5 New Colors of MMagic
Custom Cards forum
Posted on Jan. 22, 2019, 6:19 p.m. by Azmedeus
Hello MTG community, I have project I am working on and would love some input from people who know the game well.
A few years back, I was introduced to a second "Magic Color Wheel" made by a fan. The colors include Purple, Yellow, Orange, Brown, and Pink.
I tried to do this project once before but I went about it the wrong way. This time I want to start with the fundamentals. I need to decide what each color's end goal is. What is their deepest desire? The wheel gives examples of what they care about, but I don't want to make them identical to the orignal 5. I want them unique. According to one of the creator's of Magic, White wants Peace, blue wants perfection, black wants power, red wants freedom, and green wants acceptance. These are all ideals. So far, all I can come up with for the new desires are emotional not idealistic. Any help would be appreciated.
Here is a link to my original post from a few years ago for any ideas that still linger. Also, this is a set of articles talking about the 5 original colors and how their personalities are broken down.
Maybe use the gaps and overlaps of the existing wheel as a starting point. What is your interpretation of the desires of colorless (Eldrazi or artifacts), and can that be a starting point for brown? Three-color sets, the wedges and shards, are difficult to design for. You could define your interpretation of the desires of, say, , and get that into a short sentence, like "Mardu wants to rule over others and will pursue that goal fanatically ." Replace "Mardu" with "Yellow" and you got a philosophy. Switch out the goal and approach and you have another. Since this is your project, let your interpretation by the guide.
Or think of interesting people, characters, or whatever and write a short sentence that describes some aspect of them, and develop that sentence into a desire and philosophy.
January 22, 2019 11:51 p.m.
[legendofa] I like your point and that's not a bad way to look at things. Today I made a little progress in finding something for both brown and pink. Seeing as brown is "newer" but also "together" I thought of their philosophy as progress. It slightly differs from blue in that blue wants to perfect themselves and that will in turn perfect the world around them. Brown is the opposite. Brown says that if we make the next best thing and perfect our world, our world will perfect us. Similar, pink takes on similar to white, but with a different viewpoint. Pink wants to protect everyone just like white, but their cut of the pie doesn't mention laws as white does. Pink wants to rid the world of evil - at any cost. Kind of like white is lawful good and pink is chaotic good
January 23, 2019 12:31 a.m.
I think it would help if you shift away from magic's overall theme of fantasy to a newer setting, for an extreme example - transhumanism. Or if Magic's multiverse was not a set of planes, but an interconnected by wormholes galaxy where you travel by spaceship?
If we take the space opera theme for example, you can do aspects of society to separate the colors:
- Brown -> explorers of galaxy, charting the unknown
- Purple -> hungry for power government people
- Yellow -> military people
- Pink -> leaders of thought, scientist, breaking the boundaries
- Orange -> commerce - farmers, traders, builders
Naturally, that same division can be applied to magic's theme.
I think the problem with a phisophical-based divide is that current magic does a good job of doing that and covers almost all, so you have to assign a different axis.
January 23, 2019 3:52 a.m. Edited.
Boza I like that idea, though it would be for later development. The thing is, even if you shift from magic to science, the goals are still the same. White would still want peace, blue would still want perfection, even if they used technology instead of magic. I'm thinking what will end up happening is these colors will almost be a plane shifted style. Pink is the other side of white's coin. I want to save the world, at what lengths will I go to do it? I'm looking at each color and contrasting the alignments, lawful vs chaotic, good vs evil, but also looking at how the goals might be similar, but with different means of achieving them.
January 23, 2019 1:26 p.m.
Ok, so shelving the space opera thing for a while, what do you think about the pool of available philosophies? I think that wotc have worked hard to make sure that the colors in combination and contrast between them represent a lot of the main philosophical questions, to the point that there are almost none available for new colors.
For example passion is a very red thing and love specifically can red or red/white. Contractual - doing something because I must - is green (acceptance of the world as is) and a bit of black (purpose > means).
So, I think that focusing on something other than raison d'etre for the 5 new colors is essential.
January 24, 2019 5:19 a.m.
I actually agree with that, it's been one of my challenges. However, I think I may have figured it out. In order for these to be different, it's not necessarily the ideals that change; it's the way they go about it. I finally got past my recent segment of writer's block and this is where my ideas flowed into:
Yellow: Similar to black, yellow wants power and control. However, not always does fear and death do the trick. Sometimes, all that does is break the toy that you're trying to use; or worse, it bolsters the defenses against you. The best approach is the one that isn't necessarily "breaking any laws." If they can't prove that what you did was wrong, what can they do about it? (Lawful evil vs the chaotic evil that black is.) Orange: Similar to green, orange believes in truth and acceptance. The difference here is: green says the world is perfect, let me show you how beautiful nature is, while orange says YOU'RE perfect, and I'M perfect, so just do you and I'll do me, and let the world be. Brown: Similar to blue, brown strives for perfection. Their methods differ because blue believes that if they can become perfect, then they can make the world perfect. Brown says that we can only be perfect if the world around us is already perfect, so they work together from the outside in. Pink: Similar to white, pink desires peace. White is too leniant though. White would rather incarcerate and rehibilitate than solve the real problem. Evil is a plague and pink is the cure. The world must be saved from evil, whatever it takes to purge it. Purple: Similar to red, purple dreams of freedom. Red, however, can get a little intimdating. Blinded by the heart, red thinks of only it's own freedom. Purple, on the other hand, wants everyone to be free. It wants to show others what true freedom is and help them ascend as well. That requires some creative thought, not just raw emotion.
Thoughts?
January 24, 2019 2:57 p.m.
I know that to a degree, each color has those ideals in them, like white can do some board clearing destruction and green can occasionally play shutdown. But this would be like giving the colors a whole new ability set. Yellow would be the one using counterspell and draw, while still using power at a cost abilities. Orange would still ramp with big baddies like green, but also use pacifism and stall effects. Brown would still use artifacts and such, but also would play the creature mass game. Pink would still lifegain and protect, but would also murder the bad and even go to great lengths to bring loved ones back. Purple would still have some burn, but more bounce and etb effects, preferably exile to make it different.
January 24, 2019 3:03 p.m.
The problem I still cannot see past is that those new colors are basically two color combinations.
Yellow "The best approach is the one that isn't necessarily "breaking any laws." sounds exactly like Black/White and its expression in the Orzhov on Ravnica.
Orange is just confusing - if they think they are perfect and everyone else also is, what are they doing with their life? They start at max level and cannot level up in any way. There is nothing I can find that is equivalent to a combination of the OG colors, but still.
Brown is basically blue-green or blue-green-white. So, the UG aspect is related to how much that color combination values nature over nurture. Adding white can justify caring more broadly for everything else. Imagine the Simic Combine, but in addition to breeding mutants, they also wanted to improve their surroundings as well.
Pink sounds like Red White - enforce the peace, by any means necessary. The emotions are expressed in caring for others, but are a bit overzealous in doing so. Much like the Boros legion, who are ruthless enforcers of the law on Ravnica, even if doing so breaks the Guildpact on occassions.
Purple sounds a lot like Red Blue - they are not only eager to learn and grow, but also create and build and go ever forward. At their worst, they are what you would call mad scientists. Kind of like the Izzet League, if you ignore all the (according to them, occassional) explosions.
I used the guilds mostly as we are currently on Ravnica and it is my favorite plane. But the point is, it is really hard to find something that colors do not do, individually or together, in terms of philosophy.
January 25, 2019 4:33 a.m.
I agree with that entirely, and I think that's what direction I'll have to head anyway. These will basically be single color versions of color combos. The main difference will be in three flavor. For example, the Orzhov Syndicate uses the false church and spirits in service, but yellow would have different tactics. I actually kind of imagine them more like esper, On the other side, I agree about orange, I've been struggling with that as well. If I go for the 3 color combos and branch from their styles maybe I can just look into that for orange? Then all I'd have to come up with is new flavor, which could then branch to that science and space style world too. I like the idea, though it would require changes to some of the concepts like "target spell" or "sorcery". Hell even "planeswalker" will change
January 25, 2019 6:54 p.m.
I have an idea to change the motivations of each color to a single concept and make it just be their differences on how to accomplish this. Each color wants to save the world, they just think differently on how that can be done. Pink believes that purging all evil is the only way to save the world. They have a duty to the people to do whatever it takes to destroy evildoers; even death is no excuse to slack on duty. Purple believes the world can be saved by setting everyone free. If everyone were to let go of material possessions and just listen to their hearts, there would be no more violence. Yellow believes that only the strong can save the world. This means that someone needs to take control and guide the weak and show them the way. Orange believes that the world has everything necessary to save itself. Natural resources exist and are enough for everyone, the world just needs to learn to share. Brown believes the world needs to improve in order to be saved. They want to build the next best thing to keep it alive, and they need everyone's help.
I might have to change a few of the characteristics of each color from the orignal way the wheel shows, but I kinda like the idea. Any thoughts?
January 27, 2019 1:25 p.m.
Scratch that, I don't like the saving the world concept, it's not broad enough. Not everyone wants to save the world. I'm going back to my original plan of flipping the motives. I know they'll be combo color types but that's ok, I can adjust flavor to make it unique. White vs pink will be matter of law vs vigilantism. Blue vs brown will be a matter of perfect me vs perfect world Black vs yellow will be a matter of power vs prosperity. Red vs purple im having a hard time with what the difference in their view of freedom would be. I'm thinking emotion/ action vs freedom from materialism. Similarly, green vs orange, idk how they would view acceptance differently. I'm thinking equality and making resources span further. If necessary I'll create my own wheel to fit these outcomes, but I want to start here.
Bobbbyyy says... #2
this breakdown is a common literary device so using some of that
Robert Jordan's Wheel of time, the Ajahs
Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive has ten (currently not explored) groups. Of the currently written groups:
other books will have similar ideas and could be a good starting point. The key to creating the wheel is to go extreme. If you need to visualise it imagine someone is swearing an oath to that colour what is the oath:
January 22, 2019 8 p.m.