Ideas! Bring y' ideas! No idea off limits! I'm building a setting to base a game in — I have no grand ideas for theme or vibe other than fantasy with deep ties to magic. I'm going to put some very rough details below and ask some pointed questions. ALL ideas are valid, and changing details from the overview is FINE.
What is a historical tradition performed in this place? There is a special kind of learning taught at the local university — what can you only learn here? What's the most fiddly of everyday rituals the religious claim will restore you?
What kind of crime is ignored by the local constabulary? Where would you go to hear the basic, and the most juicy of gossip? What secret is the local guild of colors keeping from everyone? What is the hierarchy of color touted by the nobility and why do the common folk scorn it?
1. Greetings/goodbyes reference light and color, and potentially mention transcendence. 1.a. kite festival with contests for the most colorful, artistic theme, inspiring 1.b. a festival like Holi, maybe? where the idea is to get as much colored dust on people as possible as a means to aid in enlightenment.
(The week after the holiday is dedicated to scrubbing the town and restoring its usual appearance. This allows for people to commission new murals and artwork for the exteriors of their buildings.)
2. Special teachings: prismatic/light-related magic, color theory, holy rites and rituals for cleansing and uplifting the spirit through color and light.
3. The washing of hands takes place in a glass basin, with water tinted the color of the day of the week, under a prism or beside something which casts rainbows across the water.
(the elite use stained glass bowls and may have magical light sources to allow hand washing at any time of day. The poor make do with moving the bowl around the house and only inviting guests during the day so as not to insult people with unblessed water.
but let's be real, the poor don't give a shit. Water from the nearest canal or rain barrel is fine, in whatever bowl you have, and prismatic color/light is often nonexistent.)
5. Juiciest gossip is where the communal clothes washing places are. Eateries and gambling establishments are good, but you want young people doing something boring and wanting to one-up their peers.
6. The thing is... the colors having meaning and mysticism came after the hierarchy was established. ...also they bribe outsiders to bring them new materials and fashion tidbits from the outside world. They're running out of ideas.
These are fabulous (as always,) but HELL YEAH, feel free to share! Like I said, I'm just pooling ideas, and even if some don't get applied to this location, I have a whole setting I'm poking my fingers into the clay of.
I'm building a setting to base a game in — I have no grand ideas for theme or vibe other than fantasy with deep ties to magic. I'm going to put some very rough details below and ask some pointed questions. ALL ideas are valid, and changing details from the overview is FINE.
There is a special kind of learning taught at the local university — what can you only learn here?
What's the most fiddly of everyday rituals the religious claim will restore you?
Where would you go to hear the basic, and the most juicy of gossip?
What secret is the local guild of colors keeping from everyone?
What is the hierarchy of color touted by the nobility and why do the common folk scorn it?
1.a. kite festival with contests for the most colorful, artistic theme, inspiring
1.b. a festival like Holi, maybe? where the idea is to get as much colored dust on people as possible as a means to aid in enlightenment.