So they have Innistrad, Zendikar, Amonkhet, Kaladesh and Ixalan so far, IIRC, and (based on the planes they listed in the Amonkhet document), Theros, New Phyrexia, Shandalar, Dominaria and Ravnica might eventually get ones too.
Turns out the guy who writes these, James Wyatt, was the creative lead for Ixalan and its consequently pretty big and detailed for a Planeshift supplement. Reading it gives some interesting insight into how Ixalan was thought out, so I would recommend reading it even if you aren't a D&D player (I myself prefer 3E and Pathfinder over 5E which the Planeshift stuff is written for). Apparently, Wyatt was partially inspired by a classic (meaning probably TSR era) adventure module called The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, so if you want a ready made Ixalan adventure now you know where to look. Its got the full map of Ixalan and Wyatt hints that it was commissioned because of his experiences making D&D's Eberron campaign setting. There is some interesting stuff about why characters from the different Ixalan factions would adventure together (very important at an RPG table), a big section about the monsters of Ixalan, and the vampires, goblins, and merfolk are now subraces of their Zendikar counterparts (at least as far as Planeshifts are concerned).
Perhaps most importantly there is an addendum about the colors of magic and how Wyatt suggests they might relate to D&D's alignment system. Oh, and apparently the reason we haven't gotten rules for drawing mana is that its already quite similar in concept to manipulating the Weave in Forgotten Realms, and he says in the book that when a character pulls at the Weave, whether they know it or not, they draw mana from the land. At least, if you want to cross over Magic and Forgotten Realms. But its an interesting comparison between the two settings.
The stuff about Color alignment includes some interesting thoughts on how a character gets to be aligned with a certain color:
Philosophical Principles: Each color is associated with a set of ideals, values, and principles. White is connected with protection and order, and green with life and nature.
Magical Effects: Different colors of mana are used to power different kinds of spells. Spells of fire, lightning, and speed draw on red mana, while spells of water, ice, and the mind use blue mana.
Races and Creatures: Humans are exceptional, in that they don’t have a particular aptitude or affinity for one color of mana. For other races, and even for nonsentient creatures, the connection is much stronger. Elves, for example, are typically green aligned. They use nature magic, and they value things like balance, stability, and interdependence. Hydras are also green aligned, though they don’t use magic and they don’t have values—even as they can be seen to embody those values. So if you wanted to summon a hydra, you’d use a green spell to do it.
Metaphysical Essence: Sometimes magic or even powerful emotions can change the basic nature of people or creatures in a way that alters their color alignment. A vile curse might change someone from green aligned to black aligned (or both green and black aligned). A terrible loss that spurs someone to vengeance might add red to the person’s color alignment—temporarily or even permanently.
Personality Traits: Different colors of mana are associated with different qualities of personality. It might be that a person who is emotionally driven, creative, and energetic is naturally drawn to the use of red mana; or perhaps using red mana brings out those qualities in a person. Most likely, the effect runs both ways.
So some of this we already knew (whether from playing the game or from paying attention to the stories), but it also confirms that characters can temporarily or permanently change color because of events in their life and exposure to magic effects. Also, I like the idea that it is both someone's personality that effects their choice of color and the other way around.
I... don't really agree with his ideas on alignment and Color, though. I mean, someone on Giant in the Playground noted that according to this document, you would have to have three different colors (most likely the Naya colors) to be Chaotic Good. What? No. Chandra is Chaotic Good and she's a pure Red mage. Alignment in D&D has a very moral absolutist character to it (though I don't want to start a debate about alignment with other D&D players here; I know its contentious), but color philosophy in Magic is much more relativistic and culturally driven precisely because of that two-way interaction Wyatt proposes. For instance, the document flat out states that White is the color of Law and Red is the color of Chaos; but it clearly isn't that cut and dried in the lore. The Boros legion on Ravinca is definitely Lawful by definition, and they are both White and Red. Meanwhile, on Mirroding/New Phyrexia, the Vulshok and the Quiet Furnace (aka the Red Phyrexians) are both Lawful, ironically enough. The Vulshok are Lawful Good because their society is the most orderly and close knit of the Mirran tribes, while the Quiet Furnace is Lawful Neutral because of their refusal to Compleat beings against their will while nevertheless doing everything else that is expected of them by the rest of New Phyrexia. On Mirrodin, clearly Red Magic isn't symbolic of Chaos per-say, but rather strongly symbolizes Individuality and Free Will. That makes a big difference, especially for a D&D player.
Black likewise is as usual representative of Evil and White of Good in this document, but it really shouldn't be that way. Its easy to make Black Evil, but all colors have produced villains and heroes. Black heroes are rare, but they've been done, like Yahenni, Toshiro Umezewa, and Lilliana Xantcha. And white villains have also been done, like Elesh Norn, Lord Konda, and (in the end) Nahiri. A white villain isn't hard to imagine, they are usually Lawful or driven by a corrupt sense of morality. A black hero isn't hard to imagine either, they are pragmatic and ground their morality in down to earth experience of real suffering (like Vraska) or friendship (like Xantcha and Yahenni).
Oh well, at least he chose not to assign any actual rules to these ideas. Which from what I've heard is the general approach 5E takes with alignment anyway. But yeah, if you are going to use character colors don't take this part particularly seriously, treat color as a separate alignment axis to the Good/Evil dichotomy or even the Law/Chaos one. It influences your character's virtues, vices, and values, but doesn't dictate your alignment. Go with what makes sense for the setting or plane your 'walker comes from.
Don't you know? Vraska is Neutral Evil and Elesh Norn is Lawful Good, the former should be killed horribly and the latter is always righteous in her skin-treatment decisions.
I... don't really agree with his ideas on alignment and Color, though. I mean, someone on Giant in the Playground noted that according to this document, you would have to have three different colors (most likely the Naya colors) to be Chaotic Good. What? No. Chandra is Chaotic Good and she's a pure Red mage.
It's fortunate then, that the document's suggested alignment for Red is Chaotic (Any). Chaotic Any includes Chaotic Good.
More generally, you're right: this section of the document has no rules influence, and is a series of suggestions on how to build a character for people with less experience of Magic than obsessive fans like us. Don't expect it to fit every corner case like New Phyrexia or Vraska, but "If others won’t do things when you ask nicely, stop asking nicely." and "Nothing raises my ire like seeing people treat life as disposable." are pretty Vraskan quotes, what with her being an assassin/revolutionary fighting for a better Ravnica for the innocent and downtrodden. Also, Elesh Norn loves orderly environments, punishing rule breakers, and making new friends.
She just has to recycle the old ones first.
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“Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” Esmeralda Santiago Art is life itself.
I... don't really agree with his ideas on alignment and Color, though. I mean, someone on Giant in the Playground noted that according to this document, you would have to have three different colors (most likely the Naya colors) to be Chaotic Good. What? No. Chandra is Chaotic Good and she's a pure Red mage. Alignment in D&D has a very moral absolutist character to it (though I don't want to start a debate about alignment with other D&D players here; I know its contentious), but color philosophy in Magic is much more relativistic and culturally driven precisely because of that two-way interaction Wyatt proposes. For instance, the document flat out states that White is the color of Law and Red is the color of Chaos; but it clearly isn't that cut and dried in the lore. The Boros legion on Ravinca is definitely Lawful by definition, and they are both White and Red. Meanwhile, on Mirroding/New Phyrexia, the Vulshok and the Quiet Furnace (aka the Red Phyrexians) are both Lawful, ironically enough. The Vulshok are Lawful Good because their society is the most orderly and close knit of the Mirran tribes, while the Quiet Furnace is Lawful Neutral because of their refusal to Compleat beings against their will while nevertheless doing everything else that is expected of them by the rest of New Phyrexia. On Mirrodin, clearly Red Magic isn't symbolic of Chaos per-say, but rather strongly symbolizes Individuality and Free Will. That makes a big difference, especially for a D&D player.
Black likewise is as usual representative of Evil and White of Good in this document, but it really shouldn't be that way. Its easy to make Black Evil, but all colors have produced villains and heroes. Black heroes are rare, but they've been done, like Yahenni, Toshiro Umezewa, and Lilliana Xantcha. And white villains have also been done, like Elesh Norn, Lord Konda, and (in the end) Nahiri. A white villain isn't hard to imagine, they are usually Lawful or driven by a corrupt sense of morality. A black hero isn't hard to imagine either, they are pragmatic and ground their morality in down to earth experience of real suffering (like Vraska) or friendship (like Xantcha and Yahenni).
Oh well, at least he chose not to assign any actual rules to these ideas. Which from what I've heard is the general approach 5E takes with alignment anyway. But yeah, if you are going to use character colors don't take this part particularly seriously, treat color as a separate alignment axis to the Good/Evil dichotomy or even the Law/Chaos one. It influences your character's virtues, vices, and values, but doesn't dictate your alignment. Go with what makes sense for the setting or plane your 'walker comes from.
I don't think they meant to imply that a character's colors always had to match their alignment, just that each color leaned toward certain alignments. It's similar to how some races in D&D are associated with a specific alignment, but that doesn't mean that every member of that race shares that alignment. Not all Black characters are Evil, just like not all Vampires are Evil; they simply have more of a tendency to be Evil than other colors/races. (For instance, Kaya is White/Black and she would probably be Neutral Good; she definitely isn't Lawful Evil, like her colors would imply. Vraska would probably be Chaotic Good, despite not having any White or Red in her. Liliana is entirely Black and while she's not Good, I wouldn't consider her Evil either, she's probably True Neutral.)
I didn't read it that way, but still. But even if it were meant to be that (as opposed to the author's opinions), a) I've come to despise the suggested alignments for races and even monsters, especially any stat block that says "always lawful evil" or "always neutral good" because unless they are an outsider like a demon or an angel it doesn't make much real world sense and b) the motives and values described on the tables seem insufficient to fully describe the colors of magic, yet do manage to describe simplistic alignments like Chaotic (any) or Evil (any). That means that for a player who comes to a Planeshift campaign who is more familiar with D&D than Magic will be mislead by this particular description of the colors of Magic. Especially if they are expecting specific spells to have specific alignment qualifiers as a result of their color qualifiers (because at least in previous editions, spells could indeed be alignment specific). And on top of that, the document doesn't even touch on what it means for a character to have three or more color affinities, such as Nichol Bolas, Narset (Kahns timeline), or Urza. As a D&D player and a Vorthos, I would love to go into a Planeshift campaign and also have a document like this that I can hand off to my D&D playing friends so I have a minimum of explaining to do (because the more explaining you have to do, the harder it makes the DM's job, as I found out from trying to play a Warhammer 40K game and not knowing anything about the setting beyond the basic aesthetics). But this document just seems kind of lazy and lacking in areas necessary to perform that function.
Keep in mind, I've had bad experiences with D&D's alignment system because I've played 3.5 alongside a Paladin player. *shudders* Even when they aren't acting deliberately stupid, it was just a really restricting class in a lot of ways. After that, I came to greatly appreciate the relative nuance of Magic's five colors compared to the two axis system. So seeing the core values of each color get oversimplified... well, its just disappointing. Though I suppose not surprising, given the simplistic way the Gatewatch personalities were handled.
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Turns out the guy who writes these, James Wyatt, was the creative lead for Ixalan and its consequently pretty big and detailed for a Planeshift supplement. Reading it gives some interesting insight into how Ixalan was thought out, so I would recommend reading it even if you aren't a D&D player (I myself prefer 3E and Pathfinder over 5E which the Planeshift stuff is written for). Apparently, Wyatt was partially inspired by a classic (meaning probably TSR era) adventure module called The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, so if you want a ready made Ixalan adventure now you know where to look. Its got the full map of Ixalan and Wyatt hints that it was commissioned because of his experiences making D&D's Eberron campaign setting. There is some interesting stuff about why characters from the different Ixalan factions would adventure together (very important at an RPG table), a big section about the monsters of Ixalan, and the vampires, goblins, and merfolk are now subraces of their Zendikar counterparts (at least as far as Planeshifts are concerned).
Perhaps most importantly there is an addendum about the colors of magic and how Wyatt suggests they might relate to D&D's alignment system. Oh, and apparently the reason we haven't gotten rules for drawing mana is that its already quite similar in concept to manipulating the Weave in Forgotten Realms, and he says in the book that when a character pulls at the Weave, whether they know it or not, they draw mana from the land. At least, if you want to cross over Magic and Forgotten Realms. But its an interesting comparison between the two settings.
The stuff about Color alignment includes some interesting thoughts on how a character gets to be aligned with a certain color:
So some of this we already knew (whether from playing the game or from paying attention to the stories), but it also confirms that characters can temporarily or permanently change color because of events in their life and exposure to magic effects. Also, I like the idea that it is both someone's personality that effects their choice of color and the other way around.
I... don't really agree with his ideas on alignment and Color, though. I mean, someone on Giant in the Playground noted that according to this document, you would have to have three different colors (most likely the Naya colors) to be Chaotic Good. What? No. Chandra is Chaotic Good and she's a pure Red mage. Alignment in D&D has a very moral absolutist character to it (though I don't want to start a debate about alignment with other D&D players here; I know its contentious), but color philosophy in Magic is much more relativistic and culturally driven precisely because of that two-way interaction Wyatt proposes. For instance, the document flat out states that White is the color of Law and Red is the color of Chaos; but it clearly isn't that cut and dried in the lore. The Boros legion on Ravinca is definitely Lawful by definition, and they are both White and Red. Meanwhile, on Mirroding/New Phyrexia, the Vulshok and the Quiet Furnace (aka the Red Phyrexians) are both Lawful, ironically enough. The Vulshok are Lawful Good because their society is the most orderly and close knit of the Mirran tribes, while the Quiet Furnace is Lawful Neutral because of their refusal to Compleat beings against their will while nevertheless doing everything else that is expected of them by the rest of New Phyrexia. On Mirrodin, clearly Red Magic isn't symbolic of Chaos per-say, but rather strongly symbolizes Individuality and Free Will. That makes a big difference, especially for a D&D player.
Black likewise is as usual representative of Evil and White of Good in this document, but it really shouldn't be that way. Its easy to make Black Evil, but all colors have produced villains and heroes. Black heroes are rare, but they've been done, like Yahenni, Toshiro Umezewa, and
LillianaXantcha. And white villains have also been done, like Elesh Norn, Lord Konda, and (in the end) Nahiri. A white villain isn't hard to imagine, they are usually Lawful or driven by a corrupt sense of morality. A black hero isn't hard to imagine either, they are pragmatic and ground their morality in down to earth experience of real suffering (like Vraska) or friendship (like Xantcha and Yahenni).Oh well, at least he chose not to assign any actual rules to these ideas. Which from what I've heard is the general approach 5E takes with alignment anyway. But yeah, if you are going to use character colors don't take this part particularly seriously, treat color as a separate alignment axis to the Good/Evil dichotomy or even the Law/Chaos one. It influences your character's virtues, vices, and values, but doesn't dictate your alignment. Go with what makes sense for the setting or plane your 'walker comes from.
More generally, you're right: this section of the document has no rules influence, and is a series of suggestions on how to build a character for people with less experience of Magic than obsessive fans like us. Don't expect it to fit every corner case like New Phyrexia or Vraska, but "If others won’t do things when you ask nicely, stop asking nicely." and "Nothing raises my ire like seeing people treat life as disposable." are pretty Vraskan quotes, what with her being an assassin/revolutionary fighting for a better Ravnica for the innocent and downtrodden. Also, Elesh Norn loves orderly environments, punishing rule breakers, and making new friends.
She just has to recycle the old ones first.
Art is life itself.
I don't think they meant to imply that a character's colors always had to match their alignment, just that each color leaned toward certain alignments. It's similar to how some races in D&D are associated with a specific alignment, but that doesn't mean that every member of that race shares that alignment. Not all Black characters are Evil, just like not all Vampires are Evil; they simply have more of a tendency to be Evil than other colors/races. (For instance, Kaya is White/Black and she would probably be Neutral Good; she definitely isn't Lawful Evil, like her colors would imply. Vraska would probably be Chaotic Good, despite not having any White or Red in her. Liliana is entirely Black and while she's not Good, I wouldn't consider her Evil either, she's probably True Neutral.)
Keep in mind, I've had bad experiences with D&D's alignment system because I've played 3.5 alongside a Paladin player. *shudders* Even when they aren't acting deliberately stupid, it was just a really restricting class in a lot of ways. After that, I came to greatly appreciate the relative nuance of Magic's five colors compared to the two axis system. So seeing the core values of each color get oversimplified... well, its just disappointing. Though I suppose not surprising, given the simplistic way the Gatewatch personalities were handled.