---
title: "Palette"
summary: "The colour of the climb. Seventeen core tokens, three families that never mix casually (the fallen's Ember, the cold Tide, heaven's white), a light study for every stage from where you wake to heaven, and the proposed tokens for heaven and its factions."
status: concept  # A proposal: the story, world and art direction, invented for Alex to keep, change or cut
section: "Art Direction"
html: palette.html
source: www/content/art/palette.md
---

# Palette

*The colour of the climb. Seventeen core tokens, three families that never mix casually (the fallen's Ember, the cold Tide, heaven's white), a light study for every stage from where you wake to heaven, and the proposed tokens for heaven and its factions.*

> Warm is the fallen's own colour.

The palette is shared by the game and this site. Many of the colours come straight from the game's own data, so the build and the wiki agree: Fireball is Ember, Frost Nova is Rime, the Bone Archer is Bone. Every core swatch on this page is drawn live from the same tokens that colour the site.

> **Proposal** (concept, not decided):
>
> Three families do the work, and they never mix casually.
>
> - **The Ember** (Ember, Cinder, Gilded, Spark) is the fallen: life, the player, allies, loot, crafting and fire. In the deep it is the only light; in heaven it is the only colour.
> - **The Tide** (Tide, Rime, Drowned, Ash) is the cold: the drowned, the sea, forgetting and death. It is the intruder in the daylight acts, creeping in at the edge of every scene.
> - **Heaven's white** (the heaven tokens below) is the enemy: heaven itself, the angels' true forms and every piece they play. In a coloured world it is how you tell an angel's work.

This site lives on the world's side, in the dark, which is why it is dark: dark is the world's colour, and white is the enemy's.

A frame in the deep, roughly: four fifths in the two darkest values, the lit fifth carrying the picture. The daylit acts use the full range.

Proposed: a frame in heaven, roughly. The deep's budget turned over: most of it white and pale grey, ink black for every shape and for the party's silhouettes, and the embers the only colour.

## White is evil

Decided by Alex on 25 October 2026, when the climb's end became heaven (see the [overview](../world/overview.md)): **white is the colour of evil.** The game turns the usual custom over. Heaven is white and has no colour at all, drawn in black ink on white; humanity and the world below are dark, with some colour. The ember the fallen carry is the warmest thing in heaven. In the world, angels exist in their true forms, which are white too, a worse white than heaven's glamour: bleached, cracked, bone and porcelain, and a radiance that blinds. Only pieces in play carry white; farmers, priests, traders and children carry none.

> **Proposal** (concept, not decided):
>
> - **Two whites never meet.** Spark, the white-hot core of fire, is a warm white and stays the Ember's. Heaven's white is cold, with no warmth in it, so the two never read as the same colour.
> - **Heaven's grey is cold.** Its shadows are pale cold grey, never warm or blue: no gold, no blue, no warm tones anywhere in heaven but the fallen's.
> - **Each faction's white is its own.** The Wardens' is porcelain, a dead white that has stopped, pinned with Brass. The Heirs' is radiance, a white that burns, with fire at its edge in the world. The Apostates carry almost none: only in the shadow, the teeth and the edge of a hammer.
> - **The more white, the more played.** On a map the whitest things are the angel's champion and its rares; on the climb, the white on a region shows how hard its faction holds it.

### Proposed heaven tokens

> **Proposal** (concept, not decided):
>
> Five new tokens, for heaven and its factions. They are not in the site's stylesheet or the client yet; the swatches here are drawn from the values below. Ink is the core Abyss.

## Core tokens

## Item rarity

Rarity is read from colour before anything else, in the convention Path of Exile taught everyone: a tooltip's header takes its rarity's colour, on Soot with a Brass frame. On monsters, rarity is light rather than geometry: a blue rim for magic, a gold glow for rares, ember for uniques.

> **Proposal** (concept, not decided):
>
> **Rarity and the white work together.** A magic piece carries more white than a plain one, and a rare is moved by an angel's own hand (decided). The white is the piece's body and marks, so it grows with rarity: a plain ghoul has a white mask, a magic one white chains as well, a rare is half white. The rim stays the rarity's colour, so a rare still reads gold at a glance on a white court as in a dark hall.

## Damage types

Each damage type borrows a core token, so a projectile's colour tells you what it will do before it lands. Telegraphs are honest: nothing that can hurt you is dark.

> **Proposal** (concept, not decided):
>
> In heaven, telegraphs stay honest the other way round: on white stone a slam's circle is drawn dark red and ink, never pale, so nothing that can hurt you is white.

## The climb's palettes

> **Proposal** (concept, not decided):
>
> The climb goes up through three registers and comes back to the world for the endgame: ember-noir in the deep, Romantic landscape in the world between, white ink in heaven, and the world's colours with heaven's white on whatever a faction holds. The panels below are light studies in each stage's colours, not scenes; the [journey pages](../journey/index.md) carry the paintings, and the [concept paintings](../art/concept-paintings.md) the new registers. The regions follow the acts the [journey](../journey/index.md) proposes.

### Act 1. The deep

- Where you wakeBlack. A floor of grey feathers, cold embers scattered across it, one shaft of grey light from above. The first ember in your chest is the only warm thing.
  
- The HeartfireSpark and white-gold. Gilded. The great heap of fallen grace Velmarch mined: light everywhere, overexposed, and all of it warm. Holy, unbearable.
  
- The Underhalls and the CinderworksBasalt. Magma and Brass. Only the ember, then hot uplight from rivers of slag. Enormous, then roaring.
  

### Act 2. The drowned world

- The Drawn SeaSalt and bleached sand. Turquoise sky, deep blue shadows. Blinding white noon, heat haze. Bleached, empty, surreal.
  
- The Drowned CoastSlate and verdigris. Tide and Bone. Grey fog, cold shafts: the first daylight, seen through water. Drowned grandeur, silence.
  

### Act 3. The ascent

- The Vale of Velmarch, and HeartholdMeadow green and wheat, slate roofs. Sky blue, and the Tide's fog creeping in. Golden afternoon, shafts through cloud. The last warm place: nostalgic, safe, worth saving.
  
- HarrowwoodMoss and bark. Sun-gold shafts, ember hollows, Gloom violet below. Dappled, then dusk; fungal amber in the Gloamroot. Ancient, watchful, fairy tale.
  
- The Barrow Moors and the High PassDry grass gold and heather. Snow and Rime. Big wind-swept skies, then white-out, then above the clouds: the colour starts to leave. Open, lonely, the dead uneasy.
  
- HeavenGlamour, Chalk and Pewter, ink black for every shape. Cold white light from no source, mist that fades to white. No hue at all but the fallen's embers. Holy, still, wrong.
  

### The endgame. The contested world

- The contested worldThe world's own greens, ochres, earthy reds and deep blue sky, inked. Heaven's white on whatever a faction plays: Porcelain chains and masks, Radiance banners, a town burning on the horizon. The whiter a map, the nearer its place stands to the House.
  
- The UnlitTrue black, void. Specks of ether cyan. Light that illuminates nothing. Wrong.
  

## Token reference

Every colour token, in one table. This page is the reference: the site's stylesheet (`www/assets/site.css`) defines each core, rarity, damage and region token as a CSS custom property under `:root`, and the game client takes its palette constants from it.

### Core

| Token | CSS | Hex | Use | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Abyss | `--abyss` | `#07080b` | Background, the dark itself; heaven's ink | The game's clear colour (black) |
| Soot | `--soot` | `#141317` | Panels, surfaces | The HUD panel |
| Basalt | `--basalt` | `#24222a` | Raised surfaces, borders |  |
| Bone | `--bone` | `#ddd5c0` | Primary text, physical damage | Bone Archer |
| Ash | `--ash` | `#9aa7c7` | Secondary text, the cold neutral | Shifting Ash |
| Brass | `--brass` | `#c7a86b` | UI frames, rules, headings | The HUD's gold |
| Ember | `--ember` | `#ff8a3d` | The accent: fire, the player, calls to action | Fireball |
| Cinder | `--cinder` | `#e8663a` | Deep fire, hover states | Cinder Imp |
| Gilded | `--gilded` | `#f2c84b` | Rare items, highlights | Gilded Ember |
| Spark | `--spark` | `#fff3c4` | The hottest light, very sparing; a warm white | Sovereign Spark |
| Tide | `--tide` | `#6fd0d8` | The cold accent, the sea | Quenching Water |
| Rime | `--rime` | `#8fd8ff` | Cold damage, frost | Frost Nova |
| Drowned | `--drowned` | `#2b4a52` | Deep cold surfaces |  |
| Gloom | `--gloom` | `#6b5a7a` | The Gloamroot, the between | Gloom Spider |
| Storm | `--storm` | `#ffe86b` | Lightning | Arc |
| Blood | `--blood` | `#9e1410` | Life | The HUD's life orb |
| Mana | `--mana` | `#1a33b8` | Mana | The HUD's mana orb |

### Heaven (proposed)

> **Proposal** (concept, not decided):
>
> | Token | CSS | Hex | Use |
> | --- | --- | --- | --- |
> | Glamour | `--h-glamour` | `#eceef1` | Heaven's white: stone, cloud, light (dominant) |
> | Chalk | `--h-chalk` | `#d3d6dc` | Heaven's light shade, mist, dust |
> | Pewter | `--h-pewter` | `#8d929a` | Heaven's shadow, before the ink; the grey feathers where you wake |
> | Porcelain | `--h-porcelain` | `#e6e1d6` | The Wardens' white in the world |
> | Radiance | `--h-radiance` | `#f8faff` | The Heirs' white in the world |
>
> Like the region tokens, they are scenery and faction colours: none of them may stand for a damage type, a rarity or the player. Once kept, they go into `site.css` under `:root` and into the client beside the others.

### Item rarity and damage types

| Token | CSS | Hex | Use |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Normal | `--r-normal` | `#c8c2b2` | Normal items: tooltip header and name |
| Magic | `--r-magic` | `#8fa6ff` | Magic items; the blue rim of magic monsters |
| Rare | `--r-rare` | `#f2c84b` | Rare items (the same as Gilded); the gold glow of rare monsters |
| Unique | `--r-unique` | `#d9772f` | Unique items; the ember glow of unique monsters |
| Physical | `--d-physical` | Bone, `#ddd5c0` | Physical hits, ailments and item text |
| Fire | `--d-fire` | Ember, `#ff8a3d` | Fire |
| Cold | `--d-cold` | Rime, `#8fd8ff` | Cold |
| Lightning | `--d-lightning` | Storm, `#ffe86b` | Lightning |

### Regions

The regions' own colours, used by the light studies above and by any painting or level of that region. They are scenery colours: none of them may stand for a damage type, a rarity or the player.

| Token | CSS | Hex | Use |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Meadow | `--a-meadow` | `#6f8f4e` | The Vale's grass, hedgerows and orchards (dominant) |
| Wheat | `--a-wheat` | `#d8b866` | The Vale's wheat; sun-gold shafts in Harrowwood |
| Sky | `--a-sky` | `#8fb6d8` | The Vale's sky |
| Moss | `--a-moss` | `#4d6b3a` | Harrowwood (dominant) |
| Bark | `--a-bark` | `#3b2f24` | Harrowwood's trunks (dominant) |
| Gloom violet | `--s-violet` | `#3a2f48` | The dark of the Gloamroot under Harrowwood |
| Fungal amber | `--s-amber` | `#d9a441` | Candlecap light in the Gloamroot |
| Dry grass | `--a-drygrass` | `#c2a35a` | The Barrow Moors (dominant) |
| Heather | `--a-heather` | `#7d5a78` | The hollows of the Barrow Moors |
| Snow | `--a-snow` | `#e9eef2` | The High Pass, with Rime |
| Riveted iron | `--s-iron` | `#3d3b40` | Hearthold's iron plates and the hull's dark. Invented by the site: the art direction names the colour without a value |
| Slate | `--s-slate` | `#2a333a` | The Drowned Coast (dominant) |
| Verdigris | `--s-verdigris` | `#4f7a6e` | The Drowned Coast; the Drowned monster family |
| Salt | `--a-salt` | `#f1ece0` | The Drawn Sea's flats (dominant) |
| Bleached sand | `--a-sand` | `#e3d3b0` | The Drawn Sea's dunes (dominant) |
| Turquoise | `--a-turquoise` | `#5fc7d6` | The Drawn Sea's sky |
| Deep basalt | `--s-basalt` | `#1a1716` | The Underhalls (dominant); darker than the core Basalt |
| Magma | `--s-magma` | `#ff6a3d` | The Cinderworks' slag rivers and their uplight |
| Void | `--s-void` | `#0b0710` | The Unlit, with true black |
| Ether cyan | `--s-ether` | `#a8fff4` | The specks in the Unlit. Invented by the site, like riveted iron |

Three colours of the region palettes have no token yet: the Vale's slate roofs, the deep blue shadows of the Drawn Sea, and the Heartfire's white-gold, which the site draws with Spark and Gilded. Riveted iron and ether cyan keep the site's values until the game settles them. The contested world's deep blue sky is drawn by the light study above with a value of its own, until the endgame's regions are settled.

### In the game client

`crates/client/src/hud.rs` carries the tokens the client uses as constants: Soot (at 92% opacity), Brass, Bone, Ash, Gilded, and Magic as the rarity colour. The HUD's other colours (its text, gold and bar gradients) come from the web prototype's HUD stylesheet and are not palette tokens. A new token is added here first, then to `site.css` and the client.