Originally the concept of ‘Sympathetic Magic’ – where Great Old Ones gain additional power from occupying two or more Nodes in an Alchemical Ring – was intended as a Rule Variant. However, play-testing revealed some game balance issues that moving it into the main rules of play hopefully addresses in the early phases of the game.
Particularly the Ether/Yellow player, being at the terminus of the Nodes, experienced distance issues when moving around the board. Certainly deciding which Nodes to occupy so as to be able to move your forces towards locations that feature as part of the winning condition is vital and Ether (and to a lesser extent Fire) has significantly fewer choices.
While the Sympathetic Magic Table takes this concept to its logical extreme – showing what would be the effect if a player was to occupy all Nodes of the same colour – the likelihood or practicality of doing so would be extremely limited and in fact detrimental to a player’s ability to win the game.