Beaker

The students had all been handwavily instructed that they would be meeting in the Danger Shop for every class, though when they entered it today, it was currently set up to mimic a classroom. On the board at the front of the room a five pointed star was inscribed, and at each point was a word: Peace, Freedom, Perfection, Acceptance, and Power. Beneath the star, several questions were written out:

• What do you desire? What is your end goal?

• What means do you use to achieve these ends?

• What do you care about? What do you represent?

• What do you despise? What negatively drives you?

• Why do you like your allies and hate your enemies?

• What is your greatest strength? Greatest weakness?

Liliana was leaning against the front of her desk, sipping a cup of tea and watching the class file in. As soon as the bell or whatever rang, she began to speak. ( Have introductions on your own time. We have lectures in this class. )

"Each of the words listed here is a summation of what its corresponding color of mana ultimately desires. Due to either a similarity to how the mana seeks to achieve those goals or a similarity in what it repudiates, each color has two allied, or complementary colors. Blue mana plays nicely with black and white, green mana plays nicely with red and white. And, as follows, each other has to enemy colors as well. White magic is enemies with black and red, and red mana is enemies with blue and, again, white. The colors that one type of mana is allied with will be enemies of each other, and the enemies of one kind of mana will be allies. So, while black mana is allied with blue and red, blue and red are enemy colors. Black's enemy colors are white and green, white and green are allies. However, just because certain mana colors are enemies, that doesn't mean you can't use both. Again, I was using black and white together as a girl; in university, I belonged to Witherbloom, which uses black and green mana, and Izzet, a guild on the plane of Ravnica, uses blue and red. All color combinations are possible."

It was a surprisingly elegant system, all things considered. "The questions on the board are questions we will seek to answer every week as we discuss each color in detail. Today, we'll be applying those questions to you, in order to get an idea of what color mana you might be personally drawn to. I'm also interested in hearing your opinions about what desired goal is linked to what color mana, and why you've decided that, and also any questions you have thus far. And, of course, the required introductions. So. Let's begin."