A Prisma’s Expression is its most basic shape, color, and properties. Prisma’s expression varies depending on the nature of the Prismatic Stain applied.
What is Prismatic Expression?
Prismatic Expression serves to differentiate Prisma into categories based on color, shape, and physical properties. Not all Expressions are equal in scope or origin, however — they are organized into orders that reflect the magnitude of the force that shaped them.
Lower-Order Expression
The World’s most fundamental and timeless processes - those of Change, Creation, and Destruction - all serve to Stain Prisma with an Expression that is similarly distinct and fundamental, known as a Lower Order Expression. These Lower Order Expressions each have use-cases and properties that directly mirror the corresponding force that stained them, and are as follows:
Morphic
Morphic Prisma is imbued with Flow. It represents change, movement, adaptability, and currents - found primarily in aquatic environments such as oceans and rivers.
Flow
The force of Flow represents currents of change made manifest. Oceans, Rivers, Coastlines, and Storms are all agents of flow in the world – moving and morphing the world around them. Flow is fickle, adaptable, and much like the water and lightning that defines it, changes shape to suit the situation it’s in. Flow moves through the world, changing it incidentally.
Prima in Environments defined by Flow is stained Yellow – creating what’s called Morphic Prisma.
Morphic Prisma is very malleable, dynamic, and flows around physical matter.
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Stratic
Stratic Prisma is imbued with Iteration. It represents creation, beginnings, and patience - found primarily in layered, cumulative environments such as Forests, Mountains, and Fields
Iteration
The force of Iteration represents creation imposed on the world. Forests, Glaciers, Mountains, and Dense Earth are all agents of fabrication in the world – depositing iterative structures into the world over countless aeons. Fabrication is dense, patient, cumulative and much like the stone that defines it, imposes itself on the world around it.
Prima in Enviroments with heavy Iteration is stained Blue – creating what’s called Stratic Prisma**.
Stratic Prisma is very dense, and layers itself onto the environment around it – resting atop physical matter.
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Entropic
Entropic Prisma is imbued with Decay. It represents destruction, endings, and inevitability - found primarily in harsh environments such as deserts, badlands, and tundras.
Decay
The force of Decay represents destruction made honest. Death, decay and destruction as the mechanism through which the world begins anew. Places with active geologic activity as well as Tundras, Deserts, and Wildfires are all agents of Entropy in the world – leveling the world in preparation for new beginnings. Entropy is powerful, honest, and inevitable, and much like the fire that defines it, pierces the world around it.
Prima in Environments marked by ongoing decay is stained Red – creating what’s called Entropic Prisma.
Entropic Prisma is very potent, biting, and pierces the environment around it – sinking through physical matter.
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Higher-Order Expression
Just as no Prisma is truly stained with a single color, so too can trace amounts of Decay and Iteration be found in even the most Morphic of seas; the yellow environment with its yellow Prisma simply indicates Flow as the dominant force – and thus, dominant Expression.
Environments where two forces act in roughly equal measure, however, produce something neither force creates alone - such as a seaside volcano representing simultaneous Decay and Flow. In such a region, whose Prisma has a roughly equivalent Red and Yellow Expression, the Prisma would take on a visible Orange color – representing Fervor as intersecting forces of Change and Destruction.
Where Lower Order Expressions reflect a single dominant force, these blended Expressions occupy a higher tier of complexity — rarer in nature, and richer in potential. They are known as Higher Order, or Composite Expressions, and are as follows:
Cyclical
Flux
Prisma with an Expression representing equal parts Decay and Iteration is known as Cyclical Prisma, representing Flux as the forces of Creation and Destruction in tandem.
Cyclical Regions are those where iterative, constructive Stratic environments clash with decaying, destructive Entropic ones. This might be an ancient forest whose ecosystem practically relies on frequent wildfires, or volcanic mountains whose peaks are the result of millions of years of dried magma. Subtler Cyclical Regions are far more common than their dramatic counterparts — the Boreal Taiga, whose dense forests grow patiently at the very threshold of survival atop frozen, decaying earth, or the great Savannahs, whose grasslands burn and regrow in seasonal rhythm. In these places the cycle turns quietly, measured in seasons and centuries rather than eruptions.
Cyclical Prisma is distinctly Purple and takes on natures of both its components - dense and potent, bobbing just along the surface of physical matter…sinking into it before hovering above.
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Surging
Fervor
Prisma with an Expression representing equal parts Decay and Flow is known as Surging Prisma, embodying Fervor as powerful destructive force moving along natural currents of momentum.
Surging Regions are where the world’s most kinetic forces collide and consume. This might be in the form of an oceanic volcano or mangrove forest whose unique and wonderous ecosystem lies at the intersection of oceanic currents and swampy decay. The largest Surging Regions are the Elemental Seas - vast stretches of ocean where current and consumption act as one, navigable to those with the strength and nerve for it, and the most dangerous trade routes in the known world.
Surging Prisma is distinctly Orange and takes on the natures of both its components – fluid-yet-piercing, following its own currents of momentum through and around physical matter.
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Disruptive
Foment
Prisma with an Expression representing equal parts Flow and Iteration is known as Disruptive Prisma, embodying Foment as the proliferation of change imposed upon the world.
Disruptive Regions are where the world’s oldest things meet its most fluid. This might be a powerful river that carves through a forest, a coral reef that finds order and structure among the tides, or a Jungle along a coastline – whose towering trees are subject to powerful monsoons and the chaos of its own ecosystem. A keen observer will note that even modest Disruptive Regions carry a faint strangeness - a reef just slightly more maze-like than it ought to be, a riverside forest whose paths never quite match one’s memory of them.
Disruptive Prisma is distinctly Green and takes on natures of both its components – sturdy-yet-malleable, with a slight resistance but ultimately taking on the shape of its container.
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These Higher-Order Expressions develop naturally in the world over aeons, and their corresponding environments represent an intricate homeostasis between the natural forces of the world – where a Cove of Mangroves, Wildfire-Enriched Forest, or Flourishing Coral Reef is each its own delicate and rare natural wonder.
Higher-Order Expressions can also be the result of Prismatic Whiplash, representing an environment thrown into total disarray. If an Invasive Species were to force large populations of Fabric beasts into an Entropic region, the ecosystem and landscape might be thrown into disarray – causing unnatural cycles of proliferation and collapse. This Cyclical Prisma would arise from the perverse side of its underlying principle, representing a Purple as the Tension between Red and Blue instead of its synergy.
The most extreme example of this tends to result from the intervention of humans and other sentient beings – where a Stratic kingdom might realize that importing large amounts of laborers attuned to Surging Prisma alongside huge vats of bright supercharges their production. Orange Prisma here could pollute the waterways and mutate local wildlife as towering smokestacks pump its residue into the region.
Prismatic Wilds
Though most Higher-Order environments exist along the borders of Lower-Order Expressions as composites – such as a Taiga between a Forest and a Tundra – particularly strong overlaps over aeons of time create particularly mystical and dangerous environments with Higher-Order Prisma greater than the sum of its two parts.
In such a case, a Disruptive Jungle might evolve from a simple Blue/Yellow Overlap – the simple intersection of Flow and Creation – into an environment that embodies Foment run Rampant.
The most iconic example of such a place is known as a Verdant Maze – an environment of endless proliferation, deeply removed from an Entropy to temper its growth. Verdant Maze regions grow beyond the boundaries of space itself – where its landscape becomes non-Euclidian in nature, where maps are worthless and distance itself is meaningless in concept. The Green creatures here evolve rapidly, with biology that seems arcane in nature.
Environments such as Verdant Maze Regions are broadly known as Prismatic Wilds, and in contrast to Lower-Order environments, which are largely defined by civilization and mundane geology and ecosystems, are largely unsettled and dominated by Flora, Fauna, and the Whims of Prisma itself.
Prismatic Wilds are dangerous, and proper traversal requires heavy preparation and skill – and even then, there is no guarantee of a safe voyage.
Prismatic Expression Diagram
This diagram is a common one across the Prismatic Realm, and denotes the relationships between Higher and Lower Order Prismatic Expressions at a glance.
