The Ten Gods: every role you'll ever play
Here is the elegant move at the heart of BaZi. Take your day master — the stem of your day pillar, the "you" of the chart. Every other character in the chart gets labeled by its relationship to you. Same element? A peer. Element you produce? Your output. Element you control? Your wealth. Element that controls you? Authority. Element that feeds you? Your resource.
Five relationships — then split each into Yin and Yang polarity, and you get ten gods (十神). Same polarity is the "proper" version; opposite polarity is the "surprising" one. This single table is why a BaZi reading can talk so specifically about career, money, and love from eight characters.
The five relationships, both polarities
| You… | Proper (same polarity) | Surprising (opposite) | In real life |
|---|---|---|---|
| are produced by | Resource 正印 | Unconventional Resource 偏印 | Mothering, learning, rest, credentials; the umbrella over your head |
| produce | Output 食神 | Edge 傷官 | Expression, talent, children, the work of being you; Edge adds brilliance and refusal of authority |
| control | Proper Wealth 正財 | Windfall 偏財 | Steady money, assets, the spouse star for men; windfalls, opportunistic money, the crowd |
| are controlled by | Officer 正官 | Seven Killings 七殺 | Rules, boss, duty, reputation; pressure, competition, the opponent that forges you |
| match | Peer 比肩 | Rival 劫財 | Partners, self-reliance, the brother-in-arms; competition, bold grabs, the friend who borrows the car |
Reading the cast
Officer-dominant charts live by structure. They thrive with clear rules, visible responsibilities, and institutions that reward duty. The shadow is rigidity — and being managed by people who don't deserve the authority the chart keeps handing them.
Output-dominant charts exist to make things — sentences, meals, companies, jokes. They suffocate in box-ticking jobs. The shadow is output without container: brilliant fragments, no vessel.
Wealth-dominant charts are practical to the bone. They read a room as assets and liabilities, often without meaning to. The shadow is measuring relationships the same way.
Resource-dominant charts collect knowledge, credentials, and caretaking roles. They are the people everyone calls at 2 a.m. The shadow is eternal preparation — always one more course away from starting.
Peer-dominant charts are built for teams, partnerships, and competition; they find themselves through others. The shadow is diffused identity — the mirror that only reflects whoever's standing next to it.
And the polarities matter: Edge (傷官) next to Officer (正官) is the classic "brilliant employee vs. the rulebook" tension — genius that chafes at every boss. Seven Killings without anything to channel it reads as pure pressure; with Output to tame it, classical readers call it 制殺 — the forged blade, the highest-pressure-to-highest-reward configuration in the tradition.
Where the gods live in your chart
Placement changes meaning. The same Wealth star reads differently in the month pillar (the family wallet) than in the hour pillar (money you make late in life). A Resource star on the year stem is inherited support — on the day branch, it is the quiet foundation of your marriage palace.
This is why two charts with identical element counts can read so differently: the gods are the same, but the roles they're cast in are not. Your free chart shows each pillar's god labels directly — hover the reading and you'll see the cast list.