Wizards (Runiverse)

There are 7 dominant political factions in the world of Forgotten Runes, which are generally (but not always) denoted by hat color. They are Red, Yellow, Brown, Green, Blue, Purple, and White. (It is worth noting that just because a Wizard may have a certain color hat, it does not necessarily mean they fall into one of these factions.)

Read more about the factions here This article details Runiverse specific aspects of the Wizards. For meta-information regarding the Wizards, see the main article.

Forgotten Runes Wizard's Cult
A Forgotten Runes wizard

The Color Cults

There are 7 dominant factions, or Color Cults, in the world of Forgotten Runes, which are generally denoted by hat color. They are Red, Yellow, Brown, Green, Blue, Purple, and White. Warriors, too, can adhere to these factions through armor, shield, or weapon color. It is worth noting, however, that many Wizards and Warriors wear colors for other reasons and colors are not always an indication of political allegiance.

Color magic is quite pervasive in the Runiverse, with entire cities, philosophies, and cultures built upon it. Indeed, various factions have organized around color magic, and wear colored hats to signify their allegiance.

Achieving utmost skill in a craft elevates the practitioner to the esteemed title of Master, a process applicable to nearly any activity one wishes to pursue. However, to transcend mastery is to wield the ethereal force of magic, to elevate one to the rank of Wizard, and enter the realm of the Arcane Arts. For indeed, above all, magic is an art form. It defies standardization, yields unpredictable results, and is uniquely interpreted by each wizard. To engage with magic is to willingly court a spectrum of chaos, with each variant of magic embodying its own brand of tumult. In the face of such intrinsic disorder, attempting to impose a systematic classification is futile.

Even the generic moniker "wizard" has expanded into a multitude of derivations: Magus, Sorcerer, Druid, Necromancer, Pyromancer, Enchanter, Charmer, Chaos Mage, Ghost Eater, etc. Each of these representing a magical specialty of a given wizard. For much like Wizards themselves, magic defies categorization and its complexity is difficult to parse. Just when one school of the Arcane Arts has codified its magical manifesto, another Wizard or magic movement emerges to completely disrupt and redefine the boundaries of what magic can be.

To add to this complexity, a wizard may choose to layer in other influences- Rune Magic, Color Magic, magical specialties, and so on. By mixing and matching various magical expressions, each wizard is incredibly unique in their approach to the Arcane Arts.

Six primary color factions dominate, Red, Orange (commonly referred to as Brown), Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple. Beyond these, there exists the elusive and detached White Hats, accompanied by murmurs of an even more secretive eighth faction, the blackened Shadow Hats.

Red Hats

Based in Red Wizard Capital, Red Hat culture revolves around a love of money and finance. They congregate in metropolitan areas, live in high rises, and live generally cosmopolitan lifestyles. Well dressed with expensive tastes, the Red Hats are power brokers and are known to engage in political intrigue. Oligarchic in nature, Red Hat Wizards seem to be less concerned with magic, compared to their peers, and to the extent they use it, it is leveraged for financial and political gain. The "magic of money" seems to be their greatest talent, and to be sure, they wield it masterfully and to great effect.

Red Magic represents a cosmopolitan and elite form of magic, primarily aimed at amassing material wealth, financial prosperity, and political influence. The heart of Red Magic beats in the Red Wizard Capital, the financial nucleus of the Runiverse. While practitioners of Red Magic may sometimes be considered greedy and wealth obsessed, they possess the unique capability to achieve significant acts of virtue and altruism by leveraging their considerable financial might. Red Magic is perhaps the most material and least spiritual of all, and its practicality is only surpassed by Orange Magic.

Strengths: Cunning, strategic, politically powerful. Very wealthy and influential.

Weaknesses: Elitist, greedy, not well liked by other factions. They are often materialistic and wealth obsessed.

Yellow Hats

Youthful, exuberant, energetic, and full of life, the Yellow Hat lifestyle is pure hedonic joy. Chronomancer’s Riviera, the Yellow Hat hotbed, is a paradise where time itself seems to have no influence. Dancing, carousing, and borderline debauchery are in perpetual motion all day and night, without end, as the hot and sexy Yellow Hat Wizards manipulate time itself to achieve these never ending festivities. Bliss on the beach and lounging by Atlanta's Pool, the Riviera offers a popular vacation spot for the people of the Runiverse, truly a place to forget the stress of daily life. The "pursuit of happiness" is a decree that has taken spiritual significance, and nearly all magic here is used to achieve this joyous liberation. They have not a care in the world, even as the Quantum Shadow itself looms on their borders. Lucky for them, Battlemage Mountains seem an impenetrable protection as for their debaucherous partying.

The Yellow Hats welcome everyone to the Riviera, but the Red Hats in particular are fond of coming here to expend finances on all the excessive luxuries of the Riviera.

Yellow magic, a formidable arcane art that bends the very fabric of time, is haphazardly wielded by the Yellow Hat Wizards of Chronomancer's Riviera. The manipulation of temporal reality, considered by many in the Runiverse to be a reckless endeavor, carries implications that stir widespread concern. Yet, this apprehension appears to be of little consequence to the magic users of the Riviera. Indifferent to the seeming dangers of distorting time, they harness Yellow Magic for the pursuit of eternal youth and to indulge in endless nocturnal festivities. The Riviera, after all, is renowned as a nexus of pleasure and leisure, where time itself is yet another element to be orchestrated in service of ceaseless jubilation.

Strengths: Vitality, stamina, energetic, carefree, happy and joyful.

Weaknesses: Shallow, unfocused, debaucherous, and unwise.

Brown Hats

Rugged, blue-collar, and provincial, the Brown Hat Wizards are good-natured and love simple, country living. Loyal to family and friends, the rustic Brown Hat lifestyle finds its home in the northern delta. Brown Hats use magic for everyday practical tasks, like housekeeping, farming, and hunting. Rarely seen in the cities, they can be found in the fields and forests, or the local country tavern enjoying a beer with good friends. There is a pervasive aversion to machinery and technology in the delta, as Browns prefer the familiarity of "old fashioned" ways. The farming equipment is remarkably outdated, and yet they continue to produce impressive yields with their crops due to their use of magic. Brown Hats tend to keep to themselves, but if they venture outside, they are known to feel some kinship with Green Hats. The Blue Hats, however, are regarded as obnoxious, impractical know-it-alls who seek to disrupt tradition with new scientific discoveries.

A little known secret about Brown hats is that their hat color used to be Orange, but rustic country living has faded and tarnished their bright colors to an earthy brown.

Orange Magic is used by the rugged, provincial Brown Hats in the northern farmlands of the Brown Hat Delta. The most practical form magic of all is often used for farming, hunting, and the domestic tasks of rural life. Unchanged through the ages, Orange Magic is a bastion of reliability and is loved by a community deeply rooted in stability and ancestral customs.

Strengths: Practical common sense, loyalty, always well-prepared and very dependable.

Weaknesses: Overly simplistic and can be a bit xenophobic. Resistant to change.

Green Hats

Thriving in the equatorial jungles of the Runiverse, the Green Hats live in harmony with the natural world. This concordance allows natural magic to flow through the Green Hats effortlessly, from deep within the earth, through the plants and animals, to the hearts and minds of the wizards. They do not seek to dominate nature, but instead coexist with it in perfect homeostasis. This form of magic is potentially older than the Quantum Shadow itself, and can be expressed through weather manipulation, bio-hacking, and communication with plants and animals. Green Hats often form alliances with Brown Hats, for their cultures have overlapping interests. They both love natural world, but whereas the Browns seek to dominate it, the Greens seek harmony. And though this may be a fundamental disagreement between the two, the Greens find more disagreement with the Red Hats, whose materialistic cosmopolitain ways are the antithesis to harmony with nature.

The magic of the natural world, Green Magic is used to speak to animals, to grow trees and flowers, and to harmonize with the earth itself. It is perhaps the oldest magic in the Runiverse and represents a symbiotic relationship between the mystical and natural world. This Arcane Art is cultivated by the Green Hats of the equatorial jungles, and is revered for its capacity to rejuvenate the forests, protect its creatures, and sustain a natural, harmonious order. Not only are Green Magic users great stewards of the natural world, but have achieved a a spiritual understanding in the interconnectedness of all living beings, an enlightened status not seen in other colors of magic.

Strengths: Healthy, durable, long lifespans, and stable. They can communicate with plants and animals.

Weakness: Somewhat eco-facist, prioritizing the lives of plants and animals over humans. They can be slow to action, and are a bit aloof to the affairs of the human world.

Blue Hats

Scholarly, academic, and technical, the Blue Hats are the only faction to embrace magic and science simultaneously. Their Blue Wizard Bastion houses the Runiverse's largest libraries, which contains tomes on every subject including alchemy, medicine, biology, history, literature, and of course, magic. The famous Forgotten Athenaeum is also here in the Bastion, which holds various relics from around the world. The halls of the Bastion are filled with the worlds most respected philosophers, teachers, scholars, and scientists. Science is empirical, predictable, and methodic, qualities which are seen as the opposite of magic, which is intuitive, emotional, and unpredictable. Thus, the merging of science and magic- a seemingly impossible task, is the grand mission of a typical Blue Hat Wizard.

Blue Magic is the beacon of knowledge, intellect, and scholarly pursuit, honed by the sagacious wizards of the Blue Bastion. With vast libraries filled with esoteric documentation, Blue Magic is arguably the most documented of the arcane arts. With this rigorous approach, Blue Magic is more closely aligned with science, technology, and alchemy than any other color. The unorthodox task of imbuing machines withe magic is common practice of the Blue Hats, though it is not always met with success. Ever finding new ways to add predictability and empiricism to magic, the ultimate goal of the Blue Hats is the discovery of a grand magic/science unification theory.

Strengths: Highly intelligent, well-learned, if anyone can build tech that would challenge magic, it would be them.

Weakness: Overly intellectual,i vory tower type of academic. Have tons of knowledge but sometimes don't apply it to the real world.

Purple Hats

The quintessential Wizards. Purple Hats are extremely talented in all sorts of magic, particularly the deep magic of the cosmos. Their magic is complex, powerful, and esoteric, much of it coming from the Psychic Leap, the Sacred Pillars, and other extremely magical vortexes in and out of the Runiverse . But because of this deep affinity for magic, the magic often controls them rather than the other way around. They are often perceived as clumsy and even a little goofy at times, for they can be rather disconnected from reality. Their spells are often loud, explosive, and colorful, and their spell books are generally incomprehensible. A Purple Hat's home is often a chaotic mess, and it is believed the Weird House once belonged to a Purple Hat. You never know if a Purple Wizard is very powerful or has simply lost their mind, but perhaps a bit of both. Rarely will you find a true Purple Hat carousing with the Yellow hats in the Riviera, for the party in their minds is enough chaos for anyone to endure.

The Purple Hats are concentrated on a large island in the West, where the infamous Purple Pavilion sits.

An enigmatic, boundless, and chaotic form of magic, Purple is the most uncontrollable and unpredictable color known. The Purple Hat adepts wrestle a maelstrom of cosmic energies with tenuous grip. They summon raw, unbridled forces of creation and annihilation, weave spells warping the fabric of reality, and invoke entities from dimensions beyond comprehension. The practice of Purple Magic is notorious for its psychological toll, often blurring the line between genius and madness. This has perpetuated the archetype of the eccentric Purple Hat wizard, a figure both feared and revered for their intimate dance with insanity. In the realm of Purple Magic, the boundary between controller and controlled is broken; it is a domain where the raw, primordial essence of magic reigns supreme. Practitioners who dedicate themselves to its study find that they are not so much wielding magic, as they are being reshaped by it, becoming conduits for forces that transcend mortal understanding.

Strengths: They are unpredictable, probably powerful, seemingly wise, in possession of great secrets and lore.

Weaknesses: They are unpredictable, chaotic, unorganized, having their rationality permanently altered by exposure to the Psychic Leap.

White Hats

Detached, empty, zen-like sages who sit quietly and meditate for days on end in the White Wizard Tower. Rarely speaking, in fact rarely ever seen, the Whites live minimalistic lives oblivious to the rest of the world. They almost never ally with other factions, nor do they oppose them, they simply stay aloof altogether. Their magic is subtle, quiet, and unassuming, if indeed they possess any magic at all, for their power level is totally hidden. This furtive nature has led some to believe that White Hats are actually powerless, and their secretive nature is merely a pretense. The counter narrative, however, is that the White Hats are engaged with yet another even more secretive faction, the mythical and otherworldly "Shadow Hats."

White Magic, in its sublime essence, is the zenith of order and clarity within the chromatic spectrum, embodying the serene and unadorned principles of the esoteric aesthete. A harmonious convergence of all hues, distilling their vibrancy into the purity of a blinding white void. Unlike its chromatic counterparts, which manifest through tangible acts and vivid displays, White Magic reveals itself as an ethereal whisper, a silent force that brings order to the cosmos.

The White Hats sequester themselves high in the White Tower, meditating in quiet stillness upon a single beam of holy achromatic light. Their magic is the underlying oneness of all things, a reminder that within the heart of complexity lies a simple truth, radiant as pure white light. The adepts of White Magic serve as the silent guardians of this truth, their presence felt not in the clamor of the visible, but in the quiet spaces where all becomes one, and the purity of nothingness speaks louder than words.

Strengths: Guarded, calm, secretive, possess deep wisdom.

Weakness: Aloof, unfriendly, unemotional, and unapproachable.

Shadow Hats

Before the beginning, and after the end, there is only darkness. The black expanse stretches endlessly through the cosmos, and although there are occasional, feeble glimmers of light, they are but brief interruptions in the overwhelming void that consumes all. Blackness sprawls infinitely across the cosmos, and though tiny glimmers of light twinkle feebly here and there, the total void swallows all. The dominion of Black Magic is such that no force within the universe can impose true order upon it; all light yields to its cold embrace. The power of Black Magic is unimaginable that its practice is forbidden. This prohibition is due not so much to the peril of harnessing such great power, but in the total loss of identity by those who seek to control it. It is believed that the Shadow Hats, rumored to dwell within the Quantum Shadow itself, are the elusive custodians of this primordial darkness.

Strengths: ???

Weakness: ???