Color-Coded Magic?

[Sizzlefoot]

In some myths and folktales, and in many other works of fantasy, magic is classified by color- commonly there is "black magic", "white magic", or occasionally "grey magic". Some works take this even further, including magic in all the colors of the rainbow. What is your opinion on color-coding magic? Do you use it in your setting? If so, how?

[GaelofDarkness]

It's a really handy short-hand to have available. If you want magic to be recognizable, coloring the mana/qi/chakra or whatever is a convenient way to do that - especially since it's a trope your players will already be familiar with. Without coloring the mana, it's still nice to have a color to use as a descriptor. The alchemists wear purple robes, the healer wears a green pendant - all things that are useful to tell your players what's going on without having to outright just tell them in a boring exposition dump.

On the other hand - unless you are talking about orders of mages who universally wear color-coded uniforms or something - magic types having colors is something that people can pretty validly claim breaks verisimilitude. It can feel... a bit too convenient. It also risks feeling too familiar, maybe making your world feel unoriginal or derivative. There is also the issue that the symbolism of some colors can be awkward if you remove them from the appropriate contexts. If you have players that have no idea what the classifications of witchcraft are or what a jrpg is, black magic being damaging and white magic being healing or "divine" is awkwaaaaard.

Then again you could flip conventions on their head to create an interesting reveal. Like maybe in your world white magic isn't indicative of healing, it's indicative of necromancy - since white is the color of bones. Maybe blue magic is the color of fire magic - with the blue section being the hottest part of the flame.

Overall, I like it. I think it's useful to me for the purposes of telling a story and to me as someone is being told a story. I just try to avoid letting color become a crutch and make sure I change things up a bit.

EDIT: It can definitely be taken too far though. I had the basics of a setting a while back where there was thirteen elements (heat, sand, metal, stone, wood, bone, water, cold, air, lightning, light, darkness and void), each element being associated with a different "color" (orange, red, grey, brown, green, white, blue, indigo, violet, pink, yellow, black and colorlessness)... that was TOO many.

[lightningcat]

It works best if there is a single source of magic.
In Forgotten Realms there is a goddess of magic for most of the timeline. Her perceptions and opinions will shape facets of magic. If she want detect magic to show the different schools as different colors, then it makes sense.

In Magic the Gathering lore, the different types of mana glow different colors in the raw state. So those colors are associated with the common personality types of people who use such magic, the imagery of the spells that use that power source, and many other minor things. And since the users of those energy forms expect certain colors, it is no suprise that they get those colors in their magic (even if they are never channeling raw mana).

In the Black Prism book series, color is magic, and even non-mages can do some things just with color. Not much, but still...

As long as you have some type of reason, you can color-code magic however you like. It is not about realism, but verisamilitude.
Sure I misspelled that, but close enough.

[PiperThePaladin]

I think it's great! I don't expect my players to really remember which color belongs to each one, but I think it adds to a world where society has developed around magic. I did this for wizards, specifically. When they graduate from magic school, each wizard gets a traditional sash from their chosen arcane tradition.

Divination: blue
Transmutation: gold
Illusion: white
Abjuration: black
Enchantment: green
Evocation: orange/red
Conjuration: brown
Necromancy: None, illegal to study

Wearing your sash is like a doctor wearing a lab coat or a priest wearing a cassock - it's a sign of their role and rank. And it gives my players a way to get a sense for what kind of wizard someone is. When they see someone with a white sash backstage at a fancy theater production, they know, "Aha, a special effects illusionist!" And when they see red-sashed people with riot shields running towards an angry mob, they know that things are about to go south very quickly.

[Lushaani]

I find it to be a fun shorthand. Though the exact nature depends on the specific gaming group or story being told.

In arcane magic heavy games- I like to assign a colour to the main schools of magic-
Evocation: Red
Abjuration: Orange
Enchantment: Yellow
Illusion: Green
Transmutation: Blue
Conjuration: Purple
Necromancy: Black
Divination: White
Nothing deeper in meaning- just a way for arcane sight characters to know what magic they're looking at.

In divine magic games- I tend to not assign colours to arcane magic. Just describing the effects and a generic "Glowing Blue or White" effect.
But rather assign colours to the major alignments, and secondary colours for flavour.
- Evil: Red - Black
- Chaos: Green - Black
- Law: Yellow - White
- Good: Blue - White
Since alignment and aura is more important here.

In games lower with magic- I tend to assign colours to the magic a character casts instead- and it's very personalized. Sometimes taking inspiration from those "colour associated with personality" types. In such games- the spells you cast have no affect on the colour of the spell, runes, or aura.
- A Wizard creates green fireballs, leaves green runes, and opens green portals.
- A Cleric prone to anger is wreathed in red light even when calling an angel.
- A Fighter's sword glows blue when he wields it.

And I've always been a little fond of classic Red, Green, Blue, Yellow elemental crystals- and wizards who dress in such colours. Even if it's super corny.

[brian 333]

I have never used it as a universal constant in my world, but I do have a council of archmagi who identify one another by color. It is a title as opposed to a descriptor of their magic.,

[TheGrimPeddler]

Depends on the setting but I love it. As others have said, if your players get familiar with your world, you can avoid exposition dumps and just say an old man with a staff and green cloak with the emblem of a serpent. Makes the npcs have just that tiny smidgeon of additional coloring to feel less like generic "Welcome to Corneria!" NPCs. In a setting where each color represents a specific order, it also introduces the capability of instilling fear and paranoia into your players, with mages wearing the colors of other orders and causing havok can surprise them with the unexpected (use it sparingly).

I personally like the idea from Magic the Gathering, where specific types of mana have a specific color associated with them. I'm not sure how I'd incorporate that into a TTRPG without coming up with an entirely new system, but it's cool... In fact I may incorporate part of that into my own rpg I'm designing from the ground up (basically all the variant rules I've enjoyed using over the years in d20, in a game designed for them from the ground up so as to avoid unwanted errors in gameplay, such as difficulty). It's... Got an intriguing implications in mana point based systems.

[lightningcat]

I have used the MtG color wheel as alignments in D&D, and it worked fairly well. Most importantly, no "what is good" questions.
But the closest I have came to using colors for mana was when we played a Ravnica-based Exalted game. It didn't quite work, but I have learned a lot since then, and now have the urge to revisit it. Especially with the newest Ravnica set out...

[jqavins]

I've never used it, and it doesn't really resonate with me so I probably won't. That said, there's nothing really wrong with it either. Since I like categorizing and systematizing things, and colors certainly do make handy category labels, I could see myself using it in some way, some day, maybe. But probably not.

[shawnhcorey]

I was thinking of something similar but using the cardinal gems as power stones for elemental magic.

• air - east - amethyst (purple)
• fire - south - ruby (red)
• water - west - sapphire (blue)
• earth - north - emerald (green)
• spirit - heavens - diamond (white)

[jqavins]

How do you keep a fool busy? Turn upside down for answer.
˙ɹǝʍsuɐ ɹoɟ uʍop ǝpısdn uɹnʇ ¿ʎsnq ןooɟ ɐ dǝǝʞ noʎ op ʍoɥ

What's liable to keep me busy is wondering how you did the upside down text.

[shawnhcorey]

What's liable to keep me busy is wondering how you did the upside down text.

IIRC, this: http://www.fliptext.org/

[raygun goth]

In my most commonly-used setting, there are colors associated with certain forms of magic.

Portals/gates tend to be purple around the event horizon/have a purplish haze due to particles diffusing through the dielectric medium of water vapor faster than the propagation of light through that medium (you're witnessing blue shift and red shift of gazillions of particles at once and it makes it look purple). Most people who've been to high school science class know this, so they don't call it "purple magic," they call it "call cops/adventurers/the goddamn army"

"Black magic" is so-called because when you make ink out of blood and it dries, you get black.

The energy from dead Outsider gods tends to be sickly green, mostly because the energy used to fuel it typically has a carrier wavelength of 500–600 nm with a frequency of about 550 THz, give or take. You can potentially make that stuff turn invisible if you get shorter or longer carrier waves.

JJ Abrams/kaiju blue colors are seen a lot because a lot of really showy magic involves a lot of energy scattering or coming at you very fast.

[KatteLars]

It does also allow for the paranoia-spin when someone is using a kind of magic that seemingly has the wrong colour. In a Dark Heresy campaign (wh40k) I used some characters that functioned and looked like the tech-priests of that setting, but instead of the usual red robes of the order, they wore brown. Since my party was pretty into the game lore, that really got them thinking in conspiracies

[theVoidWatches]

Let's throw out a real quick and dirty set of colors for magic, based on perception of it rather than anything objective like a god setting it forth.

A wizard will tell you that white magic is any magic which benefits its target, like healing or a strength-enhancing spell, while black magic is any magic that harms its target, like a fireball or a lightning bolt. In the middle is gray magic. They will then happily go into what things are unexpectedly white (necromancy, for example, tends to be white, because its target is the corpse being animated), black (a paladin's divine smite, for example, is black because it harms its target), or grey (a healing spell which drains energy from a target to heal the caster, or vice versa, is grey because its targets are both harmed and hurt). They will continue doing so until you get bored or pick up the pattern.

A magician will tell you not to listen to the wizard, and instead to look at the source of magic, which (they explain) is drawn from specific planes. White magic is any magic drawn from the upper planes, such as heaven, the plane of fire, or the plane of air. Black magic is any magic drawn from the lower planes, such as hell, the plane of earth, or the plane of water. Gray magic is magic drawn from the middle planes, such as the material plane, the astral plane, and the plane of shadows. This means that a fireball is white magic, not black - unless of course you're casting hellfire, which is black. Teleportation is gray, because you're jaunting through either the astral plane or the plane of shadows. Telekinesis might be white, if you're manipulating air, or it might be gray, if you're manipulating the material directly. They will continue giving examples of ways to accomplish similar things using different kinds of magic until you get bored and make them stop.

A shaman will tell you not to listen to either the wizard or the magician, and instead to look at how you are casting the magic, which (they explain) is done by entreating certain spirits. White magic is done by begging for and receiving assistance willingly. Black magic is done by threatening and coercing the spirit to serve you. Gray magic is done by negotiating with the spirit and giving it something in return for its experience. This does end up similar to the magician's philosophy, they may admit, but only because spirits from the upper planes are more benevolent than those of the lower, which must be carefully controlled. But there are upper spirits that must be bribed, and lower spirits which can be negotiated with as well, and middle spirits run the full range. They will continue speaking of spirits until you get bored and find someone else to explain.

A cleric will tell you not to listen to those immoral arcane casters, and instead to look to the gods. White magic is any magic performed directly by a god. Black magic is any magic performed without a god's permission. Gray magic is magic granted by a god but not personally performed by them. This means that when they heal you, it is gray magic, because their power is given by their god but not directly performed by god, while when an arcane caster does it it is black magic. Paladins, who have the eye of god and entreat upon them to perform magic at every step, appear to be doing white magic, but remember that it is the glory of their god which performs their miracles. They will continue speaking of gods and glory and miracles until you get bored and decided not to go to church after all.

A paladin will tell you not to listen to the cleric, who has a much more distant connection with their god than the paladin, and to look at the results. White magic is any magic which makes the world better, such as healing a child or smiting the wicked. Black magic is any magic which makes the world worse, such as casting a fireball at an innocent or healing the wicked. Gray magic? There is no such thing. Everything is either right or wrong. Paladins have a very simple view of the world. They will happily sort things into right and wrong for you until you begin to worry that you might be wrong and leave.

A sorcerer will tell you not to listen to anyone else, only to them. White magic is any magic which they perform, for it is by their will that they create the world as they go. Black magic is any magic performed by someone else, because it is their will that the world should follow. Grey magic, they may grudgingly admit, is magic performed by someone else, but which assists the sorcerer, or which they would have done if they had thought of it. A sorcerer's view of the world is, in some ways, remarkably similar to that a paladin.

The common man must be pressed to give their view, likely giving over to the cleric or the paladin, but if pressed, they may admit a simple truth. White magic is magic that they like, and gray magic is magic they don't care about, while black magic is anything that gives them the heebie-jeebies.

[winteranfang]

It is fun that coloring magic with corresponding magic schools in the game. You can build organizations for each school and give them one color. I prefer the color matches with the school. For example, black (representing negative energy or death) is good for necromancy, or red is good for evocation. Yellow or white (representing sun light and positive energy) is good for Conjuration (healing) etc. Trying rainbow colors may be interesting. While one of the colors represents one of the schools, the whole rainbow represents the unity of magic, or the Weave. And perhaps the mages council carries a rainbow symbol