Broader Secular Associations
In more secular groups or those associated with dragons and their culture, colors can have meanings and symbolism behind them independent of the gods. Many of these associations have been co-opted by the pantheon itself and woven into their culture.
Red- Due to associations with blood, the color red is most closely associated with life and life magic, which blood magic is often thought to be within the domain of.
Orange- Oranges of all hues are most commonly associated with fire.
Yellow- Innovation, luck, and conquest are ideas commonly associated with yellow due to associations with electricity and the
Solar Dragonflight.
Green- Sickness, bile, recovery. Green can also be used as the inverse, to represent resilience or tainting of something else.
Blue- Due to the regular tides of the ocean and it's seeming resilience throughout the ages, blue has become primarily associated with time.
Purple- A color that has few associations in the more secular world, having been heavily co-opted by the pantheon. Most secular groups associate it with wealth or creativity.
Black- Heavily co-opted by the pantheon, black is primarily associated with life itself. Dark shades of other colors may be used in this way as well. Black also represents the unknown machinations of life in more spiritual groups.
Gray- An association heavily used by the pantheon itself, gray, especially in its lighter tones, is primarily associated with the cycle of destruction, mourning, and rebirth. This symbolism was largely absent prior to the
War of Black Ash - Of Gods, though has since remained prominent in the world. Dark greys, or desaturated versions of other colors, are often used to represent to represent rebirth itself.
White- Inversely to black, white is often used to represent knowledge and things that are known, or a close-minded approach in literary symbolism and art.
Brown- Browns for the most part are often used to represent more diluted forms of black, orange, or red, with only a few distinct shades having their own associations as resilience.
Pinks / Magentas- An association not common outside of the
Dimensional Dragonflight and
Arcana Dragonflight, these colors represent something outside the norm of the world, cosmic unknowns, or trickery due to magenta not being a true color on the visible spectrum. Pinks and magenta have commonly been used as analogs for dragons being able to see some ranges of infrared and ultraviolet light in modern media.
The Major Gods
Color is of massive importance to those who worship the pantheon, and often have distinct meanings in the worship of them.
Mora is most associated with the colors black, brown, and green. Black is often said within Mora's cult, the
Cult of Life, to represent wet fertile soil and farming. Browns are generally attributed to the color of Mora's own pelt, though sometimes said to be associated with the god's connection to forests, representing trees and their bark, a known favored food by the life god. Greens, most obviously, are due to a close association with plant life.
Shia has a much wider array of colors attributed to shi's worship than Mora, likely due to a much longer reign as a god than Mora's own. Shi is most associated with white, representing the bones and sinew within most creatures, gray for funeral ashes, and lavender, a common flower used in Shia's worship by
Shia's Cult. Paler purples are most often used during times of mourning and grief, however darker and much more strikingly vibrant purples are used during the
Festival of Death and for many offerings.
Vibrant greens, yellows, and reds are also not unheard of in Shia's worship either, with a wide array of meanings associated with the colors. Greens and yellows are often thought of as a color to mock the
Cult of Life, symbolically offering up a representation of them to death. Within Shia's followers, the color red has some controversy, with many claiming that red represents blood, a color used to symbolize life and death as one, while many others claim the color is a representation of apples, one of Shia's symbols.
The god of fire's colors are orange, white, and black. The colors are the same as those for the nation, the
Republic of Shanai, historically ruled by Vega since it's creation. It is unknown which came first, the colors being associated with Vega, or the island nation. Orange is said to represent the very flames under the god's control as well as the nation's volcanoes and vibrant sunsets, and white ashes created by the god and the poisonous
Black Wormeye berries he uses as his divine paint. Black has long been associated with fire gods, often as the charr, but in Vega's worship in particular, is a representation of basalt and obsidian, precious stones often used in his worship, as well as Shanai's cooled volcanic flows.
Replacing her father after his death only recently, Fire God Maka has not yet had time to change many of the color associations in her worship yet, still using all of the same traditional colors as Vega. An addition to colors associated with the god has been added to recent worship, with yellow being a highly dominant color, representing the moon on the night of Vega's death. This is thought to be a ploy by Maka into further angering the
Lunar Dragonflight and
Neia Lun De Draco in particular, and as further claim to the moon as one of Maka's symbols.
As the god of water, Nagi is highly associated with colors of the oceans, such as varying hues of blues and teals. Unlike many other aquatic gods, Nagi is primarily associated with the deeper parts of the ocean, leading to a much darker color pallet for his worship, oftentimes heavily making use of black and grays. Yellow is also a prominent color in his worship as well, most often use to represent the sun or Nagi's own bio-luminescence.
Green, pale blue, black
Lapi has a similar color pallet associated with her and her worship, of red, orange, and tan. Unlike many gods, red does not represent blood in the
Cult of Lapi, instead representing the sun baked rocks of Arizona, where the
Temple of Lapi resides, as well as the sands of many deserts in the evenings, a favored time of worship for her. Orange represents soft silted soils as well as freshly formed lava, often associated with her in opposition to the
Cult of Fire. Tans, as well as many browns, are often used as representations of soil, precious mineral ores such as copper, iron, and silver when freshly pulled from the earth, as well as a symbol of Lapi herself.
Due to the color associations, stones such as limestone, sandstone, and red granite have become extremely common in making statues or temples to the earth god, making up the bulk of their structure. The stones are also highly precious for carved representations of Lapi herself for use in shrines, altars, and temples.
The Minor Gods
Minor gods oftentimes have their own color associations, some of which juxtapose against associations from the majors.
Black, white, red, teal, gray, brown
Green, white, blue
Blue, gray, white, red
Orange, blue, white, black
Black, white, blue
Orange, pink, yellow
Blue, white, gold
Brown, black, white, red, and dark blue.
Heavily associated with both the life and death cults, Ludovic's own uses many colors similarly to represent life, death, rebirth, and vitality. Dark blue in particular is common in his worship, representing time, history, and tradition, commonly being used in offerings.
Red, orange, brown
Blue, black, gold
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