Worldbuilding and Dyes

folclor · Jan 25, 2018

So I'm working on building a world for my current WIP. I know it's a little late, but I'm building a world that is mostly "dead." It's magic-rich but otherwise poor. There are two main races and several different kinds of animals, all mostly subsisting on physical manifestations of magic (hence humans and people not linked to this world cannot really live here without constant flow of supplies from another place). I'm not going to go into all the little details of the place, but my question comes down to this: With that information, does it make sense for there to be dyes?

I understand that most dyes on Earth come from plants or moss or roots, etc. While there are massive hollowed out dead trees, I don't know if this economy would have dyes. And does it take people out to worry about this? The idea is that there are gemstones and different colors to kinds of magic, so color beyond what naturally occurs in the world without magic at this point is not unknown or unheard of, but the clothes and fabrics would mainly be blacks, whites, and browns. Nothing like blue or purple or red.

Again, this is a very small thing to worry about and something that may not be that important in the grand scheme of things, it's just something that has been bothering me in the grand scheme of things.

Laer Carroll · Jan 25, 2018

The usual way to handle something like this is just to show it working, with only a bit of explanation of how and why it works. (The more explanation the more bored your readers are likely to be, and the more problems with the tech/magic they'll imagine.)

For instance, show a scene where a wound is painted blue/green/whatever and it immediately goes less (or more) painful but begins to immediately heal. Don't explain. Show.

For your own peace of mind you may want to rationalize the underpinnings of the tech/magic, and to come up with plot/character/setting useful details which you can insert in your story. But leave out a lot of the how/why in the text you present to your readers.

Brightdreamer · Jan 25, 2018

Would you need dyes? Some cultures just used different fibers to make different colors or patterns. With selective breeding of sheep/goats/llamas/etc. (and perhaps a touch of handwaving), you could cover most earth tones. If you don't want dyes to be a thing, then don't make dyes a thing; there's no reason I can think of that you'd have to have a rainbow of dye hues available naturally. Many cultures didn't without trade, depending on the raw materials available in their region, and they got by fine. Clothing available in all colors is something that only really was a thing once trade routes were established in most areas.

Remember also that minerals and rocks can be used to create pigments; consider a mineral source for your dyes. And dyes and pigments were often prime trading material (IIRC, colors like Phoenician purple were very high-demand in the Classical world, making purple a color so expensive only royalty had it); could you have bright dyes being imports via the humans or other offworlders? (ETA - this could be a world/culture-building opportunity; natives wearing bright clothes could be seen as sellouts if there's any resentment about offworlders, for instance.)

Helix · Jan 25, 2018

Tyrian purple comes from a small number of marine snail species, as does tekhelet (blue) and at least one type of red. Chemicals and minerals also provide colour -- iodine (yellow/brown, blue when exposed to starch), ochres, iron, etc. Iridescence and some blues (such as the blues of butterflies and birds) are structural -- that is, they are produced by crystalline micro-arrays, rather than pigments. There's a bit of stuff to work with when you look around.

AW Admin · Jan 25, 2018

illusions substitute for dyes.

Red dyes and inks in the middle ages sometimes came from mercuric sulphide (a mineral)

Red coloring even today comes from the cochineal bug.

Lichens and mosses make dyes as do some kinds of sea weed.

ULTRAGOTHA · Jan 25, 2018

The entire country of Brazil is named after a wood dye--Brazilwood. It's native to India. When Europeans got to Brazil, they found trees with similar properties and named the country after the dye. Brazilwood gives reds. Logwood is also a tree-based dye. It gives everything from almost black to gorgeous purples.

So if your dead trees have dye properties, you could do that.

Some minerals, such as ochers will dye cloth.

But if they've got dyes, what are they dyeing? Cloth in our world comes from plants or animal hair or insect cocoons.

TSJohnson · Jan 26, 2018

I'm wondering the same thing as ULTRAGOTHA: since their clothing must come from elsewhere, it is probably also dyed elsewhere. What would be the need for dyes? Or is there some kind of a possibility to create cloth in the "dead" world?

BethS · Jan 26, 2018

folclor said:
the clothes and fabrics would mainly be blacks, whites, and browns. Nothing like blue or purple or red.

Even browns and blacks would be created by dyes. Black in particular was extremely difficult to produce and tended to fade quickly. In the Middle Ages and into the Age of Exploration, black clothing was expensive. The Puritans created a demand for it that ultimately led to the use of logwood from the New World, which could create a black that stayed black, or at least stayed black longer. So I would question black and brown clothing, personally, unless they're made of wool that was originally those colors. You might want to research what fibers from plants look like undyed. Wool would be whatever color it was on the animal, except cleaner.

Anyway, if the people in your world don't bother to experiment with dyes, is there a reason for that? The more expensive dyes, such as red, purple, and blue, required a complicated process to produce, so there would have to be demand for them for that industry to develop. But in our world, even primitive societies have traditionally used plant dyes and pigments.

Clovitide · Jan 26, 2018

I really don't think it matters. I rarely think of dyes when I'm reading a book and how it all plays together with the world. I accept what the authors puts down with little to no questions more times than I don't, so, for me, you'd be in the clear with you dyes and however you plan to present them.

folclor · Jan 26, 2018

Huh. I didn't realize blacks and browns would be created with dyes. Thanks for the information! And the animals remaining (only a few species) subsist on tangible magic as well. I would say they use plant fiber but that would be much too brittle. Perhaps I'm thinking too much on all of this. The trees have died and the water is not potable. The only thing left to feed the denizens of this particular world is magic made material. It's also why the main race on the planet is so able to weave spells and such.

Thank you for all of your feedback.

BethS · Jan 26, 2018

folclor said:
Huh. I didn't realize blacks and browns would be created with dyes.

Just wanted to add that unless you specifically bring it up in the story, the question of dyes probably won't enter the reader's head.

frimble3 · Jan 26, 2018

If you keep the colours of clothing muted and subdued, and the descriptions limited, I doubt that most people will question that it even is coloured, let alone how it happens.

Harlequin · Jan 26, 2018

I recommend the YA novel Blue. By Lois Lowry.

Woollybear · Jan 26, 2018

Love the idea of mineralogical sources for dyes. Love it. My mother loved cinnabar (and was into dying) so much so that she bought the perfume which is not red at all.

Several colors at the link can be mineralogical in nature.

http://www.allnaturaldyeing.com/natural-dye-colors/

A cool thing about minerals is that some could be hand waved by you as poisonous. Cinnabar, in fact, when heated releases mercury vapor. thus, your dyers can be mad hatters. Which is fun and educational to boot.

Brightdreamer · Jan 26, 2018

Patty said:
Love the idea of mineralogical sources for dyes. Love it. My mother loved cinnabar (and was into dying) so much so that she bought the perfume which is not red at all.

Several colors at the link can be mineralogical in nature.

http://www.allnaturaldyeing.com/natural-dye-colors/

A cool thing about minerals is that some could be hand waved by you as poisonous. Cinnabar, in fact, when heated releases mercury vapor. thus, your dyers can be mad hatters. Which is fun and educational to boot.

A bit O/T, but my mom's grandmother was an avid rock collector and used to lick the slabs to see the colors... yes, even cinnabar.

Several rocks and minerals are not that great to handle (or lick), without handwaving. And there are paint colors that are no longer available due to hazardous, even deadly ingredients.

Though I do second other comments that this is something unlikely to come up unless you bring it up. Your magic weaving's going to be your main "thing," isn't it? This strikes me a bit like inventing a world with giant spacefaring cybernetic dragons, but where pigs never evolved, and worrying that people will wonder if your characters never have a BLT sandwich. (Plus, if your people can weave with magic, why can't they "weave" color into cloth magically, if it's important to you that there be colorful clothing options?)

blacbird · Jan 26, 2018

You are writing a fantasy, set in a world different from ours. Make something up: Blue dyes get made from the livers of galastrial sea weevils; red dyes get made from the eyeballs of the kessenian ten-legged spider . . .

As a reader I am unlikely to care much about where the colors come from to dye clothing and fabrics. I want to know what the characters wearing those fabrics are doing.

caw

frimble3 · Jan 27, 2018

blacbird said:
You are writing a fantasy, set in a world different from ours. Make something up: Blue dyes get made from the livers of galastrial sea weevils; red dyes get made from the eyeballs of the kessenian ten-legged spider . . .

As a reader I am unlikely to care much about where the colors come from to dye clothing and fabrics. I want to know what the characters wearing those fabrics are doing.

caw

Technicolour silkworms! Or, at least, different species or diets, produce different colours of silk.

folclor · Jan 27, 2018

haha! I've thought a lot about it and read quite a lot about world building. I know that the reader doesn't need to know all the tiny things, but it's more the tapestry of the background, you know? It's something I'd like to figure out even if no one ever reads about it or catches on. I absolutely love the idea of using illusion in place of dyes, so thank you, Admin.

And thank all of you for your time in replying and the great responses. I wish I'd known authors like you growing up as this has been such a great community to become part of.

josh-b · Jan 30, 2018

Unless you're really going for a hard-science approach here, it would make sense to ascribe it to whatever magic sustains the already resource-poor species on your planet. Obviously, you don't want to hand-wave too much or you'll lose investment in the reality of your world, but an in-universe explanation could suffice.

For instance, imbuing certain objects/elements/animals/whatever with said "magic" results in colored excretions, or the aforementioned sources produce those things naturally as a byproduct of how they consume said magic. Keep it simple, short and with a believable explanation based on the world you've already built around it. Unless your book is specifically about dyes or deals heavily in their influence on the world you've spun, you're not likely to get much value out of an exhaustive explanation.

Roxxsmom · Jan 30, 2018

Some dyes are made from powdered minerals.

https://www.carpetencyclopedia.com/manufacturing/dyeing/mineral-dyes

Even if your world is poor in biological material, it would have minerals, presumably. Ochre is a form of iron oxide, for instance, and iron is a pretty common element.

blacbird · Feb 2, 2018

An interesting relevant story:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180202-the-insect-that-painted-europe-red

caw

Eluveitie · Feb 14, 2018

Some dyes are made from things other than plants. Cochineal beetles create red dyes; sea snails can be used to make purple ones. Sepia ink from octopuses, etc.

Kjbartolotta · Feb 14, 2018

Eluveitie said:
Some dyes are made from things other than plants. Cochineal beetles create red dyes; sea snails can be used to make purple ones. Sepia ink from octopuses, etc.

If the society were to factory farm these creatures, that would lead to some compelling & squicky imagery. Additionally, one could imagine the fantasy versions they'd breed for different hues.

Kalsik · Feb 21, 2018

Use an animal form of creature as a dye source. Beetles and insects, lots of them, crushed and processed for the colors, is an easy option.
A mostly dead world could have subterranean life enough to have insect colonies, and underground plants and fungal growths they feed on.
Termite mounds in Africa cultivate fungi underground as a food source, so it isn't unrealistic in your world's setting for them to use some form of arthropod colony farming method. You could even begin to get cute if there's magic involved, and make the dye creatures turn different hues, and therefore provide different dyes, depending on their main diet.
E.g. if a 'dye beetle' farmer wanted a certain color next harvest, they'd switch up what fungi or plant they were eating in their enclosed area.

Worldbuilding and Dyes

folclor

Left-Handed Writing Fairy

Laer Carroll

Aerospace engineer turned writer

Brightdreamer

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist

Helix

socially distancing

AW Admin

ULTRAGOTHA

Merovingian Superhero

TSJohnson

BethS

Clovitide

folclor

Left-Handed Writing Fairy

BethS

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

Harlequin

Eat books, not brains!

Woollybear

Brightdreamer

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist

blacbird

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

folclor

Left-Handed Writing Fairy

josh-b

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido

blacbird

Eluveitie

Kjbartolotta

Potentially has/is dog

Kalsik

Kalsik