I'm trying to make a set of evil organizations based on the 5 colors of MTG. White is the absolute easiest to do, black has a bunch of material available, but I'm having trouble with .

Green is hard because I need an actual organization, due to the nature of the story I'm producing. I also don't want any of the "good" parts seeping into green.

Blue is also difficult because I don't want a simple "mad scientist" group. A lot of blue's bad features tend to splash its allied colors, especially black in its quest for "perfection", and how the two colors methods end up being similar because they have the "do whatever it takes" style in regards to research and objectives respectively. Also, it doesn't give the entire picture of what kind of bad guy blue can potentially be, let alone seperating the evil "means" from the good "ends".

Red is difficult to make an "organization" in the first place that avoids the "good" side of the color. See green.

Since you've said you want to avoid mad scientists (a nasty archetype I've found can fit in , at least), I'm going to go with Visionary Eco-Terrorists. Intellectuals driven by ideology and theory (blue) that the civilized world ought to be replaced with a more 'natural' order (green) and who are rather fond of political violence and large incendiaries to get their way (red). Essentially, green ends through red means for blue reasons.

In each color here is what I'd suggest:

- Some sort of knowledge hive. Brainiac is a pretty blue DC villain and his main goal is just to copy and record all knowledge in the universe while simultaneously deleting the original. This organization could have splashed of black or white in individual members depending on why they are part of the great knowledge gathering. Some may want to gather and curate the world's knowledge because they think the world is too chaotic and destructive to be trusted with it. Other may with all the knowledge in one place as a means to gather power. Other might just be big library nerds who like knowing more than everyone else.

: When Archenemy came out several years ago, one of the decks was based off of a druid who just wanted the wilds to destroy civilization. A circle of druids bent on destroying civilization and taking over in the aftermath might make for a solid green evil corp.

: Evil red doesn't often organize well unless it is organizing against something like a rebel group, or is under the sway of a strong bully character like a goblin king or something.

: Yeah, on its villainous aspects tends to overlap strongly with either (tyranny, utilitarianism, censorship, lasers) or (selfishness, ruthlessness, dishonesty, shadows).

Thr Rimewind cult is a good example of thinking outside of the box and being evil in other ways. Sure, it's a religious organization, but it lacks 's focus on community and order in favor of demented obsession with ice.

if you're going for classic evil organization tropes:

green: militant anarchists/naturalist who want to destroy civilization to return the earth to nature. Alternatively, some sort of natural organism that grows rampant and destroys civilization and/or other nature on its own in a sort of plant-zombie zerg type deal. There wouldn't be a motive there it'd just be growth, although that ends up seeming like less of an organization you could still make a faction out of it.

red: Anarchists again, or something led by a single strong-willed individual with a red-aligned goal. Red is fine with exerting its will on others so as long as the leader is red the organization can be w/e.

blue: This one is the hardest for me. Something like the borg (which i am not super familiar with) or some other technocratic force that seeks to consume, learn, and improve. Ends up feeling more black to me than blue though.

Green evil: takes Gore votes in Florida.

Green's least compelling trait is its belief in predetermination. It erodes our desire for free-will and ability to forge our own destiny. Nihilistic worldviews and caste systems relate.
Blue's least compelling trait is its disregard for humanity. Humans are empathetic creatures, but Blue doesn't care about that. Blue's goals transcends your petty needs. Don't you see the grandness of what they pursue?
Red's least compelling trait is its shortsightedness. Red doesn't stop to think of long-term consequences, and their rash behavior makes them difficult to reason with. Red moves, and you either get away, or get hit.

and then White is it's disregard for individuality and Black is it's disregard for morality.

For green, have you considered some sort of Darwin-esque group who wants to winnow the weak? They may be trying to prove their own strength and expand their "territory". They may see cities and other groups as large animals that they're competing with. An ant/bee hive mentality could work here too, but I like the "Kill the weak city-dwellers to prove your strength!" vibe.

Red could just be a passionate group. They could aim to fight for glory sort of like a Viking group. You can make them passionately opposed to any other colour (they don't like black's cruelty, white's oppressiveness, blue's methodical nature, or green's apathy for the lives of others).

Blue's options are limited by what you've done with black. Both could be about perfection but for different reasons and you can do some good contrast with that. Blue could also think of themselves as visionaries and try to meddle in the entire world's affairs. So they might be trying to "improve the world" according to a vision only they can see. So you'd end up with them genetically modifying things in Green's space because their wolves are better (and there can be some fights written from either side's POV). Or they're try to insert an agent into White's bureaucracy so that they can have "better" laws (and you can have some espionage drama). Or they're trying to direct red's passions by giving them something to fight for (think of a clone that kills and mimics a tribal leader. It gives a perfectly calculated and inflected inspirational speech that launches a Red horde at someone that Blue doesn't like). You could make them an enigmatic group following a plan only they see.

Blue: Spoilers from Madoka Magica. For a blue driven, but unintentional evil, I'd aim more along the concept of Gattaca. Essentially, a group that wants to achieve some lofty goal to make the world better by it's own definition, but has no empathy for those it doesn't benefit

Red: Vigilante Jingoist organization that does crimes that they think their country doesn't have the balls to do. It reads like it should have some white in it, but in practice, it's easy to diminish it.

Green: An ostracized group that decides that the best course of action for survival is to wipe out the inhabitants of an area and build a new home. Otherwise, a counseling group that brainwashes people to be content with their life's situation regardless of whether those people are good or not (Like brainwashing people to not mind being underpaid or being abused by spouses). The key with that latter one though is to make sure the group isn't doing what it does to gain control of things, just to make them content.

It appears that green is the absolute easiest for you guys to make antagonists out of. I was thinking of some kind of "fight club" thing for red though, but I think Ravnica already did that with the Rakdos Cult.

Blue though, it's a real pain in the backside to write a "**** all of you" character from it, without relying on other colors' traits. Just having a group that experiments on others in many ways (between unnatural disasters to **** with the economy) is heavily red-sided. Trying to hoard all knowledge from common people is extremely green-sided. Anything else blue does splashes into its ally colors.

IDK why experimenting on others is red or hoarding knowledge is green but i agree neither of those come off as mono-blue to me except possibly the former if the experimentation is amorally driven. (the means are irrelevant except as a way to reach the ends)

More evil organisation ideas:

- martial artist douchebags

- assimilatory A.I.

- Gem Homeworld

Black: "I don't care about you or your family. I also don't care about telling the truth."
Red: "Oh we're doing these experiments not for NAWLEDGE. Guess what we're really doing them for."
Green: "People were born stupid and meant to be stupid, so they are unworthy of this divine knowledge."
White: "Your actions are illogical, therefore you are anathema to my existence. Die."

I mean, I could try doing something with some Merfolk/Aetherborn cult worshiping Eldrazi, but that's just pathetic.

I'm a bit surprised that nobody's mentioned Aboshan and his plan to flood Otaria for the blue villain slot. Admittedly, it's a bit of a rip-off of green wanting to destroy civilisation to make room for nature, but an aquatic evil organisation that wants to flood everything and crush the 'inferior' land dwellers seems like an alternative to the more knowledge- or science-based concepts we see all the time. Their motivation might ultimately be pretty green, but they'd definitely have style. I don't want to water down my argument with lame puns, but I'm a sucker for underwater stuff

That plot sort of plot reminds me of Pokemon's Team Aqua.

Blue - an organization that wants to be able to manipulate and change things for their benefit on demand (blue's shapeshifting and perfectionist aspects) and doesn't care who is hurt by their alterations of the status quo so long as they can see the results they want and benefit from it themselves. They want to push control of things to their organization, and take it out of the hands of others, and make sure that they can change things on a whim and with ease, and keep others from changing it without their allowing it.

Red - a passionate cult based around charismatic individuals and art who believe themselves to be the true lords of culture, and that they are worthy of great indulgences because of this, and that any sins are forgiveable in the name of art and beauty against those who aren't leaders in the cult or otherwise great artists, and that art and beauty are what one lives for, and things like health and wellbeing of the common person doesn't matter, and they'll steal and be abusive and corrupt and such in order to get wealth and power in order to promote and indulge in their art and culture, being massive hedonists, and trying to reach the heights of emotion and feeling

Green - a violent criminal gang that favors strength and constantly growing the organization, getting new recruits and 'business' opportunities by any means necessary and is bound by ancient, violent traditions and rituals to determine leadership and status, and constantly gathers wealth and other things to benefit it's members, especially the higher status ones, at the cost of non-members and the populace at large and tends to find ways to retaliate and respond to challenges and insults from public figures, politicians, and law enforcement.

Nekomata, all of the organizations you listed vie for power, wealth, and self-interest. They all are neck deep in MtG's black mana.

Not exactly. Seeking power isn't a trait that suits black alone, it is _how_ you seek power that determines if it is black or not. Green for instance wants power, but they seek to 'grow' that power, while blue seeks power by seeking to take control of it or 'create' it, and red doesn't so much seek power, as uses the power they do have.

Wealth isn't an inherently black trait either, it readily dabbles into other colors, particularly blue, in certain ways. The methodology for getting and reasons for desiring that wealth are the things that can make it black.

And I'd debate how self-interest applies there in terms of being black or not.

Why these aren't really that 'black':

Blue - this organization seeks the ability to influence in order to bring about changes, rather than for the power of that influence itself, they seek to solidify their power not just because they want to retain it, but because they want to minimize outside influences in their meddling to get greater control and see the results more clearly. They are also an organization that is friendly to those within it's structure, rather than viciously competing with each-other for status even within the organization, so they aren't entirely selfish. Their activities are closer to doing things like casting Control Magic or Redirect or using Clones and Body Doubles and sometimes causing incidental Gridlock sometimes than more black methods.

Red - They don't seek power for it's own sake, and only grab at it randomly and impulsively in simple manners when they need it for their purposes, and for the most part, are made up of people who already have power and are simply prone to misusing it in the sake of their ideals. Being violent and coercive are still within red pie space without having to be part black. They also aren't entirely selfish, they just have twisted ideals focused around artistry and beauty, so they may be just as likely to protect an artist or beautiful person as they are to bully an ugly plebeian. Black sees value wherever it can get power, regardless of how ugly that source of power is. This group despises ugly things and draws only the power they feel they need for their purposes or that pops up in front of them when they feel the desire for it under emotional impulses.

Green - black seeks power in any way possible, they wouldn't let themselves be bound by this organization's ancient traditions and rituals of ascension and status determination, black also wouldn't seek this organization's constant growth of membership, since they'd want to pare things down to control payouts, nor would they as stringently respond to insults at potential cost in the backlash when it isn't necessary, I'll admit they do have some more black elements than the other ones with the 'any means necessary' I mentioned for how they seek new businesses and that was probably a mistake I made there, and a better green design would probably be that they seek it within certain tried and true (if often illegal) methods, and not at the cost of their own people or other businesses.

nationalists. "You naturally belong to a weaker race, your role is to serve ! Such is fate."
army, practicing Vallerstain's Strategy: War feeds war.
pirates, duh.

Hidetsugu's Yamabushi are the closest I can think of to an evil red organization.

Euron Greyjoy might work as an evil character for your Temur colors. He is a pirate driven by his passions and his peoples' belief that might makes right. His ambitions include becoming a god-king, effectively using arcane lore to warp nature to accomplish his ends ie triggering a magical Chernobyl type event.