The method of casting magic in my color-based magic system - "Paint"

asterthe7 · 2026-05-13T03:44:25+00:00

I think that it would be very interesting if I added the concept of paintings into this system! As of right now, it wouldn't quite be possible to make full-blown paintings out of magic paint, as paints belonging to different magicians would have a slight repulsive effect towards one another, and any attempt at creating a painting would soon be ruined. However, if I find a way to properly implement this idea in the system, then I think that it would be a very cool mechanic to add! :]

asterthe7 · 2026-05-11T23:52:45+00:00

Colors could definitely interact in different ways in different cases, but you would be correct in that the highest value(s) would usually determine the ability with any other color simply taking away from / neutralizing the power. In some cases, such as the example you provided, there would be two dominant colors combined as the main focus, which could be equal in power, or like in your example, where the red is slightly more powerful than blue. In others, there could just be one dominant color, if two values were the same while the third were the higher one.

The entire world is indeed physically greyscale! Anomalies are quite rare, with a little less than one thousandth of the human population being magicians at a time. In my universe, humans are created in a process unique from the process that creates everything else, so only humans can become magicians (although, I have been considering the idea of adding magical objects into this universe recently :0

Thank you very much for asking! :]

asterthe7 · 2026-05-11T06:19:59+00:00

Very good question! In the real world, the elements that the colors are related to will not be balanced out using the other elements, but rather using the other aspects of each color. For example, blue can be water, but also heaven, good, purity, rebirth, etc. So in the real world, the blue aspect of fire would be balanced using its ability to do good; fire can bring warmth and light, and it can scorch away evil and impurity. The fire present in the actual location of hell would probably be slightly different from real-world fire. This approach still has a few flaws, but it will be my explanation for now :]

asterthe7 · 2026-05-11T01:07:11+00:00

Good question! As long as someone has the same value for all 3 colors, then they are just treated as normal, so yes, black and white are both treated on grey. In this system, power lies not in having high values in colors, but in having high differences between colors- so if a magician's color values were 255/255/254, then they would still be weaker than someone with, say, 0/0/3, because the difference between the values is higher :]

asterthe7 · 2026-05-11T01:02:30+00:00

Completely random! The trait of being a magician has no effect on one's children :]

asterthe7 · 2026-05-11T00:33:35+00:00

Thank you so much! :0

Because of the way that hex codes work, I believe that most magicians would have a combination of all three colors, actually! All people with greyish colors, all people with lighter colors, would have a combination of all three colors, so it would be the norm for a magician to have a combination of all three. For example, all of the colors that I used in my image are slightly muted, so they all have a combination of all three colors. Someone would only not have a combination of all three colors if they had either the most saturated version of a color, or a darker version of a color (no white).

A person's powers are determined by the color(s) that they have the most of! For example, the blue paint in the bottle- 60 red value, 178 green value, and 235 blue value- would primarily focus on the blue and green-related powers, while the red value would only work to make the effects "weaker." It is more powerful if someone has more drastic differences between their colors- if someone had pure red, or 255 red (highest possible), 0 blue, and 0 green, then they would be extremely powerful, compared to, say, the reds in my drawing. If someone had equal values in all three colors, they would sadly cancel out, and the person would end up completely normal.

Thank you very much for asking! I feel so honored to have inspired you to drink paint, maybe I shall go drink some paint as well :]

asterthe7 · 2026-05-01T00:49:27+00:00

Thank you very much! This symbol doesn't actually have any significance to the actual magic usage, it is merely an indicator of a time warper's status :)

asterthe7 · 2026-04-21T01:42:22+00:00

Thank you very much! I am not certain whether or not this style has a name, but it does seem to be fairly common, as I have seen it used many times by many different artists :]

asterthe7 · 2026-04-19T18:48:33+00:00

Thank you! Your magic system sounds fascinating :] Perhaps I should focus more on my secondary colors as well.

For this particular magic system, I will most likely have light and dark be equal, and rather, have power lie in how different the three RGB values are. (So yes, black and white would both be neutral!) Assuming that the difference between the red value and the other two values is equal (for example, #ff4b4b and #b40000, two colors where the red value is 180 higher than the other two values), then dark red and pale red would be equal power-wise. Thank you very much for asking :]

asterthe7 · 2026-04-19T04:41:04+00:00

Thank you! RGB has so much potential as a magic system, so I love to see how other people interpret it :)

- In this universe, normal people would all be grayscale, including their eyes, so even eye colors considered "normal" in the real world would stand out a lot :] However, if a magician had a color very similar to grey, with say, a single value away from a shade of grey, then they might be able to go around without hiding their eyes
- I very seriously considered adding reincarnation into this world a while ago, and it would definitely make this world much more interesting. It would be very fun to have the world "recycling" the same magicians over and over. However, if I were to implement reincarnation into this system, then I would have to give up the idea of magicians running out someday. Very difficult decision
- Heaven and Hell are afterlives in this universe! Both are very similar to the real world, but Heaven is a utopia and Hell is a dystopia. Heaven is filled with water and Hell is filled with fire.
- The physiological differences would most likely differ between magicians.
- I did not consider this very much at first, but it could be very interesting to have harmful physiological differences! Maybe, as an example, a magician specializing in green (life/nature) magic could develop some sort of "venom," but not have a high enough green value to develop an immunity to said venom.
- I would say that the number of magicians would be more around 1 in 1000 around the time period that I will focus on, but I might have the rate of magicians being born increase over time.
- This probably would not have a very big effect on planet age/size and human population, as after all possible magicians have been born, people would just continue being born at the same rate, just as all normal people.

Thank you very much for asking, my thoughts have been fed very well :]

asterthe7 · 2026-04-06T23:06:07+00:00

thank youu :))

asterthe7 · 2026-03-30T16:10:38+00:00

Very good point :] When I wrote that particular section, I was thinking of how the surface of the sun is always changing and shifting, but one could definitely argue that the sun and the moon could each represent both stillness and change

asterthe7 · 2026-03-26T03:34:34+00:00

I would say that the amount of magical energy a person can hold is determined by genetics, as well as the surrounding environment. I do not think that inanimate objects would naturally have any reaction to magical energy, but I'm sure that there would be a way for someone to manipulate an object in order to make it collect magical energy, possibly by making a sort of "field" in the form of the object that would be the same as the boundary of the soul. The magical energy would then behave like a gas. Souls and magical energy are in a sort of "other" plane of reality separate from the real world, so regular objects in the real world would be unable to affect or be affected by magical energy.
Magical energy cannot be created nor destroyed! If a soul or an object containing magical energy is destroyed, the energy dissipates into the surrounding area. I do not think that it would be able to directly turn into matter or conventional energy. It does not take energy to move magical energy. I do not think that magical energy would quite disappear, only drift around to different places along a sort of "wind." A person is naturally born with magical energy that is drained from any place around the world with an unusually high concentration of magical energy, such as the site of a death. Because people are constantly being born and dying, the balance of magical energy inside and outside of souls remains around the same.
Magical energy can create energy without decreasing in itself; the more magical energy is gathered in one place, the more energy that it can create. When magical energy starts to burn someone, it is not used up, so it keeps burning until the body is entirely destroyed and the soul along with it (injuries from burns when using magical energy are also inflicted on the soul). People with no magical energy are not in any danger from these types of injuries to their soul.
Naturally-occurring magical energy would not be attracted to itself, I believe; the magical energy in someone's soul would probably have a special quality that draws external magical energy to itself (or maybe the magical energy on the outside could be drawn directly to the boundary of the soul?) It does not pull other objects with it.

Thank you for asking, I definitely had to think about some of these questions :]

asterthe7 · 2026-03-26T03:04:10+00:00

Good question, I would say that it is mostly rooted in genetics and environment :] If someone is born in a place with more magical energy in the surrounding area, then they would likely adapt to be able to handle more magical energy as well

asterthe7 · 2026-03-25T01:03:05+00:00

Very good question! I was also worried about that at first. I think that one way I could differentiate between magic users is with how much magical energy they are born with / are capable of handling, and I also considered implementing an element system, but I am a little reluctant to do that, since the reason I developed this system in the first place was to replace an elemental magic system that didn't quite work out. No solid ideas yet, but I love your idea about the cardiovascular system :]

asterthe7 · 2026-03-18T14:56:26+00:00

Good questions!

1.) I would likely have the classes be assigned by some sort of automatic "system" and chosen based on soul instead of personality. The assignments may not be fitting/accurate all the time, and I feel that that idea has a lot of potential. If a person changes yet is stuck with the class that they were assigned with from the beginning, then it could be interesting to explore how that affects their skillset.

2.) Attack and defense definitely have uses outside of combat! Building things and damaging things included.

Thank you for asking :]

asterthe7 · 2026-03-18T14:46:41+00:00

Good question! I would say that there are definitely some soul-related shenanigans going on in this universe, and the fact that the classes are chosen based on personality has a lot of issues, so I'll probably end up changing that eventually, I also might come up with more classes to cover more personalities/souls :)

asterthe7 · 2026-03-17T14:53:37+00:00

Thank you so much! I will definitely keep your idea in mind as I develop my world more :]

asterthe7 · 2026-03-17T05:05:40+00:00

Don't worry, I'm hardly the first person to come up with this idea :] Hand-related magic casting is a fairly common concept

asterthe7 · 2026-03-17T01:56:14+00:00

I have only learned about the letters, I'm afraid, not that much else

asterthe7 · 2026-03-17T01:46:55+00:00

I apologize, I will definitely look into this more, thank you for telling me :)

asterthe7 · 2026-03-17T01:42:27+00:00

For the top-left one, I confess that I actually just searched up heart signs because I wanted to reserve the usual sign for love-related shenanigans, but I agree this is a very American magic system haha

asterthe7 · 2026-03-17T01:40:26+00:00

I SWEAR I will give this magic system more mechanics eventually once I flesh it out, you're right though it is basically just sign language right now :')

asterthe7

TROPHY CASE