Creation/Destruction would probably actually be a part of the Material/Void portfolio come to think of it.
To make something from nothing and to make something into nothing sort of folds into that larger work.

I actually really enjoy the Denial/Indulgence binary. I don't see how it's the same thing as Intellect/Instinct, since they don't really seem to be directly related concepts (no more so than any of the others can be philosophically related) and they make a neat pair that comes out to Experience of Creation or something else suitably poetic. And I like the idea of both A. playing with that duality as a sort of two-sides-of-the-same-coin thing (although maybe this is my interest in BDSM culture showing through--indulgence in denial can play a role there) and B. this sort of experiential stuff being in W/B rather than the maybe more traditional R.

I also find Denial/Indulgence to be pretty evocative. There's a kind of sin versus restraint thing here which appeals to me. Do you forgo worldly pleasures, or do you give in to gluttony, lust, and avarice?

It puts me in mind of monastic life, and even self-flagellation, which again kind of gets back to another of Keeper's comments - in either case, your hand is holding the whip, and the only question is who's getting hit with it.

Though I was the one who suggested Denial/Indulgence, I personally find it a little lacking in terms of applicability. You could only really use it towards societies or cultures, you can't really apply it to inanimate objects like the landscape or even properly apply it to natural creatures.

Perhaps a lesser god, but I can't see it as being one who had helped create the physical realities of a world. It's not abstract enough.

I have a hard time seeing how that critique doesn't hold just as true of Intellect/Instinct though.

I suppose... you have a point.

Blue/green could represent an unstoppable force vs. immovable object type of situation, but I don't know how to phrase such a clash in simpler words. It's kind of an efficiency/redundancy thing, really. That's more applicable to the natural world.

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Growth/Decay ?
I know it sounds like creation/destruction, but this is able to differentiate itself from life/death more. Where life/death concerns itself with the simple binary of living things' state of being, growth/decay means how an object, living or dead, animate or not, changes over time. It can be used to describe the way a river's flow meanders over time or carves a canyon; or describe the process of silt deposition creating a new shoreline; or the growth of trees and decay of matter.

Sound good?

I would say Growth/Decay works better for Green/Black than White/Black. White, after all, likes to resist change, whereas Green is much more comfortable with it.

But we're trying to be abstract with it, and white likes community. Community is growth through a collection of numbers, a bunch of ones adding to a whole.

Black prefers singularity, and breaking things down to achieve that singularity.

Unless you'd argue that growth/decay is green/black and life/death is white/black?

Were I doing this, and I wanted both the binary of growth/decay and life/death, I would absolutely use green/black for the former and white/black for the latter, yes. I think life/death works fine in green/black, but to accommodate the other, I would personally move it.

Also, personally, I disagree with the assertion that "community is growth". I think many times White would be perfectly happy with community staying constant, rather than growing. A growing community means more of the flock to worry about, more chances for individuals rebelling, and the need to consume more resources, which I think White, especially in its most dogmatic form, would consider unnecessary risks to the community as a whole. Not that I'm saying that all White-aligned characters or societies would feel that way, of course, I just don't think the connection between community and growth is an automatic one for White.

I think that's fair.

I'm not sure if this is Barinellos's world or whether he's opening it up to the community, though. I've been mostly assuming it's the latter.

Let me construct a current list based on that assumption:
Life/Death - Fate
Growth/Decay - Time
Order/Chaos -Nature
Thought/Instinct -

I'm honestly starting to dislike thought/instinct. Maybe mind/body, but that's still not abstract enough for me.

I must say, this is an absolutely brilliant hook though; I am really enjoying brainstorming this.

Agreed. Challenging, though, but fun.

At the moment, I'm most heavily leaning toward efficiency/redundancy for blue/green. Like the difference between a machine and an organic system. A lot of organs are either pairs (lungs, kidneys) or multi-parted and able to function without one half (brain, lymph nodes and blood vessels, to a lesser extent the heart); and in addition, most breeding strategies involve "throwing as much breeding material as you've got out there" (see: spores, birthing litters, most insect and fish breeding strategies, sperm count).

I'm having a hard time coming up with equal justification for efficiency, though.

A quick drive-by here. If we want to stay in the vein of denial/indulgence for W/B, another vaguely-related frame for the same sort of thing would be sacrifice/greed. But I still find that denial/indulgence really speaks to me.

Quick U/R brainstorms:

Calculation/Chance
Restrain/Release

Calculation/Chance sounds to be encroaching too far into Order/Chaos territory.
Likewise, Restrain/Release already sounds awfully similar to the Denial/Indulgence thing.

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I've been thinking about / in the Action/Reaction way, and I even did a quick search to uncover MaRo's old color articles (though my quick skims aren't helping me so far). I wonder if we can't use that angle somehow. I'm having difficulty putting it to words because things like chemical reactionability doesn't scale up as visibly.

@ Luna - Maybe think of it in terms of proactive / reactive?

Hm... I just think it's a little hard to scale up.

So, I've been spending a little time in MaRo's color articles, and this occurred to me:
Might/Subtlety - Force
Like the difference between a sudden thunderstorm and the inexorable tides. The difference between a final release of a landslide and the gentle wind through the trees. Thoughts?

Sorry that I've been sort of quiet on this front, but Wednesdays are busy for me... and this really kind of exploded.
Also, Sorry that I'm only really responding to Luna here, but he's mostly responding to others, so take that as my commentary.

Think of me as a creative lead.

Growth and Decay don't work for me. Like... at all. I just see it as the crux overlapping both Order/Chaos and Life/Death. I can see where you're coming from, including the idea of Time, but... It just feels like a lot more physical than conceptual.
Also, Order and Chaos as concepts aren't exactly indicative of Nature since it's not meant to be two opposing forces, but two states on the same scale. If anything, it is more symbolic of Entropy than Nature. THAT'S the symbolism close to Time instead of Nature in physical terms.

In addition, just to elaborate on why Life and Death is Fate, the gods are the maintainers of the balance between these forces, so in this situation, it would be a god dedicated to measuring life and death... hence, Fate.
I'm... iffy, but open to Life/Death being attached to white and black. White still feels very very strange as Life considering it works mechanically, but not necessarily thematically.

It's very abstract symbolism meant to structure civilization and wilderness. It's not literally thought and instinct as much as it is the core concepts that DRIVE those larger concepts. It is meant to encompass the two aspects of the World's structure, a very physical aspect that is taken its highest abstraction. This one is one that I am... really going to insist on considering the scale up it ends up generating. If you can find another way to represent the scale of Civilization vs Wilderness in an abstract manner, I'll listen but until then...

Eh, I like to be provocative, glad you are enjoying it.
The amusing thing too? We haven't even gotten to the CHARACTER building yet. We're still wrestling with the conceptual basis! Ha!


There are no lesser gods. Only five major ones.
I actually really like Denial/Indulgence, but I feel like it is too abstract to scale into the physical and might end up folding into Instinct/Intellect, which I've already talked about above. It is Intellect which drives Denial and Instinct which demands Indulgence. It's definitely a different flavor of what that is representative of, but it still feels like it slides into that.

I am open to dissenting opinions though, I welcome them.

I really like Denial/Indulgence, it really showcases what the White/Black conflict really is about. Life and Growth are really more Green's ****, and don't White at all.

A less abstract dichotomy would be Sight/Smell, but it's stupider.


For Blue/Red:

- Inspiration/Stagnancy

- Perfection/Utility

- Preservation/Destruction*

- Evasion/Violence

- Reclusion/Openess


* Different from "life/death" because it's about preserving things versus not laying haste to them

The notion of Mindfulness really makes me resistant to the idea that denial is to intellect as indulgence is to instinct. That seems like a Western enlightenment simplification to me.

Hell, look at something like fine cuisine. Instinct has nothing to do with Larks Tongues in Aspic.

And how many animals besides us naked apes are instinctually indulgent to the point of the grotesque? You might even say that an ecosystem in proper balance is a carefully poised system of denial that must be navigated.



Also, Helio sparked the thought that maybe Introversion/Extroversion is a useful summary of the U/R divide... If we an think about Instinct/Intellect as more abstract and symbolic, perhaps we could think of these qualities in similar terms. The isolated island vs the mountain imposing itself upon the landscape.

Okay, then going back to the list as it should stand:
Life/Death - Fate
Order/Chaos - Entropy/Time *may need to solidify the field these fall under
Thought/Instinct -

Which is... back to square one, really.

So I have to ask at this point: are the fragments of the world the gods created supposed to have already had intelligent creatures in them to have made the distinction of Civilization vs. Wilderness? I've been working under the assumption that the people of this world were created after the gods gathered together all their fragments.

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Heliosphoros's suggestions remind me of something I had considered for red/blue but had thrown out as not applicable enough:
Truth/Deception, or alternatively: Openness/Deception

It could be applicable even to animals in their use of camouflage or hunting tactics. In terms of landscapes, I suppose you could play with how much of something is visible; like how coral reefs can be hidden and cause a ship to run aground vs. a mountain with obvious caves, cracks, and crevices.