> [!Info]- Author's Note > After a phenomenal question on [our discord](https://discord.gg/HB5EzQDmhY) about the upcoming [[The Plague Lords|Plague Lords]] game, I found myself writing an outrageously long message which I instead turned into this page so I could share it as a link and seem less like I'm dropping a thousand words in response to a single sentence. > > One of the points I make early and often is that the galaxy is full of different cultures and aesthetics, so as long as you're trying to fit the general vibe, you're very likely going to be fine. We believe that costuming improves games, and the better the costuming the greater the effect, but we never want cost to be a barrier to gaming. Costume as much as you're able, do your best to contribute to the world, and you'll rarely go wrong. ## General Aesthetic Myriad's aesthetic draws from every source in (real) human history or imagination. There are countless worlds in the galaxy, and many (most?) of them have never heard of the Celestial Empire under which they live. Some are fantastical glitterworlds, others are neolithic Edens, and many (most?) are smog-choked hellscapes. Those few powerful enough to participate in that strange and deadly sport known as "Galactic Society" (which I'll just call society from now on) tend to draw from looks parallel to historical empires, with the main unifying themes being opulence and mysticism. While eclectic, people of a given community (including those who often attend the same Council session) tend to cluster together. The particular look a character cultivates is often an important part of how they are understood by society, and who their friends are assumed to be. That mysticism is most commonly expressed through the trappings of cyberpunk, post-technology magical realism ([[Notes on Aesthetic and Costuming#1|1]]), and nature, especially multi-cellularity ([[Notes on Aesthetic and Costuming#2|2]]). ## Colors Myriad's most significant colors are gold, green, white, violet, and black. While different cultures have different associations, each of these has an "understood" set of associations in society, though just like with psychological color theory in the real world, uncertainty and debate abound. | Color | Associations | | ---------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Gold** | - **Loyalty** to the Empress (especially jewelry or armor)<br>- **Purity** (often striped onto sigils as a way of claiming preeminence among siblings)<br>- **Curiosity**/**Playfulness** (especially when incorporated into clothing)<br>- **Kindness** (gifts of gold are considered appropriate alms for the poor or social lessers) | | **Green** | - **Ambition** (in any domain, not just political or militaristic)<br>- **Intelligence** (more precisely, the belief that intelligence exists and is valuable)<br>- **Honesty** (especially when incorporated into jewelry, with surprisingly vicious disagreement about whether jade or peridot are preferable)<br>- **Discovery** (similar to curiosity, but more mature, less flighty) | | **White** | - **Militarism** and **Rigidity** (especially clothing)<br>- **Pride** (a rapier made of indestructible porcelain would be considered an appropriate personal weapon for the scion of a Great House)<br>- **Favor** (giving someone a white handkerchief is considered a mark of deep affection, often romantic affection) | | **Violet** | - **Religiosity** (especially the Singers, the most popular religion in Myriad)<br>- **Wealth** (especially jewelry)<br>- **Peace** (a "Violet Letter" is roughly parallel to a "white flag", as the Imperial Bureaucracy delivers notices of surrender, suits for armistice, and promises of fealty on violet paper)<br>- **Rebellion** (specifically florals, displaying a lilac tattoo is enough to get murdered by the kind of person who wears golden arm bracers) | | **Black** | - **Sagacity** (Sages almost universally wear black robes or black clothing appropriate to their culture)<br>- **Power** (Captain-Generals of the Voidstalker Corps carry black batons as their symbols of office, those batons are planet-killing superweapons)<br>- **Wonder/Nostalgia** (the Lonesome Black is one of the most common poetic epithets for space, particularly space travel) | > [!Warning]+ Note on Real-World Connotations > It's impossible to design a bigotry-proof system, and we find it tends to be more harmful than good to try. Instead, we want to say explicitly that, regardless of the Myriadic culture in question, a costume which would be inappropriate to wear to a social gathering attended by people of varying gender, ethnicity, race, culture, and religion (e.g., a LARP) is inappropriate (because you're at a LARP). Any attempt to excuse bigotry by saying "it's in the lore" is not only wrong, it is a lie. > > As an example for those lucky enough not to have to predict dogwhistles: if you're playing a militaristic post-technology wizard, those white robes had better look *absolutely nothing* like the ones worn by members of the KKK. Otherwise, pick a different costume. ## Footnotes ### 1 E.g., voluminous robes that can turn a rogue asteroid, a surgically-planted third eye, a tiara that controls a space cannon, etc. ### 2 E.g., mushrooms, hive species, patchworks of any kind -organic or inorganic.