I have four mage guilds in my WIP. Three specialize in different powers, the fourth appears to have no powers except for the rapid healing and longer lives that all mages have. The three wear red, blue and green cloaks whilst the fourth wear gray cloaks - colours coming from the rods and cones in the eyes. A secret role of the gray is to monitor the other three for any unusually powerful mages. My problem is knowing how to refer to them. I keep writing "the coloured mages" but I feel that may bring people out of the story and so want to avoid it. The best I have come up with is "TriColoured", but wondered if you had any better ideas?
Thanks SapereAude. I think I am going to have to just try different words for a day each and see which sticks. Some example sentences: "The Grey Cloak glanced over at his ??? brethren." "Brannon sensed the presence of mages heading towards him. They must be the ? Cloaks checking I haven't left" "Four mages stood before Emba. The grey cloaked mage stood a pace away from the others, his eyes shifting between her and the other mages. The three ? Cloaks were shoulder to shoulder, their broad welcoming smiles inviting her to join them." Chromatic is the kind of term the Gray cloaks (being learned) might use - I could corrupt it to chromid/chromatics.
I don't know the answer to your question but could suggest the collective term refers to another shared quality, an attitude or set of behaviours, that allows you to leave colours out of it. The Mischievous or Reckless or something along those lines?
'Chromatic' sounds decent, but after checking synonyms for the word 'color' I think you could try 'Shaded', 'Prismatic' or 'Vibrant'. Example: "Brannon sensed the presence of mages heading towards him. They must be the Shaded Cloaks checking I haven't left" Unless you want to focus on something else than color. For example, you could focus on the fact that colored mages have powers that gray ones don't: Arcane Elemental Mystic Divine Celestial Now, let's see: "Brannon sensed the presence of mages heading towards him. They must be the Arcane Cloaks checking I haven't left"
Mages of colour? Haha, I kid. For adjectives I second that chromatic is quite good. Colourful, perhaps. I dig the other point mentioned by two above, too: a sweeping term not referential to colour would be more beneficial. Potent, or just something made up.
Let me get out my 72 year old thesaurus....Let's see... The Anti-Daltonists (daltonism being color-blindness) The Hued Ones/Omens Spectral Timbre The Encolorists Distempering Mages Emblazoners Pigmented Magi Tinctorial Tutors Tingent Wizards Oooh, there's some good colorless synonyms: Etiolated, blanched tintless, pallid, bloodless, anemic, leaden, sallow, ashen, cadaverous.
Thank you all. I think I am going to go with the latin terms "Ilustris" and "Nubilum" - Illustrious and Dark/Dim/Clouded I really liked Nubilis (beclouded or muddled) but typing into google just brings up nubile and I don't want to conjure up that picture.
You say the colour cloaked mages have different powers. I'm guessing there's some kind of elemental affinity there. In which you could refer to them as elemental mages or something like that.
The mages are not elemental, their powers are based on transferring energy (light, heat, and motion) from one object to another. I am keeping it as scientifically accurate* as possible so have calculated the amount of energy that would be required to perform specific feats and an efficiency of 90% - the other 10% being lost as heat into the mage's body, with all the damage that would come from that. They know all about the three primary colours through experiments with the wavelength of light which is why they have chosen red, blue, green for their colours. The greys appear to have no powers other than a very long life - longer than the RGB ones - and so have chosen a shade to symbolise their background role in society, and perhaps their secret life in the shadows...? *The fantasy element is a substance that grants them the ability to do this, extends their life, and grants healing powers.
Good on you—I've always felt that applying conservation of energy would make a super hero or magical fantasy uniquely compelling.
I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not but I think it could be quite fun. Not sure whether to also include the conservation of momentum. I have been imagining they can sap a small amount of kinetic energy from a large stretch of river and apply to a small object but I can't decide if the object would get just the magnitude of the energy or also the direction.
If the Mages are seen by non-mages as one big group (that splits up into the different colored subgroups) they could each go by names based on the color cloak and section of energy they control, if I'm making any sense. As a shot in the dark you could easily call the red cloaks the Heat Mages, the blue the Light Mages, etc, and they'd all collectively be known to outsiders as Energy Mages, or something.