TL 4+1 Ravnica Inspired Ecumenopolis

[Thunderjoe]

How does nature conservation for an ecumenopolis like this work though?

Or at least, how does it work in a RG way? All I can see them doing is trashing the city to make way for nature.

The tools they have access to would make them good at construction and deconstruction of buildings but I find it hard to believe that GR would build things.

[Phantasm]

As someone who hasn't played the game, these two-letter acronyms are quite confusing. I tried thinking first-letter of color... but then what's the diff between RG (red-green) and GR (green-red), and how do you tell blue and black apart? Can you break them down the acronyms, please?

[Thunderjoe]

Oh, yea sorry about that.

B=Black
U=Blue
G=Green
R=Red
W=White

There is no difference between RG and GR, just whichever you put first.

[Angle]

The "Standard" order is WUBRG, though I think there are additional complications with tri-color cards.

And as for RG, trashing buildings to make way for nature might be a valuable service.

[Thunderjoe]

What do you think about the ideas I had for WG, WU, UB, and QB?

Also how deep should I go with the magic overhaul?
I could just go through and list the colors that each spell can be learned in and leave the prerequisites as they are or I could make them different levels of spells based on the minimum number of prerequisites they'd normally take as it is said in Thaumatology: Magical Styles and them simply say that you need to know so many spells of the previous level in order to learn a spell of the next level. e.g. you might need to learn five first level green spells to be able to learn second level green spells.

I feel like the second is a good compromise between the feel of MTG magic and GURPS magic, especially since this is only a modification off a suggestion for making a magic style in Thaumatology.

[Angle]

I'd have GW be more towards Healing & food production, and leave the nature preservation to RG and UG. UB as capitalist inventors sounds good. Have them be fairly ruthless, like the robber barons of Americas gilded age. WU as your general Government workers sounds pretty good. I'm not sure about having them be academics - that's pretty blue, but not that white. Maybe if they're working for whites Common Good somehow. WB as government sounds troubling. Remember, black chaacters only really care about THEIR individual freedoms, and thus a WB government would probably be something like stalinistic totalitarian communism, or as close as it could get.

[Thunderjoe]

Originally Posted by Angle

I'd have GW be more towards Healing & food production, and leave the nature preservation to RG and UG.

Well enough, your argument makes sense but then what does BG do if WG has food production covered. Maybe being totaly healers is more WG's place?

Originally Posted by Angle

UB as capitalist inventors sounds good. Have them be fairly ruthless, like the robber barons of Americas gilded age.

I like the idea.

Originally Posted by Angle

WU as your general Government workers sounds pretty good. I'm not sure about having them be academics - that's pretty blue, but not that white. Maybe if they're working for whites Common Good somehow.

The idea is that they are not just storing and protecting knowledge(very Blue), they are also trying to better the community with it and spread it(very White).

Originally Posted by Angle

WB as government sounds troubling. Remember, black chaacters only really care about THEIR individual freedoms, and thus a WB government would probably be something like stalinistic totalitarian communism, or as close as it could get.

Not necessarily. Instead of going and saying that they are using the community for their interests(almost pure black) disguised as going for equality(very White) they could instead believe that protecting the community(W) is equal to protecting themselves(B) and that it is worth anything to protect themselves and their community. They are the government that isn't afraid to sacrifice some people(and maybe even their own souls, B) for the greater good(W) and is working to balance equality(W) with maintaining personal freedoms(B).

[Angle]

Originally Posted by Thunderjoe

Well enough, your argument makes sense but then what does BG do if WG has food production covered. Maybe being totaly healers is more WG's place?

They could compete with them on that front. They can also cover waste disposal. remember, I think that each Guild should do two or three different things, and that each thing should be done by two or three different Guilds. or each major thing, at least.

Originally Posted by Thunderjoe

The idea is that they are not just storing and protecting knowledge(very Blue), they are also trying to better the community with it and spread it(very White).

Yeah, fair enough.

Originally Posted by Thunderjoe

Not necessarily. Instead of going and saying that they are using the community for their interests(almost pure black) disguised as going for equality(very White) they could instead believe that protecting the community(W) is equal to protecting themselves(B) and that it is worth anything to protect themselves and their community. They are the government that isn't afraid to sacrifice some people(and maybe even their own souls, B) for the greater good(W) and is working to balance equality(W) with maintaining personal freedoms(B).

Yeah, that could work. I still think that the last part doesn't make sense, though - black wouldn't preserve anyone elses personal freedom unless it felt that benefitted it. red is the ones who care about others freedom. Now that I think of it, you could switch WR and WB - have WB be the police and military, and WR be the government.

[Thunderjoe]

Originally Posted by Angle

They could compete with them on that front. They can also cover waste disposal. remember, I think that each Guild should do two or three different things, and that each thing should be done by two or three different Guilds. or each major thing, at least.

Yea, I agree, I just think that each should have a primary job and then what else they do should flow out from there based on what they do and their beliefs. The idea that something has to be written on the official papers.

Originally Posted by Angle

Yeah, that could work. I still think that the last part doesn't make sense, though - black wouldn't preserve anyone elses personal freedom unless it felt that benefitted it. red is the ones who care about others freedom. Now that I think of it, you could switch WR and WB - have WB be the police and military, and WR be the government.

They are preserving their own freedom by preserving the people's as the people are their source of power and it is easiest to gain power from the people if they willingly serve them and that is still not to say that they are above things like slavery. Black will freely enslave people to get what they want and white is at least willing to remove freedoms out of necessity.

And I agree, the Orzhov were a pure black institution pretending to be a white one which is still pure black in my opinion.

[Thunderjoe]

So I'm going to begin converting the magic system and I'll probably list off the colleges and what colors I end up assigning the spells as I go through them. Just to be clear I am removing the normal prerequisites and college systems and replacing the colleges with the five colors and replacing the prerequisites with a tier system. You must learn five green spells from tier one in order to begin learning tier two spells. This is taken mostly from rules presented in Thaumatology: Magical Styles.

I'll put them here because of how long the lists will be.
Also please note that my source some spells that are in other colleges in the air college because they have air spells as a prerequisite and they consider them to be in both. Rather than hunt these down I will probably just work with that list.

First up is the Air College.

The biggest concern I found with the air college is with how much should the weather spells bleed over into the other colors? It is obvious that spells like Lightning should be pure Red but what about more mild spells like storm? Also spells that can help promote life, e.g. Warm, Cool, and Rain can be Green.