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View Full Version : DM Help The Color of Magic



Jartis
2014-07-14, 05:47 AM
Hello all! First off, I would just like to mention that this is my first time posting, though I've been reading the boards for years.

Now on to the point. I have a vague idea for a campaign, or maybe just a single session, but I'm not quite sure what to do with it, and so I come to the Playground for ideas! The basic premise is that all the color is gone from the world, and it's up to the players to get it back...and that's all I have. XD As you can see, there's a lot of room for cool ideas, so show me what you guys can do! Knowing the Playground, it should be awesome. :smallcool:

Oh, and my group usually uses a custom system with 3.0/3.5/PF content, but I'm open to any system you guys think would make things easier/more epic.

geeky_monkey
2014-07-14, 05:53 AM
Read Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shades_of_Grey_1:_The_Road_to_High_Saffron - it's set in a dystopian future where everyone is colour blind and your place in society is determined by your ability to perceive colours. It's not exactly what you are after but it's a great book and got some fantastic ideas in it. I've used it as a basis for a couple of one shot adventures and they've been great.

Cowardly Griffo
2014-07-14, 06:20 AM
Questions to ponder:

How recently has all the color gone? Are we talking within the last few months, or so long ago that the adventurers are crazy for thinking that colors are anything more than a myth? I feel like the latter might be more interesting; it puts the characters in a 'mad prophet' sort of a zone which I'm fond of, but that is 100% subjective.

The former makes it a bit easier to have urgency, as everyone's freaking out and still adapting to a world without color. That said, urgency is something that helps any quest-oriented campaign immensely, so...

What does the color being gone mean?
More to the point, why is it alarmingly bad and dangerous?

There's the obvious stuff: can't tell the poisonous berries and snakes and so on from the safe ones, any color-coding that society used to organize things is totally out the window... but that's all temporary stuff. People could adapt to that, it's not a lasting threat. Still, color being gone is not in and of itself dangerous, so maybe a more metaphysical /magical threat is what you need. Some thoughts, off the top of my head:

Color is part of one of the types of magic which makes up the world. Illusion springs to mind. With color gone, Illusion grows weaker, which has all sorts of nasty consequences. All those little lies people tell themselves and each other, those little suspensions of disbelief we need to keep society and basic relationships working, are a little harder to buy into now, and it's getting worse with every passing day.

And what's the opposite of Illusion, on the magic wheel? Conjuration seems a fair choice; Illusion creates false things, while Conjuration creates very real things. So maybe Conjuration becomes stronger as Illusion grows weaker. Creating real things becomes easier–things like siege engines, and armies, and cold hard steel. While the ties that bind society together are slowly breaking down, it becomes that much easier to create the tools of war... and that much harder to control them.

And that's not even getting into the more concrete effects of one school becoming suddenly stronger. Every hedge mage in the back end of nowhere can suddenly summon up creatures from beyond the veil which were far beyond them before. Creatures which may still be well beyond their ability to bind and control.

And last question: who did it? The color didn't just vanish naturally. That doesn't happen... well... okay, it might, but sapient opposition is frankly easier to run than wild and uncaring forces. So who stole the color, what do they get out of doing it, and what did they do with it?

I'm out of steam, so that's up to someone else for now. Have fun. :smallcool:

Edit: Oh! And welcome to the boards. Happy to have you! :smallsmile:

Jartis
2014-07-14, 06:31 AM
Wow, great ideas flowing already. Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll def check it out.

As for Cowardly's stuff, there were things there I had considered, such as the affect on illusion magic, and things I hadn't, like the simple task of identifying berries. I'm glad to see this wasn't too crazy of an idea. XD

Storm_Of_Snow
2014-07-14, 07:12 AM
Some thoughts:

Normal chlorophyll doesn't absorb the green light frequencies (which is why leaves look green) - if they're absorbing all frequencies, then they'll be black. And consequently, forests would be zones of near pitch darkness (hmm, to answer the "who did it?" question, maybe the Drow and Sylvan Elves are actually one and the same race).

(or if they're absorbing none of the visible spectra, and getting their energy from the non-visible ones, they'll be white and thus everyone will be snow blind).

And speaking of light, different organic chemicals burn at different temperatures and thus produce different wavelengths of light, which is something else you'll have to think about.

Flowers would still have to attract pollinators (presuming it's all species, not just humanoids that are affected), so they might have patterns that are only visible in UV/IR.

Most art would suddenly become worthless (paintings and tapestries for example), currency would have to take unique forms for each denomination so they could be told apart easily, and uniforms and heraldry would have to take on more and more exotic forms to differentiate.



More to the point, why is it alarmingly bad and dangerous?

There's the obvious stuff: can't tell the poisonous berries and snakes and so on from the safe ones, any color-coding that society used to organize things is totally out the window... but that's all temporary stuff. People could adapt to that, it's not a lasting threat.
IIRC, there's been experiments where people have been given perfectly ok food that's been dyed odd colours, but displayed under lights so that it looks normal. When the lights have been reset to normal, the people who've eaten the food have reacted badly, some even vomiting.

Jay R
2014-07-14, 07:57 AM
Normal chlorophyll doesn't absorb the green light frequencies (which is why leaves look green) - if they're absorbing all frequencies, then they'll be black. And consequently, forests would be zones of near pitch darkness (hmm, to answer the "who did it?" question, maybe the Drow and Sylvan Elves are actually one and the same race).

Or possibly the Drow found a way to do this as an attack on the Sylvan elves.

Slipperychicken
2014-07-14, 08:14 AM
all the color is gone from the world

Are black and white still in? Are shades of gray still in? If so, it might not be such a disaster.

If the entire world is totally monochrome, people are going to have a very hard time with it. If you can still tell the remaining colors apart, it might not be such a huge problem.

Anonymouswizard
2014-07-14, 08:15 AM
There are a lot of ways to go with this, and the basics have already been mentioned, but I'll give you my spin on them:

Time since the loss: as has been mentioned before me, the loss being recent makes for a greater sense of urgency. However, I agree that the mythic potential of it having happened long ago makes for a more interesting setting. What if it happened about 60 years ago, so while the characters have probably never seen colour but it still being within living memory. Maybe it happened a couple of hundred years ago, so that while colour is still remembered it is passed off as more of a curiosity than anything else. If it was millennia ago then most people would consider colour a myth, something their ancestors made up to explain how you can tell objects apart, and that prophecy about heroes being colour back is fantasy.

Why has the colour gone: The reasoning behind the loss of colour will help with ideas as for how it might be brought back. Maybe a fault in the world is draining the colour, and the hero's job is to correct it. Maybe using magic drains colour, and the colour was removed by power-hungry wizards. Maybe colour is caused by emotions, and the people decided to repress them, slowly muting the world, and the PCs cause objects around them to gain colour when they feel an emotion particularly strongly. Everyone could have become colour blind. Other reasons and multiple reasons are also entirely legitimate.

How much colour has gone: While the obvious answer might initially be 'all of it', there are several things to consider. What does a lack of colour look like? Is it grey? White? Black? Transparent? Think about the cause here. If the cause is that people are suppressing emotions, maybe the wilderness is completely grey while settlements have muted colours. If magic drains colour maybe the nobles of the world have hoarded all the remaining colour as both a fuel source and status symbol. Also, if whatever caused the loss is still happening, you might want to think about how the draining works. Does everything just slowly become more muted until it's finally grey? Maybe primary colours drain into secondary colours which drain into brown which drains into grey which drains into white. Also, how much colour is permanently gone, and how much is just missing?

Is colour something: in this world, is colour something's soul? Is it a being's emotions? Or is it just plain ordinary colour?

How does colour interact with magic: is it a case of each school/type of magic is represented by a colour? I magic itself colour (sorry for bringing this idea up again)? Are magic and colour independent, but the loss of colour weakens the effectiveness of illusions?

Some of these are borrowed from a couple of friend who are writing a novel in a world where most of the colours have gone. I am also experimenting ideas for worlds without colour, and with too much colour. If you want I can post more ideas, But this is as much as I can think of without getting into world specifics, or science that I've never studied.

Zombimode
2014-07-14, 08:36 AM
Hello all! First off, I would just like to mention that this is my first time posting, though I've been reading the boards for years.

Now on to the point. I have a vague idea for a campaign, or maybe just a single session, but I'm not quite sure what to do with it, and so I come to the Playground for ideas! The basic premise is that all the color is gone from the world, and it's up to the players to get it back...and that's all I have. XD As you can see, there's a lot of room for cool ideas, so show me what you guys can do! Knowing the Playground, it should be awesome. :smallcool:

Oh, and my group usually uses a custom system with 3.0/3.5/PF content, but I'm open to any system you guys think would make things easier/more epic.

Now, this idea is probably very player dependent. Personally, I would probably stare at you blankly the whole time waiting for you to tell me were to go and what to do.

The reason for this is that it is a situation I can not relate to. Whatever was the cause for the vanishing of colors, it caused it because you said so. Any solution will only work because you say it works.

Now contrast this with the following basic premise:

A war is over and the mercenary bands don't get paid anymore. Some of them are now roaming the countryside, plundering or worse. As such a band comes near the village of Hintertupfingen the frightened villagers turn to the PCs for help.

While the players will lack information and thus won't be able to tell exactly what will happen, it is a situation everyone can relate to. Because the premise is so clear, you don't have to say anything else to get the players going. They can go out and come up with solutions that are based on the implicit and shared understanding of the context. And most likely most actions performed here will have a clear meaning or representation within the rules (tracking, hiding/disguising, diplomacy/bluff, various spells and other abilities that are applicable in this situation, combat abilities).

Jay R
2014-07-14, 10:07 AM
Go watch the movie Pleasantville. People are stuck in a 50s sitcom, in black and white, with associated blandness.

veti
2014-07-14, 05:29 PM
And last question: who did it? The color didn't just vanish naturally. That doesn't happen... well... okay, it might, but sapient opposition is frankly easier to run than wild and uncaring forces. So who stole the color, what do they get out of doing it, and what did they do with it?

That looks like the basis of an interesting investigative campaign.

I would suggest - it's happened recently, and gradually. For months, possibly years, beforehand, various more sensitive people were saying that the world was going grey. Everybody, including most of the people affected, just assumed they were going colourblind. But about a year ago, this colourblindness started becoming an epidemic - more and more people were affected. Now it's struck everyone.

More worryingly, it's still progressing. Those sensitive people who were among the first affected? They're now complaining that the world is going dark. Some people may be talking about losing other senses - starting to go deaf, numb, unable to smell or taste food anymore. One of the first sensitives (and this is the trigger for the start of the campaign/adventure) has gone completely blind.

That's the setup. However, as Zombimode says, you need a plot hook to get the PCs involved. Either they're assigned a mission to investigate it (the authorities in this world must be freaking out) and explicitly given leads to follow, or they're doing something unrelated when they stumble across a lead themselves. E.g. they find a place, or a person, that makes their vision dim and hearing muffled and fingers numb, the closer they get to it. Give them something to investigate.

Edit: incidentally, I assume you're aware that The Colour of Magic is the title of a well known book? Whose plot has nothing whatsoever to do with the world going grey.

Edit 2: have you read Ursula LeGuin's The Farthest Shore? It talks about a world where, for obscure reasons, the magic just stops working. It might give you some ideas for how and why it happens, and how to play it up as menacing.

Jartis
2014-07-14, 08:03 PM
Yes, I am aware of and love Terry Pratchett's books. I chose the title specifically because I knew it would draw people. XD Good thing too, because I'm really liking where things are going. I feel like I went from not enough information to even run a session to too much information to fit in one campaign. XD But I often look to threads like these for inspiration, even just adapting ideas, so I'm glad to see so much input.

As for the plot hook, the idea was that the part would have to 1. Find out who/what's responsible for the loss of color and stop them/it/retrieve the color. Or 2. Somehow the characters actions restored color to the world in areas they affected (sort of along the lines of liberating areas in Saboteur, if any of you have played that game).

As for the actual color of the world, I figure it's all a bit like the Wii game MadWorld, where everything's pure black and white, with extreme contrast so that you can see edges well enough to navigate. Maybe there are sections that are less affected, but even then, it would be closer to a Sin City feel. If it were true that color fuels magic, something akin to how nature fueled magic in the Dark Sun setting, then I would imagine that those who had a store of whatever color would left would have areas sort of like those in Mirror's Edge, where even with the vibrant splashes of color, the predominant visuals would be a stark white.

Cyrion
2014-07-14, 10:59 PM
If you want to link magic and color- what if spell level is linked to color? Maybe use prismatic sphere as your model- the number +2 equals the spell level that won't work if that color isn't present. Cantrips, 1st and 2nd level spells still work, so you can still get to higher level spells by creative casting of lower level spells, but you've got to work for it a little (this is a very raw idea, so it needs a lot more structure). Suddenly a darkness spell becomes a very different beast...