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I've always dove in head first with the mechanics and then ended up with a full list of mechanics without any real world to put them into... so I'm going to try the world-building part first since the mechanics are the part I enjoy most

There are 7 "Elements", each represented by a gem type and 5 crests, which represent party roles. Combining the crest and the gem imbues a character with the potential to learn related skills (so you literally craft your classes). This does lead to the interesting side effect of having 35 individual classes to create x.x

They arose by virtue of the soldiers imbuing their knowledge into the gemstones over generations. The crests just unlock which knowledge is learned. There were originally 7 kingdoms, 1 for each element, each with different fighting styles (so the "element" of the gemstone also represents the fighting styles of the region). Of course, now there's just 1 empire, having absorbed all 7 kingdoms.

Earth: Involves manipulation of the terrain, generally dealing % of max health damage. Non-elemental representations of Emerald crests are generally manifest high defensive power. Healing using earth magic tends to be done on an over-time basis.

Air: Air is a damage type but not a gem type. It is rolled into the Amethyst, or Void, crystal type. It can use gusts of wind but also involve the creation of localized vacuums and high pressure areas. Air serves as a sort of "catalyst" for fire and earth magic.

Lightning: Lightning involves the manipulation of not only electricity, but also magnetism. Topaz (the gemstone for lightning) tends to focus on the creation and destruction of barriers (using Yanfly's Barrier plugin). Lightning is particularly devastating against spirits and, to a lesser extent, mechanical creatures. Physical representations of Topaz tend to involve ranged combat (such as item throwing and sniping).

Fire: This one is pretty obvious. Fire is the single most damaging element as far as raw damage goes. While most elements are scalpels, Fire is a hammer. However, in almost every situation, there is also an element that can out-perform fire in terms of usefulness. Physical representations of Ruby tend to hit hard and fast but have little in the way of protection outside of that.

Water: Like air, water is a damage type but not a gem type and is rolled into Amethyst. Of all the damage types, it has the lowest damage output. In fact, most creatures don't even consider it to be a damage type at all... but water is devastating against mechanical opponents and bypasses barriers entirely. However, the main purpose of water is the state it grants (drenched), which dramatically amplifies Ice and Lightning magic.

Ice: Ice damage tends to be a bit on the low side (not as low as water, but still pretty low). It's primary purpose is to deal damage to liquid, plant, insect, and reptilian foes. Ice damage also tends to have a higher chance of not destroying rare item drops. Physical representations of Sapphire tend to run contrary to what one would expect out of a traditional role (warriors using primarily magic damage and tank type characters relying heavily on evasion, for example).

Light: Considered to be essentially "Holy" damage... though the attacks seem to indicate something more along the lines of "radiation", though the people of this world don't have that kind of knowledge. Deals more damage based on how full the target's health is and highly destructive vs undead. Almost all of the classes revolving around Pearl involve the concept of "Judgement".

Dark: Seen as a corrupting force, it is viewed as "Unclean". Dark damage tends to involve states... much more numerous in variety than any other gem type. The damage it deals increases as the target loses hp and undead tend to resist it.

Void: While not a damage type, Amethyst represents the invisible strings that bind all things. As such, users of Amethyst follow a much more "esoteric" theme, involving illusions and states that may change how to battle plays out in unpredictable ways.