Infinite rainbow nations; high magic, high color, no unicorns allowed.

[Bobbybobby99]

Ten colors to build a world, ten colors to bind it. Ten colors to make a rainbow, ten to blind the police as you escape on a magic sphere. Colorful is not fluffy. White is not light.

Likely system.
As odd as it may seem, likely geared towards a sort of heavily, heavily altered Mage the Awakening. If so, no paradox, no rotes, see spoiler for lots of changes. Pretty much an overall ignoring of anything that would make it too dark.

Geography.
The world is an infinite realm, extending forever in every direction. One half leans Earth and Fire, the other Air and Fire. Beyond it, and overlaying it, there is the Vibrant realm (a land of spirits) and the Muted realm (a land of ghosts). On the surface of Air, Water, Earth, and Fire, there are so called plates, or continents. Each is of reasonable size, and protrude an average of 7,000 feet above the water at their edges, and an average of 100 feet above the water at their center (often filled with lakes and marsh). Each plate has a fairly consistent population of 400,000,000, varying with natural disaster and population booms.

Magic.
There are either 10 ranks of power, magically speaking, or debatably 11. Most people are rank 1; capable of sensory magic and other minor things, but nothing impressive. These common people are refered to, generically, as Mages, but only in contrast to Mundanes, who comprise perhaps 1/5th of the population and lack magic altogether. In contrast, 10 people per continent, known as Philosophers, can bring magic to shake the very earth itself; they can create islands from nothing, transform into dragons, bewitch giants into thinking themselves worms. There are many in-between.

Of these, each has two colors, those being quite literally the color of their magic. These determine what magic they can accomplish, in specialty, as well as what magic is beyond their bounds. A blue and gold wizard might enchant a mighty sword; a grey and red wizard might turn foes to ashes and bind the unbound.

These are represented with a so called 'color wheel'. Generally, it goes Grey, Black, Red, Orange, Gold, Green, Blue, Violet, Magenta, and White.

Specific setting.
A mostly temperate plate, with a large number of forested area; evergreen to the edges, deciduous to the general, and swamp to the center. There are a large number of city states, and small scale management is the general rule, but there are 8 large scale countries which the states comprise.

What I would like help with.
I'm having trouble thinking of specific races, cultures, and the like for the plate the story would take part on. Anybody particularly inspired would by welcome to give me ideas. Beyond that, does this sound like an interesting concept in the first place? I know this is a tad abrupt, but what do you think just looking at this?

Mage the Awakening base.

General.
. There is no archmagic as detailed in the imperial mysteries. In addition, ranks seven and above allow for imperial spell factors to be used with no cost, rank eight effectively doubles obtained successes, rank 9 quadruples obtained successes, and rank 10 octuples obtained successes.
. Mana is automatically replenished after every rest of 7 hours or more, rest in that case meaning a lack of strenuous activity. This is not gradual, but rather sudden. Multiply the amount of a
mana derived from a Hallow by ten.
. Arcana are renamed arts.
. There are no rotes.
. There is no wisdom.
. There are no high speech, or atlantean runes, and willpower can't be used on magic.
. All paradox is absorbed as backlash. Paradox no longer has any innate bonus based on Arête, instead always having a base of 0. If you have enough mana to absorb the paradox, you must expend it.
. Prime is renamed Ley, to be more setting appropriate.
. There is no Spell Accumulation.

Colors.
Each individual has a primary color, from one of the below. Their greatest two arts are the favored arts of their primary color, and their least art (which may be at zero dots) is that color's opposition. They then have a secondary color, which is similar, and determines their next strongest arts, and their second worst art, which must be two steps away. These colors are literal; the light effects caused by magic match color and secondary color to a tee and in respective prominence.

Grey. Fate, Time. Opposed to Ley.
Black. Death, Fate. Opposed to Space.
Red. Forces, Death. Opposed to Mind.
Orange. Matter, Forces. Opposed to Spirit.
Gold. Life, Matter. Opposed to Time.
Green. Ley, Life. Opposed to Fate.
Blue. Space, Ley. Opposed to Death.
Violet. Mind, Space. Opposed to Forces.
Magenta. Spirit, Mind. Opposed to Matter.
White. Time, Spirit. Opposed to Life.

Ranks.

Philosopher. Arête 10. Arcana 10/9/8/7/6/5/4/3/2/1. 10 individuals per continent.
Thaumaturge. Arête 9. Arcana 9/8/7/6/5/4/3/2/1. 50 individuals per continent.
Sorcerers. Arête 8. Arcana 8/7/6/5/4/3/2/1. 340 individuals per continent.
Sha'ir. Arête 7. Arcana 7/6/5/4/3/2/1. 2,400 individuals per continent.
Wizard. Arête 6. Arcana 6/5/4/3/2/1. 16,810 individuals per continent.
Warlock. Arête 5. Arcana 5/4/3/2/1. 117,650 individuals per continent.
Witcher. Arête 4. Arcana 4/3/2/1. 823,540 individuals per continent.
Magus. Arête 3. Arcana 3/2/1. 5,764,900 individuals per continent.
Magician. Arête 2. Arcana 2/1. 40,353,600 individuals per continent.
Mage. Arête 1. Arcana 1. 282,475,000 individuals per continent.
Mundane. Sleepwalkers. 70,445,700 individuals per continent.

[avr]

I don't know anything much about that version of Mage, just a bit of the previous, so take all this with a grain of salt.

You've got literally thousands of people with world-shaking power per continent. The 7000' cliffs would be a barrier against ordinary people but are meaningless against this level of magic power. Whether it's teleport gates, airships or just harbours carved out of the rock, trade and movement between continents is as easy as the rulers want it to be, no more and no less.

If moving up from Thaumaturge to Philosopher (etc.) requires bumping off one of the latter then this encourages social structures which suppress slaying your betters. If such a social structure becomes corrupt or collapses you'd get warlordism combined with some magically powerful but nonaggressive people hiding their power. I can imagine an expansionist society seeking to rule first a continent and then the world to gain more philosopher 'slots'.

If instead moving up is impossible - you're born a Thaumaturge or whatever - then society is irrelevant to the higher ranks unless they want people to worship their greatness. They can make or get whatever they want. Go straight to that warlordism/hiding situation.

If moving up is a matter of long study and those precise numbers are just guidelines, then there is a massive incentive for society to provide their mages with the opportunity to study. Primitive lands with no great magical knowledge are no threat and also no opportunity to societies with serious magical power. There's enough magical power around that natural resources are irrelevant. This looks likely to result in peaceful 'ivory tower' states which conflict only on ideology, with perhaps some ignored 'third world' states.

[Bobbybobby99]

Moving up would be the second; I like the idea of inborn power, and individuals getting better as people, rather than turning into gods. Namely, a baby would be born some time in between the time of death and ten months later, at philosopher power (though they wouldn't have the mind to use it in anything other than instinctive protection until a few years later). I'll take the warlordism/hiding and incorporate it, but they do retain a degree of humanity, so I'd say having a few that buy into, say, democracies wouldn't be out of place.

What do you, or anyone else that wants to chime in, think about the colors? I tried to avoid too many cliches, but you can never tell.

[Rift_Wolf]

What do you, or anyone else that wants to chime in, think about the colors? I tried to avoid too many cliches, but you can never tell.

Having no familiarity with Mage system, some more info on each colours powers and scope would be appreciated. Do certain colour combos cleave close in clans or classes?

[Bobbybobby99]

Grey magic. Good at divining the future, binding contracts, and altering the flows of destiny and time. Bad or nonexistent at so called 'metamagic', item enchantment and illusions. Like a Diviner, in certain ways.

Black magic. Good at binding contracts, bestowing good or poor luck, and general necromancy and shadow magic. Bad or nonexistent at teleportation, space warping, and scrying. Like a Necromancer, in certain ways.

Red magic. Good at flashy, classic magic, such as fireballs, telekinesis, or flight, and necromancy. Bad or nonexistent at enchantment in general, mental buffs, and mind reading. Like an Evoker, in certain ways.

Orange magic. Good at flashy, classic magic, and various sorts of alchemy, potioneering, and elemental manipulation. Bad or nonexistent dealing with the verdant realm and spirits. Like a Universalist, in certain ways.

Gold magic. Good at healing, physical buffs, plants and animals, and various sorts of potions, elements, and alchemy. Bad or nonexistent dealing with divination and time manipulation. Like an Alchemist, in certain ways.

Green magic. Good at metamagic, dealing with Ley lines and mana, illusions, and a variety of healing and nature magic. Bad or nonexistent dealing with contract binding and luck. Like a Druid, in certain ways.

Blue magic. Good at spacial manipulation, teleportation, and scrying, alongside metamagic, illusions, and magic items. Bad or nonexistent at necromancy and shadow magic. Like an Artificer, in certain ways.

Violet magic. Good at enchantment, mental buffs, and various sorts of scrying, teleportation, and portal crafting. Bad or nonexistent at more direct magics, such as flight. Like a Beguiler or Enchanter, in certain ways.

Magenta magic. Good at dealing with and controlling spirits, seeing into the Verdant realm, and various enchantments. Bad or nonexistent at alchemy, the elements, and potions. Like a Conjurer, in certain ways.

White magic. Good at divining the future, altering the flow of time, and interacting with the Verdant (spirit) realm. Bad or nonexistent at healing, physical buffing, and bodily control. Like a Wu Jen, in certain ways.

Then sort of combine the descriptions to get the combinations. The primary color is the most important, but the secondary color determines secondary capabilities, and is more important the stronger you are.


I'm wrestling with whether or not they're too typical, or cliche. I deliberately avoided the 'healing white magic' idea, and inverted it, but it seems like black magic might be too archetypal in it's aproach, and the others are giving me conflicting ideas about either being thematic or boring.

[Rift_Wolf]

Don't worry too much about cliches; some are unavoidable, and you can do things within the cliché that are original.

There's 100 colour combos (because primary/secondary is a thing, 1-2 isn't the same as 2-1) to go through; does it have to be ten? While I don't mind thrashing out 100 races/guilds/classes, some are going to be more important than others

[Bobbybobby99]

That's reassuring to hear; I always worry if it's just going to seem repetitive. It's actually much simpler than having 100. Secondary colors have to be within two steps of the primary color, so you can't have, say, a Green/Grey, because that would cause confusion with the favored arcana and loosen thematics. So you really only have the following twenty.


Grey/Magenta.
Grey/Red.
Black/White.
Black/Orange.
Red/Grey.
Red/Gold.
Orange/Black.
Orange/Green.
Gold/Red.
Gold/Blue.
Green/Orange.
Green/Violet.
Blue/Gold.
Blue/Magenta.
Violet/Green.
Violet/White.
Magenta/Blue.
Magenta/Grey.
White/Violet.
White/Black.

[Rift_Wolf]

Okay currently doing rough calculations; favoured elements of each colour get +X, opposed elements get -X. For primary colours X is 2, for secondary X is 1.
So Grey(primary)/Black would be +3 Fate, +2 Time, +1 Death, -1 Space, -2 Ley

Once I've calculated every combos scores, I'll figure out possible races or guilds

[Rift_Wolf]

That's reassuring to hear; I always worry if it's just going to seem repetitive. It's actually much simpler than having 100. Secondary colors have to be within two steps of the primary color, so you can't have, say, a Green/Grey, because that would cause confusion with the favored arcana and loosen thematics. So you really only have the following twenty.


Grey/Magenta.
Grey/Red.
Black/White.
Black/Orange.
Red/Grey.
Red/Gold.
Orange/Black.
Orange/Green.
Gold/Red.
Gold/Blue.
Green/Orange.
Green/Violet.
Blue/Gold.
Blue/Magenta.
Violet/Green.
Violet/White.
Magenta/Blue.
Magenta/Grey.
White/Violet.
White/Black.


So Grey/Black etc wouldn't be a combo?

[Bobbybobby99]

Oh, err, I think you might be thinking of a different system. Think of it more like having individual ranks; let's take a Sorcerer, for instance, that's Blue/Gold. They might have Ley 8/Space 7/Matter 6/Life 5/Something 4/3/2/1. They wouldn't even be capable of using Time magic or Death magic, because they would effectively have zero ranks in it, because those have to be their lowest ranks. Only Thaumaturges and Philosophers could actually use their 'against' arcana. Penalties and bonuses don't really factor in. Does that make sense?

Edit: Yes. It's much less work that way.

[Rift_Wolf]

Gotcha. Give me a few hours to figure stuff out :)

[avr]

If colours are at all heritable then societies might spring up around them. People having time magic might prefer to deal with others who really understand that when they say meet at 4:24 pm, they mean 4:24 pm not 4:15 or 4:30. Those lazy Golds will never get the hang of such ... but if close to 90% of your relatives have no time magic this will be a club or guild at most rather than a town or village.

Life or Matter or Spirit might make minions which hang around long after their makers are gone. That could be useful if the town inherits sentinel golems, or a pain if no one can enter the fortress due to hostile ghosts.

Players who can't ever join the big time and have better than 3 in an art when those go up to 10 may be annoyed. They will want some sort of advancement eventually. That is something you're going to want to plan to deal with.

[JBPuffin]

You know, this sounds like it could be a lighter variant of Ars Magica, too. Less historically "accurate", more fantastically...fantastic. As a Magic and Final Fantasy player, color-coded spellcasting is always fun :smallbiggrin:.

[Rift_Wolf]

So far I've come up with the following idea, wanted to run it by you before developing further.

There are 11 races in this world. 10 of them are attuned strongly to two colours of magic; grey/Black, black/Red, etc. However because of this strong Affinity, their magic doesn't manifest correctly; the power is too closely linked, and counteracts itself. For non-human races to progress in power, they require tutelage to focus on a single Aspect of their power (Primary) and another, lesser colour (secondary). While the Grey/Black race always have Fate magic, their other affinities depend more on nurture over nature.
Humans, as always, are generalists supreme. Humans can learn any magic, and while they might have affinities to a certain colour (especially if they have non-human Blood), no school or study is automatically barred to them. Training alongside non-humans, however, has taught them that 'two step' magic is always strongest; two colours too close counteract, while too far apart negate each other entirely.

Good idea/bad idea?

[Bobbybobby99]

Insight.

Good advice all-around; I'll have to think about the Heritable versus Random idea, at least for humans. Hmm... Guilds seem appropriate, but it seems like extremist groups could easily pop up on the 'We're better than them!' chassis, even without inheritability. I'd likely avoid having the players be at lower ranks; at least wizard level seems like it would be satisfying, particularly when you can still learn Kung-Fu and advance mundanely.


Morale.

I'm a big fan of Ars Magica, particularly without all the pesky historical elements, so I'm glad to hear it :smallbiggrin:.


Ideas.

Hmm... I like the idea of having the races be attuned to a particular Art, and thus having an affinity to one one-step color combination, but... It just doesn't seem appropriate if Humans are actually better at magic than, say, elves. Perhaps it could be so that they just have to be within a four steps of an area in their affinity? For instance, Lizardfolk might be centered around Ley magic, so they could only be Gold, Green, Blue, and Violet? For that matter, what races should we even include? We can't include everything, after all, with only 11, and the traditional Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs combination seems like it would be missing a chance to add interest. Hmm. Perhaps if we're going with the city states idea, we could center on Greek or Roman myth and build from there? Or maybe a mix of that and the classics? Hmm. Either that or we could just mostly stick with humans.

[Rift_Wolf]

Humans aren't better; they're jack of all trades, master of none. Elves (whichever flavours of Elf we're including) specialise in certain magics, and will always be attuned naturally to that magic (I'm thinking Ley, Spirit or Life for elves).

I thought about Grey/Magenta and Grey/Red; both would be focused on foresight, strategy and planning, but go about it in different ways.
G/M would be manipulators, foreseeing the future and subtly altering its course. They could be advisors to a King, or instigators to the rebellion. They play the long game, doing things for very specific reasons. If you find yourself on the wrong end of a manipulators plan, chances are you've been screwed for a lot longer than you realised.
G/R are manipulators without the subtlety. They foresee the preferred outcome, then hammer at the flow of time till it fits. This often paints them as dangerous and brutal, but they lack the duplicity of their manipulative cousins. G/R is more likely to kill you, but they'll do it to your face.

[Bobbybobby99]

Hmm. Good analysis, I would say. Would you want to do that for the rest of them? It would be really very helpful :smallsmile:.

[avr]

Aside from D&D heritage, there's no reason that humans couldn't be associated with some sort of magic in particular. Probably orange (matter/forces) - humans are of the real, physical world, the masters of technology. Orange/green says that some feel a real bond to the land, orange/black says that some humans see destruction as inevitable and make use of that rather than opposing it.

Or if you want humans to have diverse magic, you could replace 'human' with 'dwarf' above.

Gold, life/matter, again sounds like people tied to the physical world, but with an innate link to life. Genius locii like dryads, oreads and other nature spirits perhaps. Gold/blue implies that some nature spirits do roam widely, perhaps stepping into one tree and then out of another miles away. Gold/red says that others will call down the power of the storm on those that defile their groves.

[Bobbybobby99]

Well, I was pondering how to fit in having eleven races and having multiples of ten in population, so that likely works better. Let's see-maybe something like this?

Centaurs. Centered on Fate.
Gnolls. Centered on Death.
Goblins. Centered on Forces.
Humans. Centered on Matter.
Halflings. Centered on Life.
Dwarves. Centered on Ley.
Dragonborn. Centered on Space
Merfolk. Centered on Mind.
Lizardfolk. Centered on Spirit.
Elves. Centered on Time.

[avr]

At the first level (sensing) life & time respectively works for elves and halflings, at higher levels the match works better the other way round IMO.

What sort of effects are associated with space and fate? Those weren't in the edition of Mage I know anything about.

[Bobbybobby99]

In the new edition, Entropy was essentially split into Fate and Death (on the recognition that it was overpowered), with fate encompassing the probability manipulation, destiny, oath binding, and more. Space is essentially a mixture of scrying, wards, portals, teleportation, sympathetic magic, making things smaller/bigger, and other things related to the idea of dimensions.

I switched around several of the races on the chart, after further reflection, and replaced Eladrin with Dragonborn because they're a tad less overlapy. In particular, I switched the Halflings and Elves as you advised (healing and making animals is much more of a halfling thing, and elves being long lived fits in nicely with time magic). I also switched Lizardfolk and Gnolls, because having the anthropomorphic cackling hyenas have a benign discipline seemed odd, and lizards seem much more helpful. It also gives a nice sort of Reptilian/Mammal divide, which looks good.

[avr]

Luck, oaths and bindings ... that sounds like a bunch of fey, actually. And centaurs were into prophecy back in Greek myth. Though with time and fate adjacent on your colour wheel it might not matter much.

[Bobbybobby99]

Yeah, it doesn't really matter much with a one step difference, and Fate magic can be used to shape 'destiny' , so it still fits, I think. And 'Grey elves' reminds me of the dungeons and dragons race, I'm afraid :smalltongue:.

I'm thinking that members of the species would be up to three steps away from their 'center', so we can keep diversity within the species. For instance, Humans could be Black, Red, Orange, Gold, Green, or Blue, and Lizardfolk could be Blue, Violet, Magenta, White, Grey, or Black. That would mean that about 2/3rds of the race would have the 'centered' art as primary or secondary.

[Rift_Wolf]

I figured Space-centred race would be wanderers and guides, Eternal nomads whose magic shortens their journeys. I put a provisional note as 'Longstriders' but not developed the idea further.

Just to let you know I haven't abandoned this thread yet; other things have been happening.

[avr]

2/3 makes me think of the normal distribution & standard deviations. If the same sort of ratios hold then 65% of a races population are of one of the two core colours; 30% have magic of the next adjacent colours; ~5% are of one of the fringe colours.

Running those numbers on a city of 20 000 humans, because I can.

250 Black/White
250 Black/Orange
1500 Red/Grey
1500 Red/Gold
3250 Orange/Black
3250 Orange/Green
3250 Gold/Red
3250 Gold/Blue
1500 Green/Orange
1500 Green/Violet
250 Blue/Gold
250 Blue/Magenta

Slightly under 1 wizard from this city on average, 5-6 warlocks, 40-odd witchers, 280+ maguses.

To create matter from nothing you need matter 3 prime/ley 2. Half the gold/blue and orange/green witchers and any warlock or wizard of the same colours can do this; about 9 people in the city.

To summon a spirit you need spirit 2. Half the blue/magenta witchers and any higher ranked B/M can do that. About a 30% chance there's one in the city who can.

To heal you need life 3. ~80 people in the city can.

All three examples assume sphere requirements are similar to the previous version of Mage, of course. They also assume that people don't migrate to join guilds of like-minded people in bigger cities, which is a big ask; it might be more accurate to say that there are ~80 people from this city who can heal, etc.

[tinymoonlight]

So I just read this whole thread and I have to say I am very interested!

I don't know much about Mage at all but I have my own pretty open ended magic system I've been working on and it's cool to see where you're taking this. I like all the color themes and the ideas of all the combos. It makes me excited to make a character in this game which is a good thing!

I do think that this info will require some really elegant layout to make any sense to potential players though. There are ALOT of options here for character creation. A simple thing that would help is pointing out the possible (and most probable) color combos for each race when you introduce the races individually. Like giving the race name, description, and color combinations all in one place.

I guess that's the kind of thing you don't really need to worry about now since you're still just getting things together. Regardless it's a cool system and I'm interested to see where you take it. I love the infinite realm concept.