This is an idea of an alchemic power I thought of.
Critique it, I pray you!
You have, no doubt, heard of elemental powers: power over earth, air, fire, water. I never really liked this idea, though a lot of interesting ideas have sprung up around it.
One thing that would be similar to elemental powers in Iniel would be color forces.
In the color forces there are nine pure colors, which are usually put in this order:
purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, white, pink, black.
A color caster would put them in a different order, based on their strength:
green, yellow, blue, orange, purple, red, white, pink, black.
A color caster is usually ranked in a class by what level of color he has gained a certain level of mastery with:
Class 0
Black
(the highest class)
Class 1
Pink
Class 2
White
Class 3
Red
Purple
(two colors in the same class because they are equal in strength)
Class 4
Orange
Blue
Class 5
Yellow
Green
Any hue between these colors is vastly less powerful. As a hue becomes closer to one of the pure colors it becomes exponentially more powerful. Absolute purity in any of the colors is hardly ever reached.
The colors at the two ends of the visible light spectrum (red and purple, class 3) are exponentially more powerful than the colors of classes 4 and 5. Class 5 colors, yellow and green, behave like a mix of the two ends of the spectrum, which are red and purple. In other words, red and purple are the “purest” pure colors, being on the two extreme ends of the spectrum.
White is a conjunction of all six pure colors in classes 3, 4, and 5, which are known as the “single” colors: red, purple, orange, blue, yellow, green. White has more power than any of the single colors acting alone.
Pink is a conjunction of red and purple. Being a conjunction of only the purest colors of the six single colors it has far greater power than white.
The six single colors, and the two conjunctions, have a threshold of how great their power can become through purification.
But this is because there is a threshold to how pure they can become. They are all necessarily mixed with a certain amount of black, which is present in everything, between every star, and every atom.
Black, however, can continue to become pure to infinity. The threshold of power for the black color has never been reached, and may not exist. It may continue to become exponentially more powerful as its purity increases infinitely, like numbers can increase infinitely.
The form that pure colors are used in are not colored flames and sparkles or colored lightning or anything superfluous. It is in the form of colored powder, which is cast over something, from which comes the term “color caster.”
The powder can also be breathed, or rubbed onto something, or various other applications. The powder is made from solid chemical elements (which are mostly silvery gray metals).
The elements listed by abundance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crustThe metals are converted to the powders by alchemy, usually combined with grinding, cooling, heating, reverberation, or things to do with the spectrum of existences, which I mentioned briefly in my big introduction post, and will do a post about some time.
I think the powers of the colors never vary from color to color, except in intensity. But they do vary from person to person, depending on their different areas of knowledge. One may have healing and destructive forces, another may have the ability to bless or blight crops, another may have the ability to pass through walls or disappear from one place and reappear in another place.
Certain color casters learn to draw power from colored objects. It does not change the objects at all, any more than using a solar panel will affect the sun. This means they are more powerful in colorful places, like playgrounds and parades and market places. They also draw from the sky, when it is blue, or the clouds are white, or colorful at sunrise or sunset. Gray days obscure the colors.
They cannot draw from darkness, because it is not an object that is colored dark, but rather, blue air, or green trees, or so on, whose colors cannot be seen.
The color casters do not wear uniforms that are the colors of their class. If they chose clothes in order to draw power from them, it would vastly weaken them for a time, rather than empowering them. It is called “profaning the color.” This is the same with anything else they choose, their house, their car, their fence, if they choose its color in order to use it, it takes power instead of giving it. So whenever a color caster can choose the color of something, he chooses brown, or some other weak hue.
Another way to avoid profaning the color is to choose any color, but never draw power from it. It is not as safe, as in an emergency one may accidentally try, and become useless at a critical moment.
Another way to avoid it is to use the color powder itself to color the things. This is a separate area of skill, as it is very difficult to learn it to the point that it is any use at all. Even for a master it is extremely dangerous to and delicate work to create dyes, paints, or stained glass from the powder. But when it is mastered it is very useful.
I found out that there is a festival in India called Holi the color festival, where they throw colored powder in the air and at each other. I made a Pinterest board about colored powder which has some other things to do with color casting, but mainly pictures of Holi.
http://pinterest.com/tsahraf/colored-powder/What do you think of this? What are your favorite things about it? Which parts would you want to know more about? Is any of it unclear?
Do you have any suggestions? Does this remind you of anything?
Brief suggestions or extensive in-line edits are wanted! Critique, I pray you!
