blue gem, what does that mean? The moon dial has a blue gem, for what purpose? Purple gems have spatial properties with the tele-locator but so do orange gems? Why does the lazy deserter need a person to use while the telelocator focus just has to exist? The deconstruction staff implies green gems have to do with reversing time? Wormwood is also made from a green gem? Why do the ancients need a purple gem to see nutrients in the ground??

What could they mean? Does anyone have theories that leave little to no gaps in each gems 'territory', what concepts do they all cover? Some gems could be a completely different concept than what we, the user of the gems, believe they do... What if green isn't efficiency but its something else entirely that just has efficiency as a subset?

Also, why do the gems do different things entirely with different focusing tools? Construction amulets increase efficiency of the living person wearing it, but use living logs as a substitute for their activation and they can be used elsewhere to... reverse time?? Why does the magiluminescence increase the users speed when worn, is this a property of 'star'? Why does the lazy explorer not require living logs to use as a staff, or the fire or ice staff? When worn as an amulet a purple gem gives properties of insanity to the user, but if used as a staff with living logs it does a random teleport?

Geometrical makeup and light refraction, or a taking in energy and giving out something else seems to play a lot into Wagstaff's and some other's quotes and understanding of gems, and with the ARG puzzle involving light refraction it seems important too.

I could go on and on about these many properties, so I ask the forums:
1) What concepts do the gems cover?
2) What could the different focusing tools do to how the gems channel their concepts? (Living logs for staves, thulcite, living being for amulets [except WX78 isn't even alive...])
3) Do the gems seem to have relation to eachother? Everyone talks of opposites but are they necessarily? Other than blue and red, if we go by Wilson's skill tree they seem to have a hierarchy, they are not necessarily opposites. If they do have opposites what do you think they are?

Help me out here!!

 

[Just Ragnar]

It seems to me like

Red: Fire, Life, generally being energy. Energy gets hot. Fire.

Blue: seems to be a lack of energy, calmness, like a pond of water, or cold. Without energy to get hot, things get cold and freeze.

Purple: Wild Card. While i'm no klei dev, I think this was originally supposed to be the "strong gem" used for later game stuff, before the ruins were added. It may also be a "harness" of sorts, to bend and contain various other forces, like the nightmare amulet welcoming insanity into your mind, the bat bat taking enemies life energy and giving it to you.

Orange: Comforts. Quality of life. It seems to be delegated to things that make the game a bit kinder to you. (perhaps the ancients used it to deal with menial tasks?)

Yellow: Energy again, but without the life force? Tamed energy, the motivating power of the sun?

Green: Time, or handiwork. Wanda states that the deconstruction staff works similarly to her watches, yet other characters seem to instead say the staff and amulet works like "a magical binding agent" or something that makes them more skilled at building. Perhaps this has something to do with how time can go in any direction it pleases in the constant, even sideways? I'm unsure.

Iridescent: The moon, and space in general (the polarlight is described as something auroralike in some quotes)

[Draggofroot]

Im just gonan spit out my interpretations of each example you've given of gem magic and hope someone understands what im trying to say

On 6/11/2026 at 4:22 PM, Locke_C said:

(idk how to remove this please ignore)

On 6/11/2026 at 4:22 PM, Locke_C said:

ut theres other random properties too, the magnifying glass from hamlet uses a blue gem, what does that mean?

 

probably less so magic and more so because it is the least obstructing of all the gems colourwise and is a natural lense

On 6/11/2026 at 4:22 PM, Locke_C said:

The moon dial has a blue gem, for what purpose?

blue gem is connected to ice and thus water

On 6/11/2026 at 4:22 PM, Locke_C said:

Purple gems have spatial properties with the tele-locator but so do orange gems? Why does the lazy deserter need a person to use while the telelocator focus just has to exist?

the orange gem is probably connected to earth, if you teleport, sand stuff appears so i think its litterally commanding the ground to tp the user, you can even tell the earth, in the form of desert stones, to teleport to a deserter (i dont know if this makes sense)

On 6/11/2026 at 4:22 PM, Locke_C said:

The deconstruction staff implies green gems have to do with reversing time? Wormwood is also made from a green gem?

the Decon staff doesnt reverse time, otherwise you'd be able to reverse spoilage and also get gems from staves (other than the mooncaller), it should probably be taken at face value as something that can efficiently pick apart objects

Wormwood can also be made from any other gem as evidence by his skins (as well as maybe dreadstone by his triumphant skin)

On 6/11/2026 at 4:22 PM, Locke_C said:

Why do the ancients need a purple gem to see nutrients in the ground??

Purple gem can also be knowledge, its used in the crafting of the shadow manipulator and (this is a bit of a stretch) is used in bishops which are symbolically wise

On 6/11/2026 at 4:22 PM, Locke_C said:

Why does the magiluminescence increase the users speed when worn, is this a property of 'star'?

Yellow gem is probably connected to energy, which is why it creates a star (a source of energy) and energizes you as an amulet giving you speed

On 6/11/2026 at 4:22 PM, Locke_C said:

Why does the lazy explorer not require living logs to use as a staff, or the fire or ice staff?

perhaps theyre not "magic" enough to need living logs, look at klaus' deer for example

On 6/11/2026 at 4:22 PM, Locke_C said:

When worn as an amulet a purple gem gives properties of insanity to the user, but if used as a staff with living logs it does a random teleport?

maybe the amulet shouldnt be interpreted as making you insane but instead let you go into the dimension where shadows reside that you can only otherwise enter when you're insane

[Cassielu]

In my opinion, it's something like this:

Red: "Fire", and "Life". Both are kind of giving out energy. 

Blue: "Ice", absorbs energy, and ice are further expanded to "Water". The Moon Dial use blue gem to achieve control over the water in it. The Magnifying Glass doesn't seem to have any magic, so it is possible that the blue gem merely utilized its physical properties rather than any magical properties, ground into a lens shape or what, because we didn't have glass as a item in Hamlet.

Purple: "Shadow". Like Just Ragnar said that Klei might simply have randomly add functions for purple gems in early stage. However, nowadays we can interpret it as developed into numerous uses because of its connection with shadow magic. Shadow Realm allowing it to teleport. Shadow creatures (aka the ancients) knowledge allowing it use in research station or assist in observing the nutrients in the land.

Yellow: "Light". Magiluminescence offer speed booster because "light speed" is also one of the classic uses of light in creation. It can turn into a Iridescent Gem because the energy is transmitted in the form of moonlight.

Green: "Work" or "Time", former mainly comes from gameplay, while the latter mainly comes from character quotes.

Orange: "Lazy" or "Space", former mainly comes from the first two items gameplay and name. It is even possible that when Ruins was first added to the game lazy and work were the main concepts of Green and Orange gems, and the latter was from reinterpreted by Klei's lore writer at some point.

Iridescent Gem: Simply some how related to the moon. It is clear that Klei didn't plan everything about the moon well from the beginning...

 

It is obvious that the initial six gems have a clear pairing relationship between each other, red - blue, purple - yellow, green - orange. 

As for Wilson's skilltree I think it was mainly designed based on gameplay considerations, green gem is placed at the highest tier because it is the most powerful and useful gem in the gameplay,  yellow gem comes second, and the orange gem is the least useful among the three ruins gems.

Edited 23 hours ago by Cassielu

[Well-met]

red - life/heat
blue - water/cold

purple - corruption/shadows

yellow - light/heat

green - plentifulness/renewal

orange - dexterity/gravity

iridescent - moon shenanigans