Three-Dot Color Wheel Magic
Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 5:22 pm
This is a system idea I've had for a while, but I keep leaving half-finished drafts of it hanging around. The basic conceit is to establish a system of derivative styles of magic with a relatively simple tracking system and a stylistic approach that is more or less intuitive for players - in other words, it's a three-dot (●●●) system where magic is based on a kind of color wheel.
The background is that there are three primitive "source texts" which describe three completely separate and non-overlapping sources or styles. Later traditions took elements from these systems to create three four combinatorial systems; in turn these systems continued to develop and derivative systems, again borrowing elements from other schools or rediscovering fragments from the original primitive schools. The result is a widely diverse array of magical schools and styles, all ultimately derived or based on three basic traditions.
Core Dot Mechanic
A character's knowledge and skill in any given magical school is represtened by a color (Blue, Indigo, Teal, etc.) and a number of dots (●). When attempting to use their magic, the character rolls 1d10 for each dot in the color they are trying to use.
Characters can purchase up to three dots in any given color. Each color category (Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Base) has an associated cost for the first dot in one of their associated (see Color Cost); the cost of each additional dot in a color is half the cost of the last one.
Color Cost
Primary: 12 points
Secondary: 8 points
Tertiary: 4 points
Base: 8 points
Example:
Quam of Naal wishes to buy dots in Red, a Primary color. The first dot will cost 12 points, the second dot 6 points, and the third and final dot 3 points, for a total of (12 + 6 + 3) 21 points for Red ●●●.
Virtual Dots
Possessing dots in two or more different colors allows the character to combine elements of different magical styles; this is represented by virtual dots (○).
If a character has at least two dots (●●) each in two different primary colors, they receive one virtual dot (○) in the secondary color that combines those two primaries.
Example:
Yawgy has Red ●● and Blue ●●. This gives Yawgy Purple ○, since Purple is the secondary color combining Red and Blue
If a character has at least two dots (●●) in a secondary color and at least one dot (●) in a primary color, they receive a virtual dot (○) in the tertiary color that results from combining those colors.
Example:
Yawgy has Red ●●, Blue ●●, and Green ●; this gives Yawgy Aquamarine ○ and Ochre ○, since those are the tertiary colors resulting from (Blue + Green) and (Red + Green), respectively.
Finally, if a character has at least two dots (●●) in all three Primary colors, they receive a virtual dot (○) in the Base color White; if a character has at least two dots (●●) in all three Secondary colors, they receive a virtual dot in the Base color Black; and if a character has at least two dots (●●) each in White and Black, they receive a virtual dot (○) in Grey.
A character can only possess a single virtual dot in any given color. Virtual dots do not stack with normal dots for the purpose of determining if a character gains additional virtual dots, but do stack with normal dots for all purposes, and this is the only way to have more than three total dots in any given color. Virtual dots cannot be granted in Hues & Tints.
Example:
Franz the Necromancer has the following colors:
Primary
Blue ●●
Red ●●
Yellow ●●
Secondary
Green ●
Orange ●●●
When his secondary virtual dots are calculated, Franz gains Green ○, Orange ○, and Purple ○; and when his tertiary virtual dots are calculated, Franz gains Amber ○, Ochre ○, and Vermilion ○; and when his base virtual dots are calculated, Franz gains White ○.
Primary
Blue ●●
Red ●●
Yellow ●●
Secondary
Green ●○
Orange ●●●○
Purple ○
Tertiary:
Amber ○
Ochre ○
Vermilion ○
Base:
White ○
Primaries
The "primary" colors are magical styles that derive from three separate and distinct cultural traditions, each with their own philosophy, mythology, and source text. The colors themselves originate from the distinctive apparel worn by the different mages, which reflected the color of the visualizations that accompanied their magic.
Blue
Ten thousand years ago, a blue gem fell from the brow of a broken god as he fell from the heavens, the loser in a cosmic war with the Dark Gods of the outer dark, beyond the ring of light that surrounds and protects this world. The gemstone tablet fell among a tribe of herders, and it is said from its deciphered markings is derived all of their writing, science, and art. Blue magic is called down from extraterrene sources in the outer dark; this additional energy upsets the natural balance of things, adding chaos and entropy into systems enabling terrible elemental transmuations that can destroy or transform nearly any matter.
Red
In the shattered bowl of a city half-swallowed by the earth, one that predated the current race of men, the people of Githa discovered the Scrolls of Blood, which held the secrets of red magic. The doctor-sorcerers of the Red College exploit the knowledge of the power locked in the human form; by drawing on the currents and pulses in living people, red magicians can perform superhuman feats of mind and body, and in close proximity affect others to heal, enhance, or harm.
Yellow
Yellow magic is the youngest of the primitive traditions by most counting, barely a few thousand years old when it became widely known, and derives from the animist traditions of the obscure and isolationist southern continent. It was disseminated by wandering mystical hermits, who carried with them copies of the Azada Mahda, the Map of the Soul. The believe that all living things are illusion, the result of three distinct projections overlapping and intersecting on the screen of the world, so that the soul has seven pieces, which the shadow scholars of yellow magic claim to manipulate. Whether this is true or not, yellow magic deals with the intangible and unreal, manipulating dreams, thoughts, emotions, ideas, concepts, and illusions.
Secondaries
The intersection of different cultures brought periods of warfare and trade; magicians arose among the new cities and new peoples that resulting, mixing the lore of different parents, and deriving new magics from old.
Green (Blue + Yellow)
Green magic arose rather quickly after the introduction of yellow magic, as a by-product of a century-long magical war between the invading hermit-magicians and the terrible painted worshippers of the outer dark. By using a runic script derived from the blue gem, and principles of yellow magic, green magicians learned to more safely and effectively invoke and channel the elemental forces. The runes of green magic trigger and direct other magics.
Orange (Red + Yellow)
By contrast, orange magic arose from academic cross-pollination, as the Red College of Githa welcomed and studied with a score of the outcast yellow mages, and students experimented with the different techniques and philosophies. The focus quickly fell on the interface between the spiritual and the material, particularly in the human form, and the orange-robed doctors of the Red College became the first necromancers.
Purple (Red + Blue)
The oldest of the secondary schools - sometimes called "the Fourth Color" - the origins of purple magic are a matter of dispute, as dozens of different sects and schools claim their primogenitor as the creator. In truth, the color probably arose many times from natural discovery and rediscovery over the millenia. Initiates of purple magic open the channels between the outer dark and their minds, communicating with the things that dwell beyond the rim of stars, and are renowned as oracles and diviners.
Tertiaries
After the secondary colors became established, evidence of the tertiary colors emerged relatively quickly, though mainly in wandering scholars and individual mage-lords than in schools, for it took time to research and master the lore. Most of the tertiary colors became established during the peace-time known as the Age of Pearls, a period of relative prosperity free of wars between the major nations, and when the younger kingdoms became established.
Amber (Orange + Yellow)
The Ghostkillers and Dreamthieves emerged as mercenary sects near the end of the Age of Pearls, arcane thieves who learned to touch what cannot be touched; by selective denial of one of the emanations that yellow magic claims define them, they learn to exist in a half-world where they can kill dreams, steal thoughts, destroy illusions, and walk in the ghosts of dead cities.
Aquamarine (Green + Blue)
The conjurers of Maaz tracked the black stars and dead planets in their orreries of night, and through long decades created tables of conjunctions when the streams from the outer dark merged, allowing untold power to be drawn from the dark heavens - and the Doom of Maaz came when the conjurers did not realize that that power might have a name, a mind, and a voice. The demons of the outer dark rent the city of Maaz and devoured the great stargazers and their orreries, but the fleeing populace took with them the scrolls and star-charts, and in time the conjurers of Maaz learned the sigils and circles to ward, contain, and command the darksome entities as well as summon them.
Brown (Purple + Yellow)
The vampire-women of Tiklakak were the first to cast their minds beyond the outer dark, and so invented true astral travel, the piercing of illusions, and the greater senses. Now their eidolons and avatars flit ghost-like through a twilit half-world, to feed quietly while their bodies remain at rest in the tomb-city. Some children they mark as their own and bring back as substitute daughters, and every generation a few of these return to the greater world with knowledge of brown magic.
Chartreuse (Green + Yellow)
Shadow magic has a dark but vibrant history, as blue magic, even channeled and filtered, tends to taint the aura and wear at flesh, but the chartreause magicians are artist-magicians, and the world is their canvas. Balancing power and idea precariously, these sorcerers create shadow-shapes that can entangle, burn, cut, and drown - but the cost for their power is the slow corruption of their flesh, as patches blanch to a pale yellowish-green with each use.
Magenta (Purple + Red)
The Deniers are students of nothingness, whose communion of the outer dark taught them to open a channel to vast emptiness - not a hunger, exactly, but a void that draws in magic. By meditation the magenta magician can empty herself and become both an attractor of magic, and almost immune it, as the energies are drawn straight into the endless void; by manipulating the channel they can achieve different effects - luring mages and magical beings without destroying them, rendering others temporarily resistant to magic, etc. Deniers often find roles as mage-killers and demon-slayers because of their talent.
Ochre (Green + Red)
Tattoo magic is traditionally a female occupation in Urda, an extension and specialization of the medicine-women of the Urd fishing and farming communities. Ochre magicians set sigils on their patients to strengthen bones, regulate heartbeats, and to enhance the patient's physical attributes - shaping breasts, buttocks, noses, cheeks, etc. with words carven in flesh. Many ochre magicians practice on each others, and few are not dazzling tapestries on the way to their personal perfection.
Umber (Orange + Blue)
The Burning Liches of Old Githa are lambent skeletons, loosely bound to this world, and their umber magic is the art of ascending the failing flesh to be a blazing figure among the belt of stars that guards against the demons of the outer dark. In battle they are typically wreathed in celestial light, slowly consumed by within by the light of a million suns, which they unleash to blind and burn; but when the light is extinguished they resemble dark, greyish husks of men and women.
Vermilion (Orange + Red)
Cancer mages strike a balance within their own forms between regeneration and entropy. They are typically lumpy and mishapen by tumors and growths, but can heal with unsurpassed speed and can become all but immune to disease and toxins as they tinker with the balance of their own bodies. Many terrible and awesome effects have been achieved by vermillion magic--horn-like growths, sprays of acid blood from the eyes, the storing and release of toxins--though all have a toll on the body of the vermilion mage.
Violet (Purple + Blue)
Violet magic is the magic of war, as the full fury of black suns is channeled through the mage's form. It is a violent, explosive magic, and the War Mages that practice its greatest expression can annihilate entire regiments in a maelstrom of dark lightning energies. At the heart of violet magic is a permanent channel to the outer dark - a constant flow of power that causes War Mages to build up a charge of potential magic, which must be periodically dispersed or else it may be released uncontrolled, or even consume the mage. Consequently, violet magic is often paired with magenta magic, to allow the War Mage to safely discharge energies into the void.
Bases
When the disparate theories of the primary colorswere compared, it produces an image of the universe as the magicians understand it - the world, the belt of light that surrounds it, and the outer dark. This unity of vision gave birth to White magic. Later magicians, who had never learned the primitive techniques and schooled themselves only in the secondary colors, developed an alternative model - an expansion of the theories of Yellow magic, with the universe as a model of the self. A few magicians are said to have consolidated or reconciled the two views, and the result is Grey magic - though this is mostly legendary since the end of the Age of Pearls and the rise of the Mountain of Power.
Characters can only purchase dots in White if they have three dots (●●●) each in the primary colors, only purchase dots in Black if they have three dots (●●●) in each of the secondary colors, and purchase Grey if they have at least two dots (●●) each in White and Black.
Black
Black magicians view the universe as an extension of themselves, with sufficient will they can bend and break the rules of magic and reality. Black magic thus affects other magic, changing its arbitrary limits - range, scale, duration, etc.
White
White magicians have a holistic view of the universe and their place in it, with this deeper understanding of the interactions of magic they learn to craft magical artifacts that enhance or contain their power.
Grey (Black + White)
Grey magic is the magic of time, probability, forecasting, and extrapolation; they create and live in dream-worlds to play through different events and their actions in them; as such it is somewhat individual to each magician as they understand both what their place is in the universe, and what it can be. Grey magicians can perceive the effects of their actions and manipulate the results, but cannot undo them once done.
Shades & Hues
One benefit of having at least one dot (● or ○) in White or Black magic is the ability to buy Shades (Black) or Hues (White); these are un-dotted specific powers and cost a flat 2 points to purchase. A magician must possess at least one dot in each of the necessary colors to purchase a Shade or Hue.
The background is that there are three primitive "source texts" which describe three completely separate and non-overlapping sources or styles. Later traditions took elements from these systems to create three four combinatorial systems; in turn these systems continued to develop and derivative systems, again borrowing elements from other schools or rediscovering fragments from the original primitive schools. The result is a widely diverse array of magical schools and styles, all ultimately derived or based on three basic traditions.
Core Dot Mechanic
A character's knowledge and skill in any given magical school is represtened by a color (Blue, Indigo, Teal, etc.) and a number of dots (●). When attempting to use their magic, the character rolls 1d10 for each dot in the color they are trying to use.
Characters can purchase up to three dots in any given color. Each color category (Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Base) has an associated cost for the first dot in one of their associated (see Color Cost); the cost of each additional dot in a color is half the cost of the last one.
Color Cost
Primary: 12 points
Secondary: 8 points
Tertiary: 4 points
Base: 8 points
Example:
Quam of Naal wishes to buy dots in Red, a Primary color. The first dot will cost 12 points, the second dot 6 points, and the third and final dot 3 points, for a total of (12 + 6 + 3) 21 points for Red ●●●.
Virtual Dots
Possessing dots in two or more different colors allows the character to combine elements of different magical styles; this is represented by virtual dots (○).
If a character has at least two dots (●●) each in two different primary colors, they receive one virtual dot (○) in the secondary color that combines those two primaries.
Example:
Yawgy has Red ●● and Blue ●●. This gives Yawgy Purple ○, since Purple is the secondary color combining Red and Blue
If a character has at least two dots (●●) in a secondary color and at least one dot (●) in a primary color, they receive a virtual dot (○) in the tertiary color that results from combining those colors.
Example:
Yawgy has Red ●●, Blue ●●, and Green ●; this gives Yawgy Aquamarine ○ and Ochre ○, since those are the tertiary colors resulting from (Blue + Green) and (Red + Green), respectively.
Finally, if a character has at least two dots (●●) in all three Primary colors, they receive a virtual dot (○) in the Base color White; if a character has at least two dots (●●) in all three Secondary colors, they receive a virtual dot in the Base color Black; and if a character has at least two dots (●●) each in White and Black, they receive a virtual dot (○) in Grey.
A character can only possess a single virtual dot in any given color. Virtual dots do not stack with normal dots for the purpose of determining if a character gains additional virtual dots, but do stack with normal dots for all purposes, and this is the only way to have more than three total dots in any given color. Virtual dots cannot be granted in Hues & Tints.
Example:
Franz the Necromancer has the following colors:
Primary
Blue ●●
Red ●●
Yellow ●●
Secondary
Green ●
Orange ●●●
When his secondary virtual dots are calculated, Franz gains Green ○, Orange ○, and Purple ○; and when his tertiary virtual dots are calculated, Franz gains Amber ○, Ochre ○, and Vermilion ○; and when his base virtual dots are calculated, Franz gains White ○.
Primary
Blue ●●
Red ●●
Yellow ●●
Secondary
Green ●○
Orange ●●●○
Purple ○
Tertiary:
Amber ○
Ochre ○
Vermilion ○
Base:
White ○
Primaries
The "primary" colors are magical styles that derive from three separate and distinct cultural traditions, each with their own philosophy, mythology, and source text. The colors themselves originate from the distinctive apparel worn by the different mages, which reflected the color of the visualizations that accompanied their magic.
Blue
Ten thousand years ago, a blue gem fell from the brow of a broken god as he fell from the heavens, the loser in a cosmic war with the Dark Gods of the outer dark, beyond the ring of light that surrounds and protects this world. The gemstone tablet fell among a tribe of herders, and it is said from its deciphered markings is derived all of their writing, science, and art. Blue magic is called down from extraterrene sources in the outer dark; this additional energy upsets the natural balance of things, adding chaos and entropy into systems enabling terrible elemental transmuations that can destroy or transform nearly any matter.
Red
In the shattered bowl of a city half-swallowed by the earth, one that predated the current race of men, the people of Githa discovered the Scrolls of Blood, which held the secrets of red magic. The doctor-sorcerers of the Red College exploit the knowledge of the power locked in the human form; by drawing on the currents and pulses in living people, red magicians can perform superhuman feats of mind and body, and in close proximity affect others to heal, enhance, or harm.
Yellow
Yellow magic is the youngest of the primitive traditions by most counting, barely a few thousand years old when it became widely known, and derives from the animist traditions of the obscure and isolationist southern continent. It was disseminated by wandering mystical hermits, who carried with them copies of the Azada Mahda, the Map of the Soul. The believe that all living things are illusion, the result of three distinct projections overlapping and intersecting on the screen of the world, so that the soul has seven pieces, which the shadow scholars of yellow magic claim to manipulate. Whether this is true or not, yellow magic deals with the intangible and unreal, manipulating dreams, thoughts, emotions, ideas, concepts, and illusions.
Secondaries
The intersection of different cultures brought periods of warfare and trade; magicians arose among the new cities and new peoples that resulting, mixing the lore of different parents, and deriving new magics from old.
Green (Blue + Yellow)
Green magic arose rather quickly after the introduction of yellow magic, as a by-product of a century-long magical war between the invading hermit-magicians and the terrible painted worshippers of the outer dark. By using a runic script derived from the blue gem, and principles of yellow magic, green magicians learned to more safely and effectively invoke and channel the elemental forces. The runes of green magic trigger and direct other magics.
Orange (Red + Yellow)
By contrast, orange magic arose from academic cross-pollination, as the Red College of Githa welcomed and studied with a score of the outcast yellow mages, and students experimented with the different techniques and philosophies. The focus quickly fell on the interface between the spiritual and the material, particularly in the human form, and the orange-robed doctors of the Red College became the first necromancers.
Purple (Red + Blue)
The oldest of the secondary schools - sometimes called "the Fourth Color" - the origins of purple magic are a matter of dispute, as dozens of different sects and schools claim their primogenitor as the creator. In truth, the color probably arose many times from natural discovery and rediscovery over the millenia. Initiates of purple magic open the channels between the outer dark and their minds, communicating with the things that dwell beyond the rim of stars, and are renowned as oracles and diviners.
Tertiaries
After the secondary colors became established, evidence of the tertiary colors emerged relatively quickly, though mainly in wandering scholars and individual mage-lords than in schools, for it took time to research and master the lore. Most of the tertiary colors became established during the peace-time known as the Age of Pearls, a period of relative prosperity free of wars between the major nations, and when the younger kingdoms became established.
Amber (Orange + Yellow)
The Ghostkillers and Dreamthieves emerged as mercenary sects near the end of the Age of Pearls, arcane thieves who learned to touch what cannot be touched; by selective denial of one of the emanations that yellow magic claims define them, they learn to exist in a half-world where they can kill dreams, steal thoughts, destroy illusions, and walk in the ghosts of dead cities.
Aquamarine (Green + Blue)
The conjurers of Maaz tracked the black stars and dead planets in their orreries of night, and through long decades created tables of conjunctions when the streams from the outer dark merged, allowing untold power to be drawn from the dark heavens - and the Doom of Maaz came when the conjurers did not realize that that power might have a name, a mind, and a voice. The demons of the outer dark rent the city of Maaz and devoured the great stargazers and their orreries, but the fleeing populace took with them the scrolls and star-charts, and in time the conjurers of Maaz learned the sigils and circles to ward, contain, and command the darksome entities as well as summon them.
Brown (Purple + Yellow)
The vampire-women of Tiklakak were the first to cast their minds beyond the outer dark, and so invented true astral travel, the piercing of illusions, and the greater senses. Now their eidolons and avatars flit ghost-like through a twilit half-world, to feed quietly while their bodies remain at rest in the tomb-city. Some children they mark as their own and bring back as substitute daughters, and every generation a few of these return to the greater world with knowledge of brown magic.
Chartreuse (Green + Yellow)
Shadow magic has a dark but vibrant history, as blue magic, even channeled and filtered, tends to taint the aura and wear at flesh, but the chartreause magicians are artist-magicians, and the world is their canvas. Balancing power and idea precariously, these sorcerers create shadow-shapes that can entangle, burn, cut, and drown - but the cost for their power is the slow corruption of their flesh, as patches blanch to a pale yellowish-green with each use.
Magenta (Purple + Red)
The Deniers are students of nothingness, whose communion of the outer dark taught them to open a channel to vast emptiness - not a hunger, exactly, but a void that draws in magic. By meditation the magenta magician can empty herself and become both an attractor of magic, and almost immune it, as the energies are drawn straight into the endless void; by manipulating the channel they can achieve different effects - luring mages and magical beings without destroying them, rendering others temporarily resistant to magic, etc. Deniers often find roles as mage-killers and demon-slayers because of their talent.
Ochre (Green + Red)
Tattoo magic is traditionally a female occupation in Urda, an extension and specialization of the medicine-women of the Urd fishing and farming communities. Ochre magicians set sigils on their patients to strengthen bones, regulate heartbeats, and to enhance the patient's physical attributes - shaping breasts, buttocks, noses, cheeks, etc. with words carven in flesh. Many ochre magicians practice on each others, and few are not dazzling tapestries on the way to their personal perfection.
Umber (Orange + Blue)
The Burning Liches of Old Githa are lambent skeletons, loosely bound to this world, and their umber magic is the art of ascending the failing flesh to be a blazing figure among the belt of stars that guards against the demons of the outer dark. In battle they are typically wreathed in celestial light, slowly consumed by within by the light of a million suns, which they unleash to blind and burn; but when the light is extinguished they resemble dark, greyish husks of men and women.
Vermilion (Orange + Red)
Cancer mages strike a balance within their own forms between regeneration and entropy. They are typically lumpy and mishapen by tumors and growths, but can heal with unsurpassed speed and can become all but immune to disease and toxins as they tinker with the balance of their own bodies. Many terrible and awesome effects have been achieved by vermillion magic--horn-like growths, sprays of acid blood from the eyes, the storing and release of toxins--though all have a toll on the body of the vermilion mage.
Violet (Purple + Blue)
Violet magic is the magic of war, as the full fury of black suns is channeled through the mage's form. It is a violent, explosive magic, and the War Mages that practice its greatest expression can annihilate entire regiments in a maelstrom of dark lightning energies. At the heart of violet magic is a permanent channel to the outer dark - a constant flow of power that causes War Mages to build up a charge of potential magic, which must be periodically dispersed or else it may be released uncontrolled, or even consume the mage. Consequently, violet magic is often paired with magenta magic, to allow the War Mage to safely discharge energies into the void.
Bases
When the disparate theories of the primary colorswere compared, it produces an image of the universe as the magicians understand it - the world, the belt of light that surrounds it, and the outer dark. This unity of vision gave birth to White magic. Later magicians, who had never learned the primitive techniques and schooled themselves only in the secondary colors, developed an alternative model - an expansion of the theories of Yellow magic, with the universe as a model of the self. A few magicians are said to have consolidated or reconciled the two views, and the result is Grey magic - though this is mostly legendary since the end of the Age of Pearls and the rise of the Mountain of Power.
Characters can only purchase dots in White if they have three dots (●●●) each in the primary colors, only purchase dots in Black if they have three dots (●●●) in each of the secondary colors, and purchase Grey if they have at least two dots (●●) each in White and Black.
Black
Black magicians view the universe as an extension of themselves, with sufficient will they can bend and break the rules of magic and reality. Black magic thus affects other magic, changing its arbitrary limits - range, scale, duration, etc.
White
White magicians have a holistic view of the universe and their place in it, with this deeper understanding of the interactions of magic they learn to craft magical artifacts that enhance or contain their power.
Grey (Black + White)
Grey magic is the magic of time, probability, forecasting, and extrapolation; they create and live in dream-worlds to play through different events and their actions in them; as such it is somewhat individual to each magician as they understand both what their place is in the universe, and what it can be. Grey magicians can perceive the effects of their actions and manipulate the results, but cannot undo them once done.
Shades & Hues
One benefit of having at least one dot (● or ○) in White or Black magic is the ability to buy Shades (Black) or Hues (White); these are un-dotted specific powers and cost a flat 2 points to purchase. A magician must possess at least one dot in each of the necessary colors to purchase a Shade or Hue.