Sarpadian Empires Vol. VIII

Today brings us to the final article in a cycle inspired by the comparison between the color pie and the D&D alignment system. Everything started with the revelation that the standard alignment grid pretty much reflects White’s interaction with its enemy colors, Black and Red. I hypothesized that alignment grids could be made for the other colors in a similar fashion, and that’s what happened. Blue, Black, and Red have come and gone, and that leaves us with Green today.

This article will be just like the last ones, ending with an alignment grid that explains Green’s view of the world. Remember, everything you read here is the world seen through Green-tinted glasses. By the end of this article we’ll have a unique look at how Green thinks and feels.

The Basics of Green

Like the previous articles, we need to start by placing Green and its enemies, Blue and Black, onto an alignment grid. Green occupies the positive axes (what would be Lawful and Good in the official alignment grid), while Blue and Black will be set up in the negatives axes. It’s going to look like this:

Remember, Blue and Black aren’t wrong, but Green thinks they are. So despite all the positive things about Blue and Black, this grid is going to be picking out the negative things Green sees in those colors. Likewise, Green is going to be highlighting its own positive traits rather than rattle on about its shortcomings.

There are two other colors in the color pie, however, so let’s not forget to leave them out. Red and White are Green’s ally colors, but they are also the ally colors of Green’s enemies. What ends up happening is that each of Green’s allies takes a middle-ground position between Green and its enemies. For the alignment grid, that means Red and White are the neutral axes. Red takes up position between Green and Black, while White settles between Green and Blue. That makes the grid look like this:

Placing colors is one thing, but now we need to figure out what they’re all saying in this matrix.

The Philosophies of Green’s Alignment

Alignment systems are rooted in dichotomies, so we have to figure out what the competing ideologies in our grid are. Thankfully, assembling the colors on the grid gives us a guide to follow. The color pie arguments we’re going to be interested in are the Green/Black and Green/Blue relationships. However, we’re going to be treating them as if Green is the right one and the enemy colors are the wrong ones.

So what’s at the core of the Green/Black conflict? This argument is one of determinism vs. free will. Green believes in fate, claiming that the actions of the universe are what determine what you do. Black scoffs and says that it owns the agency to make its own choices. The dialogue here is about control of one’s life. Green understands that it’s just one teeny tiny part of the universe, and it can’t possibly be in control of such an interconnected system. Green is Humble in its selflessness, accepting that forces far greater than itself move nature. Black can’t accept this, and thinks that it has the power to do whatever it wants. This reliance on personal strength makes Black Vain in Green’s eyes. Green sees itself as part of a holistic community, while Black thinks only of itself.

The Green/Blue conflict is rooted in nature vs. nurture. Green believes that you’re born with your full potential already inside you. Blue thinks that people are blank slates that can be shaped and molded to fill any role. This means Green is always true to itself. It’s the all-natural, genuine, real-deal kind of person. It doesn’t need anything else to be the best it can be. This makes Green Honest about itself and how it views the world. If everything is fine how it is, then whatever Green speaks is the truth. Blue, however, is Manipulative. It’s always lying about who it is and trying to be something it’s not. Even worse, it corrupts all of nature by trying to supplant it with technology and change. Green thinks Blue would be better off it just kept its grubby little hands out of the natural processes.

When we look at these conflicts in conjunction, we see that Green is Humble and Honest, staying true to itself as a minor player in the flow of cosmic life. Black is Vain, making it go against the will of the cosmos. Blue is Manipulative, always making stable things worse with change. Replacing our colors with their traits we get the following alignment grid:

Now that we know where our endpoints lie, what can we make of our neutral colors?

Red sits between Green and Black. It generally backs out of the free will vs. determinism argument. While Green and Black argue over who is controlling actions, Red cops out by saying that no one is. Disorder isn’t order, though Red can see disorder as a cosmic truth or as a product of chaotic actions by individuals. Red acts on its emotions, which can be a surrendering to its primal instincts (Green likes that) or an enslavement to its personal gain (Black’s preference).

White is the halfway point between Green and Blue. It straddles the conflict by putting a foot in each camp. Yes, things need to be stable, but that’s an ideal that has to be worked towards, not the truthful state of the world as it exists now. Change is needed, but it can’t get too crazy or people will get hurt. As the color of structure, White builds avenues for controlled change that works towards a future state of honest peace.

Bringing It All Together

Now that we’ve gone over each color and what they’re saying in this grid, it’s time to put it all together. We can visually see all the intricacies of Green’s alignment in the following grid:

Here we have our classic two-trait alignments along with the colors they represent, according to Green’s worldview. Let’s break all nine down and briefly summarize what they’re about.

Honest Humble (Green): These are the people who think everything is fine the way it is and just go about their daily lives. They are confident in who they are and will defend their current way of life because they truly believe that it’s right.

Neutral Humble (White/Green): They are the group most focused on others. They look at the world and see that they are such a tiny piece of it. But they don’t necessarily feel inadequate, as they’ll often work to serve others with their needs.

Manipulative Humble (Blue/Green): While they may be in awe of the sheer size of the cosmos, they are curious about their role in it. Even further, they are curious about the roles of others in it. By playing around with how nature works, they can better understand the processes that govern the universe.

Honest Neutral (Green/Red): These people are true to themselves through-and-through. They know who they are. They know what they want. They have no need to question themselves in their actions because they know what they’re doing is exactly what they’re supposed to be doing.

True Neutral (White/Red): Not particularly pulled in any direction, or perhaps all at once, these people can be frenetic or hypocritical. Sometimes they’ll try to change the world, but sometimes they’ll fight to keep it the same. They may have a hard time with their identity, never sure if they are who they’re supposed to be or if they should be trying to improve themselves.

Manipulative Neutral (Blue/Red): These are the tinkerers. They are rarely satisfied, always changing their plans and living in the moment. They most believe that they can be whoever they want to be. They may work to preserve their own little worlds at the expense of those not directly involved with their way of life.

Honest Vain (Green/Black): They know who they are and believe that they have the power to change the world. They are confident but selfish, filtering their worldview through their own sense of self. They think the world would be a better place if everyone just understood it the way they do.

Neutral Vain (White/Black): These people are the most egocentric. They only care about themselves and their own needs, regardless if those needs mean trampling others to get ahead or stonewalling others to preserve their way of life. They think they are the ones with the most power, which means they can dictate how the world works.

Manipulative Vain (Blue/Black): The bane of Green. These people work only towards their own ends, usurping the natural order to get what they want. They want to warp the world to their own selfish desires, essentially letting them play god.

By the nature of the way these grids are put together, two pairs of colors always get left out. For this grid, those pairs are White/Blue and Black/Red. They don’t have a definite location on the grid, but White/Blue would tend to be in the upper-right of the grid while Black/Red tends to hang out in the lower-left.

The Final Grid

At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that the colors on the above grids don’t perfectly conform to reality. Not every character of a given color pair will be in the square of that color pair above. Nor will every character in a given alignment be of those colors. There’s no better way to demonstrate this than by showing Green’s alignment grid with planeswalkers put on it:

While the colors won’t line up perfectly, the real goal of this exercise is to understand how Green thinks. Its goal is harmony through acceptance, and the alignment grid we created today digs into some of the ideas behind that goal. Green’s honesty and humility allow it to take the world as it is and live a life closely connected to nature. This lifestyle is most threatened by others that seek to change nature or bend it to their selfish wills.

Until next time, planeswalkers, may you find the alignments in your own life.

This is the fourth week of making Magic’s color pie and Dungeons & Dragons’s alignment go on awkward dates, which means it’s time to talk about the color Red. This adventure started when I took a look at how the actual alignment system lined up with the color pie. Turns out that it fit into White’s point of view almost perfectly. The question was asked if it would be possible to produce additional alignment grids for the other four colors, each one focusing on what those colors cared about.

The answers have come in additional articles. I first talked about Blue, and Black was the color of the last article in this cycle. Today will be a look at Red’s alignment grid. The procedure for this article will be the same as the last two, and I’d make sure to read all three past articles before you continue today. Once you’re caught up, feel free to read on below.

The Basics of Red

First, we need to establish the system we’re talking about. Our alignment grid will put the two positive traits (both belonging to Red) on the top and left side (the Lawful and Good axes on the normal alignment grid). On the other sides will be Red’s enemies, White and Blue. To get an idea of where this grid will be going, take a look below:

Red’s idea of what is best are contrasted by the things Red thinks are the worst traits in the Multiverse. These traits belong to White and Blue, Red’s enemies. It’s important to remember that this grid is seen through Red’s eyes, so I’m not saying White and Blue are “wrong” philosophies. What this grid is pointing out are the things Red thinks White and Blue are wrong about.

That leaves the matter of the other two colors, Black and Green, open. Red’s allies sit between Red and its enemies (duh, that’s what makes them allies). To reflect this, Black and Green inhabit the neutral positions on the grid. Black sits between Red and Blue, while Green sits between Red and White. If you’ve been following this article cycle, the below grid should look pretty familiar by now:

Now that we know where the colors are going to go, we have to figure out what they actually stand for in this alignment system.

The Philosophies of Red’s Alignment

In order to bring meaning to our grid, we have to get into Red’s head and think like it thinks (when it bothers to think at all). The driving force behind these alignment systems is the enemy-color relationships. For this grid, those relationships are Red/White and Red/Blue.

The core of the Red/White conflict is chaos vs. order. Red believes that we live in an inherently disorderly world, while White thinks we should live in a structured world. The practical conflict that grows out of this is one of liberty vs. security. Red wants to be able to do stuff, whatever kind of stuffs it feels like doing. It doesn’t like being told what to do, let alone what it can and can’t do. White is the enemy of this idea, the herald of law and morals and all sorts of restrictions on Red’s freedom. In this conflict, Red wants nothing more than to be Liberated. It laughs at White’s adherence to laws and likens them to domesticated animals. To Red, White is Fettered by rules that say “can’t.” Letting rules hold you back goes directly against Red’s goal of freedom.

Red’s conflict with Blue is that of emotion vs. intellect. Red listens to its gut, impulsively doing whatever it wants in the moment it wants it. Blue likes to sit back and think before doing anything. To Red, these desires get to actually happen; the ultimate freedom is getting to do what you want. This is achieved in a simple way: literally just doing what you want. Red is the color of action, making it Proactive. Blue sits there and thinks, and thinks, and thinks some more. While Red is out doing stuff, it looks at Blue and tells it to get its butt in gear. To Red, Blue is Inactive, always planning and never getting things done. Blue squanders its freedom worrying about what will happen.

When we bring these two conflicts together, we get the axes of this alignment grid. Red is Liberated and Proactive, while its enemies are Fettered and Inactive. Lining these traits up with their respective colors results in the following grid:

Remember that the neutral positions are occupied by Red’s allies, Black and Green. How they fit in with the rest of the grid can be explained by their position between these axes.

Black sits between Red and Blue, meaning it is equally proactive and inactive. Black does what is best for itself, so it’s willing to tap into both its own emotions and thoughts when making decisions. It’s definitely a color that wants to do things, but it also wants to make sure things are done right. It’s active but not reckless, scheming but not idle.

Green bridges the gap between Red and White, and thus the gap between being liberated and being fettered. Green embraces its autonomy; nature is wild and free. But Green is also conscious of the greater natural order that governs the world. Predators eat prey. Death begets new life. Destiny drives us all. Green is also conscious of how its actions interfere with these natural processes. It’s less about rules than principles, but those guidelines offer an awful lot of flexibility.

Bringing It All Together

With all the waxing philosophical out of the way, it’s time to bring it all back to the alignment grid. The colors and what they stand for are our ingredients to this pie, and after we bake it all it’s going to look like this:

Now this is what an alignment grid is supposed to look like. Our colors and alignments are all organized and color coded and structured just how Red would hate it. Like the past articles, I’m going to jump into each alignment and briefly explain what they are about.

Liberated Proactive (Red): These people live in the moment, going whatever they want when they want. They can’t stand doing nothing and are always looking to move onto the next thing. They wear their hearts on their sleeve, letting it guide them through the adventure called life.

Neutral Proactive (Green/Red): They want to be doing something. Always doing something. They don’t care who they’re doing it for (if anyone at all), they just like being active. Very much a “shoot first ask questions never” type, they tend to be blunt and are always moving…in some direction. Not always forward.

Fettered Proactive (White/Red): This group is always acting, but always at someone else’s beck and call. They serve a higher calling, but they do so with vigor and passion. When they’re told to jump, they ask, “How high?”

Liberated Neutral (Red/Black): Nobody controls this group. They value their autonomy above all else. If they want to do something, they do it. If they want to do nothing, they do it. You got a problem with that?

True Neutral (Green/Black): These people aren’t prone to any of these traits or are equally split between them. They may act in some occasions, but think about others. Sometimes they are off doing their own thing, but other times they’re glad to follow someone else’s rules.

Fettered Neutral (White/Black): They most want to establish a set of rules and ensure that those rules are followed. By everyone. The system takes precedence over everything else, and they’ll fight for that stability.

Liberated Inactive (Red/Blue): These are the dreamers, the ones that get lost inside their own heads. They are the free thinkers, but that ends up being what they’re best at. They have trouble actually getting things done, preferring to ponder more on a new topic than finish their current project.

Neutral Inactive (Green/Blue): What’s more inactive than thinking over a bunch of topics? Just thinking about one topic. This is the group with the tightest focus. They latch onto something and just think about it over and over. They are meticulous, looking for patterns and relationships without being beholden to what they mean.

Fettered Inactive (White/Blue): Red’s nightmare personalities. They serve a greater system of rules and regulations, applying their brainpower to think about how those constructs interact with each other. They are difficult to push to action, and when they do act they just follow the rules. Red finds them to be the most boring people in the Multiverse.

The way these grids end up being constructed, two color pairs get lost in translation. For this grid, Green/White and Blue/Black fail to show themselves. Green/White tends to be fettered, while Blue/Black tends to be inactive. Each color pair nebulously occupies the top-right and bottom-left corners of the grid, respectively.

I say nebulously because these grids aren’t a hard-and-fast guide to the colors. Not every Liberated Inactive character will be Red/Blue, and not every White/Red character will be Fettered Proactive. These grids are more a thought experiment, a dive into the world as Red sees it. They serve as an exploration of each color and how that color relates to its enemies. Like any tool, these alignment grids are great at doing some jobs, but not every job.

The Final Grid

As is tradition in this cycle, I’m going to end today’s article with a version of Red’s alignment grid populated by planeswalkers. This serves as a great footnote on the “not all the colors will line up perfectly” statement, as you’ll find many planeswalkers showing up on squares that don’t share their colors.

At the end of the day, we learned a lot about Red’s philosophy. The basis of Red’s attitudes is freedom through action. It wants to be able to do whatever it feels like doing, which requires the ability to do those things and the desire to actually do them. For Red, that means the worst thing a person can do is limit their options and try to not do things they want to do.

Join me next week, planeswalkers, when Color Pie Friday becomes totally unbearable.

Today’s article is a continuation of an exploration into the overlaps between the Dungeons & Dragons alignment system and Magic’s color pie. It began when I looked at how alignment matched up with the color pie. The result was that alignment is heavily weighted on White’s belief of peace and order. In addition, each axis on the alignment chart highlighted White’s conflicts with Black and Red, both enemy colors. I then asked, “Well, then could there be other alignment grids rooted in the beliefs of the other four colors?”

A few weeks ago I dove head-first into Blue’s philosophies and showed that it’s definitely possible. All you have to do is figure out Blue’s enemy-colored conflicts and portray Blue as “right” and Red & Green as “wrong.” This produces a grid that showcases Blue’s way of thinking.

Today it’s time to analyze Black’s worldviews and motivations in order to produce a grid that explains why Black thinks it’s the best. Because I can already see the controversy blooming on the horizon, remember that this article is all from Black’s perspective and is not a reflection of my ideas on Green & White nor a complete look at Green & White’s parts of the color pie. With that out of the way, let’s get into it.

The Basics of Black

If you read the article on Blue’s alignment, today’s article will be structured the same way and look very similar. For example, we can start with a basic grid that sets up our dichotomies:

As with past grids, we put our central color along the “positive” sections of the grid and the enemy colors on the “negative” sections. The top-left block is the monocolored block that represents the epitome of the color’s philosophies (This was Lawful Good on the original alignment, White’s ultimate identity.) On the bottom-right dwells Green/White, the thing Black hates the most.

Each neutral section is filled in by Black’s ally colors. These colors are also allies of Black’s enemy, so they usually take a middle-ground stance on the issue at hand (more on this later). With Blue and Red added in, the grid looks like this:

So Blue takes a neutral position in the Black/White conflict, able to side with either color. Red plays the same role in the Black/Green conflict. But what are those conflicts and how might they be expressed on an alignment grid like this?

The Philosophies of Black’s Alignment

First, we have to talk through Black’s conflicts with Green and White. In addition to looking at what each color believes, we need to figure out why Black thinks it’s the winning side of the argument.

The core of the Black/Green conflict is free will vs. determinism. Black thinks that you have the agency to make your own decisions in order to affect your life. Green believes that your actions are affected by things outside your control. Black values the power of choice, while Green values the power of fate. Its ultimate goal is power, which for Black means being in charge of its own life. A belief in any kind of predetermined action totally undercuts Black’s desires. Black is Ambitious, always striving for more and more control over its life. It values results and the ability to change things for the better. To Black, Green is Complacent. Green settles for less, showing no motivation to do anything. Black sees Green as a color that makes excuses for laziness.

The Black/White conflict is the classic bout of amorality vs. morality. Black feels that if it can do something, it should be able to do it. Nothing is off-limits to Black if it means getting the results it wants. White, however, thinks that a sense of right and wrong should govern actions, thoughts, and motivations. The main way this conflict is expressed is internalized motivation vs. externalized motivation. Black wants to do what is best for itself. Black is Independent. Black doesn’t need anyone to watch out for it since Black can take care of itself. White, however, is Subordinate, always kowtowing to the needs of others. Black thinks White is a fool for following false beliefs and sacrifice its own well-being.

These beliefs set up our two axes in Black’s alignment grid. Black is Ambitious and Independent, while its enemies are Complacent and Subordinate. Thus, Black’s grid looks like this:

Now remember that Blue and Red fill in these neutral positions. What are the philosophical reasons why?

Red sits between Black and Green, which means it also sits between the Ambitious and Complacent spectrum. In the free will vs. determinism argument, Red can’t really pick a side. It looks at Black’s sense of autonomy and says, “Eh, other things affect me all the time. If you punch me, I’m gonna get me mad. That would make me punch you back. I can’t help that.” Then again, Green thinks that the world is ordered and filled with patterns. Red chuckles and goes, “Well sure if I get punched I’ll punch back. But I can also be the one doing the punching. You could give me a flower and I might still punch you back.”

Blue sits between the Independent and Subordinate sides of the Black/White conflict. Blue is always looking for perfection, but it can be swayed on how big that goal is. Personal perfection leans towards Black’s ideas of independence, while social perfection leans towards White’s ideas of community.

Bringing It All Together

That’s a lot of information, but thankfully the alignment charts are designed to organize it all pretty conveniently. When we take the colors and what they stand for and slap them onto the grid, this is what we get:

This is a basic chart of how Black views the world. Black values ambition and self-reliance, but it can’t stand those that won’t take responsibility for their lives or who won’t work to make sure their own needs are met. But let’s take some time to break down each alignment with a little blurb.

Ambitious Independent (Black): This is the pinnacle of Black’s philosophy. These people have a goal and actively pursue it until they achieve it. They don’t rely on anyone’s help, only using assistance as a means to an end. They put their own needs before the needs of anyone else.

Neutral Independent (Red/Black): The most egocentrically reckless alignment thrives on disorder. They see themselves as a wild stallion with the power to do literally anything they want. Nobody puts restrictions on these people, who will desperately fight for their personal liberty.

Complacent Independent (Green/Black): These people enjoy being autonomous in their life, but they’re not really looking to change much about how they life. They’re fine with whatever happens to them, as they have the confidence and resources to ensure their survival.

Ambitious Neutral (Black/Blue): This is the group most result-oriented group. Whether they work for themselves or work for others, they want to get things done. They are people with clear-cut goals and a concrete plan to achieve them.

True Neutral (Red/Blue): This is the most balanced part of Black’s alignment grid. They may ambitious in some aspects of their life, but not others. Sometimes they’ll act in their own interest and sometimes they’ll act in the interests of others. They’re generally not focused enough on one part of their life to make significant change in it. They may be heavily conflicted individuals that have trouble choosing a path.

Complacent Neutral (Green/Blue): These people see everything as a part of a great system of interconnected parts. They see that everything has a cause and revel in looking back at how today got to be where it is. They’re not interested in trying to innovate, preferring to take what the world gives them.

Ambitious Subordinate (Black/White): They have lofty goals, working hard to change the world for the sake of others. They don’t necessarily want to help everyone, but the fact that they may compromise their own well-being for someone else means that they’re not totally self-serving.

Neutral Subordinate (Red/White): This group makes almost all of its decisions based on external factors. They will work in service of other people, ideals, or laws. They are the most self-sacrificial group, always willing to put their lives on the line for what they believe in.

Complacent Subordinate (Green/White): These people just go with the flow. They let the world happen to them and are perfectly fine with how things turn out. When the world gives them lemons, they don’t even make lemonade. They just eat lemons.

By the nature of the way these grids are set up, each one will be missing two different color pairs. For Black’s grid, it’s missing White/Blue and Red/Green. These pairs will probably end up in the bottom-left and top-right corners, respectively. White/Blue would tend to be more subordinate than independent, while Red/Green would tend to be more complacent than ambitious.

This incongruence speaks to an important thing to keep in mind when looking at these alignment grids: the colors on the grid don’t necessarily perfectly reflect the color pairs that appear. These grids are best used as a way to delve into a particular color’s philosophy at a different angle. This is a map of Black’s values, not a blueprint to the color pie.

The Final Grid

Of course, what better way to showcase the fact that colors are much more complicated than a simple alignment grid than by placing some planeswalkers on it? Let’s see here:

So while some characters might line up with the colors on Black’s grid, they don’t necessarily have to. After all, it’s going to take five whole alignment grids to match the basics of the color pie.

But what are the fruits of today’s labors? We learned an awful lot about what Black values and what it hates seeing in others. Black is the color that focuses the most on itself, making it the most independent and self-reliant color. Black hates when others make decisions for it and loathes having to play by someone else’s rules. Black is confident that it knows what it needs, and no other color is going to stop it getting what it wants.

Join me next week, planeswalkers, when things get a little messy.

Not too long ago I wrote an article about the cross-sections of Magic’s color pie and Dungeons & Dragons’s alignment system. What I determined was that the alignment system was an inherently White construct; the positive traits are White and the negative traits belong to White’s enemies, Black and Red (If you haven’t read that article yet, please do so. It sets the stage for everything that’s going to happen today.)

That’s a great system for D&D, but the color pie is much more complicated than that. I hypothesized that if there was an alignment system all about White’s view of the world, maybe there could be alignment systems for the other four colors too. Today’s article will be the first attempt to create an alignment system similar to the existing one that is instead rooted in another color’s beliefs. Going in color pie order (naturally), this new system is rooted in Blue.

The Basics of Blue

This article will be quite a bit different than the last one. Before I took the system and worked out what the colors were. Now I will be doing the opposite; I’m starting with the colors and building an alignment system around them.

D&D’s alignment system was founded in White’s enemy color relationships, so it’s only natural that Blue’s alignment follow the same pattern. That means along one axis we will have Blue-to-Red, and the other will have Blue-to-Green. I believe learning is much easier when visuals are involved, so let’s see what the alignment grid is going to look like at this point:

Each axis also has a neutral position, however, and they are filled by Blue’s allies. Between Blue and Red is Black, and between Blue and Green is White. I’ll explain why this happens in a moment, so just go with it for now. With all five colors mapped out, our grid looks like this:

OK, that’s great. But what does this all mean?

The Philosophies of Blue’s Alignment

Remember back to D&D’s alignment and how it represented White. Lawful/Chaotic represented the White/Red conflict, while Good/Evil represented the White/Black conflict. What we need to do with Blue is figure out what its conflicts are about and find some pithy words to stick on our alignment grid.

First, let’s tackle Blue’s conflict with Red. This pair is driven by intellect vs. emotion. Blue wants to use its brain to think before it acts. Red follows its gut to act before it thinks (if it even gets to the thinking part). While both sides have equally positive and negative consequences, it’s important to remember that this alignment system will be favoring Blue. So why does Blue think it’s the right one in this conflict? Because thinking prevents you from making mistakes. Thinking lets you take the correct action, not the action that just feels good. Blue does things because they make sense. Blue is Logical. To Blue, Red is Rash. This all fits into Blue’s ultimate goal: perfection. In order to be perfect, you can’t make mistakes. Thinking is how you prevent mistakes, and not thinking is how you make all the mistakes.

Next is the Blue/Green conflict. This one is nurture vs. nature. Blue thinks you can become whatever you want to be, while Green believes that you are born into a role that you have to follow. How does Blue’s goal of perfection frame this conflict? By the very nature of being a goal to be obtained, Blue thinks that the world isn’t perfect now. Blue wants things to change so that they can be better. Green thinks that you were born perfect, so there’s no reason to try to change anything. Blue thinks it is Progressive; things are OK now, but it can change them to be better in the future. Blue thinks Green is too Conservative; Green is hindering progress by not letting things change.

So Blue is Logical and Progressive, while its enemies are Rash and Conservative. Let’s see what that looks like mapped onto our alignment grid:

Hey, that looks like the first grid! (That’s not a coincidence.) Now, I already established that Black takes the neutral position between Logical and Rash and White takes the neutral position between Progressive and Conservative. Why do they do that?

The short answer is, “Because that’s how the color pie is set up.” A color, by default, splits some of the difference between its two allies (A color’s two allies are always enemy colors.) For this case, let’s look at Black. Black’s allies are Blue and Red, so Black is positioned halfway between the intellect vs. emotion conflict. Black is always looking out for itself first, so it’s the color that knows its own desires best. Thus, Black is good at knowing what it needs and feeling what it wants.

Now let’s look at White. It sits on the nurture vs. nature conflict between Blue and Green. As we examined above, the core of this conflict is the urge to change and the urge to stay the same. White shares Green’s desire for stability, but it also agrees with Blue that the world can be better. White’s reliance on structure gives it the framework to resist change while also providing the specific avenues for controlled change.

Bringing It All Together

Alright, so we’ve aligned colors on our grid and have now aligned ideology onto our grid. What does the final one look like? Just check it out below:

Essentially, this is a blueprint for how Blue sees the world (Puns are always intended.) White believes that the pinnacle of existence is being a Lawful Good character. Blue, however, thinks that the pinnacle of existence is being a Logical Progressive character. As you move away from that corner of Blue’s alignment grid, you become a bigger enemy of Blue (culminating with the dreaded Rash Conservative archetype). Since this is an alignment grid that no one has ever seen before, let’s take a moment to talk about each of the types.

Logical Progressive (Blue): This is where the Blue paragons go. They’re looking to change for the better, but not without a plan of action. They meticulously chart every possible outcome before choosing which path to walk. Every step reshapes who they are while also reshaping the world around them.

Logical Neutral (White/Blue): These are the people who are dedicated to the process above all else. They plan and plan and plan, but to what end? Their thinking has led them to believe that some things need to change and some things need to stay the same. They work to ensure that change doesn’t upset too many people.

Logical Conservative (Green/Blue): To these people, the best way to prevent change is to think through all the outcomes of an action. The one that best upholds the status quo is the right decision. These are the most cautious people on the grid.

Neutral Progressive (Blue/Black): “Change is good,” is the mantra of these people. They desire novelty over all else, no matter how they get there. They often conflate what they want with what is best. These are the sharks, always swimming forward. While they may plan things out ahead of time, they understand that sometimes you need to be flexible in order to achieve your goals.

True Neutral (White/Black): This is the balanced part of the grid. People here understand the need for change, but are aware that it’s disruptive. They also understand that planning is useful but accept that people will always have illogical urges. Change can happen in a closed system so long as an equilibrium is maintained.

Neutral Conservative (Black/Green): These are the people most unwilling to change. They have an established way that they believe everything should go and don’t like when things deviate from the status quo. They will act swiftly to rein in a crumbling system, always trying to return it to its original state. Everything has a place, whether those places make sense or not.

Rash Progressive (Red/Blue): People in this group are always looking to the next thing. They are frenetic, addicted to change. The most important facet about them is that they seek to change based on what they feel they want, not what they think is best. They are very individualistic, nonconformist, and ambitious.

Rash Neutral (Red/White): They are dedicated to action above all else. If you’re not doing something, you’re doing nothing. Their desires are informed by structure, but they’re not afraid of instituting radical changes as needed. These people are almost never satisfied, never able to make up their minds about how much change is the right amount. They rarely bother thinking about their actions because they believe they already know what’s right.

Rash Conservative (Red/Green): They will not change because they don’t want to. They may even get regressive, trying to push the status quo back in time to what it used to be. This is the most suborn group, one that refuses to listen to outside ideas or reflect on its own actions.

Like every one of these alignment charts, there will be two color pairs that don’t appear. This time, Black/Red and Green/White are absent. These pairings tend to gravitate towards the bottom-left and top-right corners, respectively. Black/Red characters are probably Rash and probably not Conservative, while Green/White characters are probably Conservative but probably not Rash.

It’s also important to remember that not every character of these colors falls into these alignments, and not every character of these alignments falls into those colors. Because the alignment system is filtered through Blue’s mindset (like White before it), it’s not a true representation of Magic’s color pie.

So what is it good for? This alignment grid is mostly an exploratory tool that helps explain why Blue is enemies with Red and Green. It also serves as a way to frame the allied-color interactions with White and Black. If you want to understand the color pie, you have to understand each color. And if you want to understand each color, you have to get inside its head. Creating an alignment grid for each color is one way of observing what makes that color tick.

The Final Grid

As with any thought experiment, it’s neat to give a more practical look at the work at the end. That’s why I’ve created this Blue-focused alignment grid for nine of Magic’s planeswalkers:

This is a great way to show that colors and alignments don’t always line up, but that sometimes they do.

So what did we learn today? Blue values the ability to think about its actions and make positive changes in its life. It’s the color striving to reach its full potential, as it believes it can always be better. Blue dislikes Red because it’s unwilling to take the time to think about what it’s doing. Blue dislikes Green because it’s unwilling to take initiative and make the world better.

I wonder, planeswalkers, what we might discover about Black the next time I visit color pie alignments.

In 1997, Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR, Inc. and their tabletop role playing game, Dungeons & Dragons. Between their already burgeoning brand, Magic: The Gathering, and D&D, Wizards had cornered the market on tabletop nerd-dom. Despite fan cries for crossover sets of each brand, the company has vowed not to “cross the streams” and jeopardize the integrity of each individual brand. Good news, everyone! Today I’m going to partake in some stream-crossing and talk about the color pie implications of D&D’s alignment system.

So What Is This Alignment Thing Anyway?

I’ll start with a disclaimer: I don’t play D&D. Don’t ask me questions about it unless you want a snarky answer. The closest I ever got was playing Dungeons or Dragons, the rules-light, verbal, parody adventure we improvised on Boy Scout camping trips.

But don’t let that dissuade you, as I think a lot more people are familiar with D&D’s alignment system with the game itself. Essentially, alignment is a motivation matrix that is used as a guide for how your characters make decisions and why they do the things they do.

Alignment is built along two spectra: Lawful/Chaotic and Good/Evil. These identities are exactly how they sound. Lawful characters believe that the world should be ordered and organized, while chaotic characters believe that life is naturally disordered and that everyone should get to act how they want. Good characters are moral, value life, and put the group over the individual, while Evil characters are amoral, value destruction, and put the individual over the group. Between each end of the spectrum is a neutral group that doesn’t feel one way or the other. Put together, they form a nine-square matrix as seen below:

Fancy. So the overlaps in each square create the nine alignments in D&D: Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil. They look something like this:

Groovy. Each of these nine alignments has a slightly different attitude, and that makes this an interesting thing to try to fold into Magic’s color pie. I could just go one-by-one and assign each identity colors. It’s what I did for the Myers-Briggs article, which also dealt with spectra, but it’s not how I approached alignment.

Color Additives

If you’re familiar with the color pie, the Lawful/Chaotic and Good/Evil spectra should sound familiar to you. They describe the philosophical difference between White/Red and White/Black, respectively. That means we could reformat the alignment grid to look something like this:

When we overlap the colors in the same way that the alignments overlap, the top-left corner becomes mono-White, the top-right corner becomes Red/White, the bottom-left corner becomes White/Black, and the bottom-right corner becomes Black/Red.

It’s a good start, but we have to consider the neutral spaces as well. I wasn’t sure how to approach them initially, but after some thought I realized that the color pie already has the answer. You see, Black and Red are the enemy colors of White. That means that the remaining two colors, Blue and Green, sit between White and its enemies. The color pie already explains that Blue takes a neutral position when it comes to helping others and helping the individual; mono-Blue can be selfless or selfish. In the same way, mono-Green can appreciate an interconnecting natural order while also allowing primal instincts to run wild. So let’s see how the grid looks now:

That’s a lot of words and arrows and twisty axes and not very pretty. But I never said it would be pretty, so I guess I’m off the hook. I bet the grid would look cleaner if I just moved onto the next subtitle. Yeah, let’s do that.

Nine Alignments to the Humans

What we end up with is a grid with one White box and eight two-color boxes. Each alignment corresponds to a unique color pair, which is nice. That makes things easy to talk about. But first, let’s take a look at the grid when we put all the information on it:

Ah, much more organized. And easier to read. And conveys more information. Yes, I think this is the final form of the D&D alignment color pie grid. While this gives you basic information, let’s go into each alignment and explain why it matches that color pair.

Lawful Good (White): These are the goody two-shoes of the world. They believe everyone should work together and be happy and inclusive. And, of course, the best way to do this is by having laws that everyone follows. This should sound familiar; mono-White’s goal is peace through structure.

Neutral Good (Green/White): Being Good means valuing life and community, but this neutral position is equally willing to use order and chaos to maintain peace. Green understand that there are times when laws are helpful (don’t murder other peeps), but also understands that life needs a certain level of autonomy to thrive. Sometimes you just need to follow your gut.

Chaotic Good (Red/White): Again, being Good means supporting life and peace, but the Chaotic side abhors laws and restrictions. This alignment believes people should be free to act as they wish while still being nice to each other. A Chaotic Good character will fight evil to the death, but on their own accord. Sometimes violence just gets the job done.

Lawful Neutral (White/Blue): Lawful characters crave structure. A Lawful Neutral character will still obey laws, but may or may not act for selfish reasons. More likely, this kind of person will act to maintain order rather than act for Good or Evil reasons. Structure for the sake of structure is the slogan of bureaucracy.

True Neutral (Green/Blue): True Neutral seeks total balance. It understands that actions will sometimes need to obey the laws, break the laws, help others, and help itself. Green/Blue is the color combination that is the best at seeing and understanding the totality of existence around it. This character will always think and act in terms of context, making decisions differently depending on the other factors involved.

Chaotic Neutral (Red/Blue): Who has time for Good and Evil when you’re busy doing the craziest stuff possible? These people are loose cannons, accidentally burning your crops down one day and inventing a better plow the next. While these are valuable allies on the days that they decide to screw with your enemies, there’s no telling when they’ll turn around and start screwing with you too.

Lawful Evil (White/Black): Rules are great! You know, when they ensure you always come out ahead. If a Lawful Evil character is the one making the rules, they will make sure that the rules always give them the advantage (power through structure). Otherwise, a person can still follow all the rules while acting only for themselves.

Neutral Evil (Green/Black): These people are always looking out for themselves in any way possible. If following the rules gives them an advantage, they’ll do it. If acting wild gets them the advantage, they’ll do it. Nothing is off limits when it comes to their selfish desires. Green gives them that perspective that best lets them find a way to win.

Chaotic Evil (Red/Black): Revel in the wanton destruction of Chaotic Evil! No regard for life. No regard for rules. These characters have one goal: do whatever I want, whenever I want, so long as I’m having a good time. These are the characters that Lawful Good hates the most.

As you can see, there’s not a lot of Green or Blue philosophy showing through. Because the D&D alignment is so skewed towards the White vs. Black/Red conflicts, it’s difficult for other color philosophies to shine. And, of course, that doesn’t address the other issue…

What Happened to Blue/Black and Red/Green?

It’s true. This configuration doesn’t have a square for Blue/Black or Red/Green. Could these color pairs appear in a D&D character? Certainly, but I don’t think they’re restricted to a specific space on the alignment grid. Blue/Black is definitely Evil, but probably errs more towards Lawful Evil and Neutral Evil. Blue can follow rules, but it’s also good at finding exceptions to them and breaking them in certain situations. Likewise, Red/Green is definitely Chaotic, but probably skews more Chaotic Good and Chaotic Neutral. Green values life and interconnectedness, but it still has violent and destructive survival instincts.

And, you know, the alignments aren’t totally restricted to the colors I have given them. A Lawful Good character could be White/Blue or White/Green. A True Neutral character could be colorless. Not every White/Green character is Neutral Good. You folks should get it by now that caveats always apply.

The Final Final Form

OK, so I bet you all expected some sort of alignment grid with Magic characters on it. So here you go.

Mark Rosewater never denies cool things, so it’s pretty cool that the Dungeons & Dragons alignment system almost perfectly correlates to two of the key facets of the Magic color pie. While alignment is so heavily influenced by White and its enemies, Blue and Green still embody these balanced viewpoints that come in handy when thinking about the alignment system. It also feeds back into the color pie, pointing out some aspects of the colors that aren’t highlighted as often. That’s a major reason I keep doing articles like this; I get to explore the color pie a little differently every time.

Until next time, planeswalkers, may all your dice rolls be natural twenties.