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I live in a pre-industrial world, very similar to earth, but with very limited access to magic (no flight, only healing very minor injuries, making flowers grow faster, lighting a candle, etc.).
I recently joined a sea sect residing on a vast archipelago, since I wanted to join the worlds strongest navy!
However, upon arrival they dyed my hair and irises. No matter how much I try to change it, it (magically) goes back to the same color. On what (cultural / social) basis would they do this?
Navies are notorious for desertion. The greatest navy in history, the British navy, had to constantly engage in outrageous behaviors (like kidnapping) just to stay staffed with swabs on the deck. Conditions aboard such ships were epically bad. Food was horrible, water worse. They had to hand out alcohol for the crew to mix into the water just to make it safe to drink.
And being in the navy meant you didn't get a share in a commercial voyage, but instead had to sail around, intimidating people or looking for fights. So as bad as being a sailor was, being a sailor for the navy was worse.
So how do you prevent your sailors from deserting? A sufficiently large navy has a wide range to find people, but it's hard to prove any given person was in your navy. The British didn't care, and would simply stop ships and insist that crewmen on board were British deserters. They did this to a US warship, and it was one of the precipitating events of the war of 1812.
This is simply a way to unambiguously mark who is in your navy. If they run off, EVERYONE knows you were in their navy, and are a deserter. It also means that you can readily identify who is on your side regardless of what country of origin they come from. A pirate can wear a uniform of your navy, but as soon as anyone sees the crew, they know the pirates are lying about being from your side.
That magic is keeping you safe!
Everyone fusses about the color. The fact is the magic treatment prevents disease! Lice used to be a big deal on ships and louseborn disease was a significant cause of illness. Also, sailors in tropical areas suffered greatly from fungal and bacterial skin diseases. Worst of all were diseases transmitted by flying insects which sometimes take up residence in the bilge.
No more. Now the magic protects sailors from all of that. You can keep your pretty hair and you don't have to worry about lice. No scratching yourself raw because of fungus. No terrible fly-borne scourges.
Sulky sailors moan "they dyed my hair with magic. Woe woe woe!". OK, effectively we did. But that color (and skin color if you look close; also eye color) is a byproduct of what we really did - keep you safe!
It is a sign - and proof - of membership. Only the sea sect knows how to create those exact colors, so everyone with this hair and eye color is trusted by everyone to belong to the sea sect.
This means the sea sect's fame as traders/explorers/fishermen/mercenaries/... is extended to all bearing the colors. Even if you and your crew have never been in a given port, most people will treat you better then total strangers.
Also, sea sect members can easily recognize each other even if they have never met in person. Great for helping each other out. And for hunting down those members that try to run away before their duty is done.
They don't want their secrets out with the wind, and since you are in, they want to be sure you will never be out, telling some outsider what they want to protect as an important secret, be it how to make Greek fire or the recipe of their water-less stew.
You should have listened more carefully to the last verse of the anthem all trainees are forced to learn
Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
"Relax," said the night man
"We are programmed to receive
You can check-out any time you like
But you can never leave!"
All novices have the same hair color. When you get promoted to higher ranks within the organisation, you undergo a ritual where your hair- and iris color will be changed to a different color matching your new rank.
This ensures that everyone's rank is immediately visible. It makes it very difficult to impersonate people of a higher rank. When the rank insignia were just a piece of clothing, then any novice could steal a priest robe from the laundry and suddenly they would no longer stand out while snooping around the secret library of forbidden knowledge. But as you said, there are wards against changing your hair color to something else. So anyone with novice-colored hair in an area that's off-limit to novices would stand out immediately.
It's mermaid repellant.
Mermaids (and all mer-kind) are a widely varied bunch, especially in their relationships with humans. Some avoid humans. Some eat humans. Some are friendly to humans. Some marry humans.
The sect's navy got tired of sailors being killed accidently while being pulled deeper and deeper into the sea for each kiss from playful mermaids. No matter what precautions were taken, sooner or later more sailors ended up drowning.
Some in the navy proposed war, but merkind are fearsome opponents and the navy had enough other enemies to deal with.
Then the solution was found. Yet another member of the sect slipped off an anchored ship to cavort with a mermaid. He was a few kisses away from being dragged too deep when the mermaid let go and quickly swam away. As he swam back towards his ship, she surfaced near him. Still being too distracted to realize how closely he had avoided death, he asked why she'd let go.
"Didn't you see it?"
”See what? A shark? A whale?”
A small, very bright green fish swam by. She screamed and covered her eyes. "It's horrible! Make it go away!"
"It's just a liitle fish. Is it poisonous?” he asked.
"No, it's the color. There's something wrong about that color. I can't bear to look at it. None of us can. I'll be ever so grateful if you chase it away.”
Word of this encounter reached the ship's captain. After a few weeks of searching, a fish like the sailor had seen was captured. Just a quick glance at it sent mer people fleeing. More fish were captured, but keeping fish between the sect's sailors and dangerously playful mermaids wasn't easy.
One day, after a few too many rounds of rum, someone suggested making a hair dye of the exact same shade. It worked, but only lasted for a few days before fading. Something more permanent was needed. Eyes were included to protect bald members of the sect.
The color change is only the outwardly visible signal. Some internal change has happened, and the color lets certain people know it has properly taken.
Depending on exactly what the nature of the sect is, it could be nice, boring, or nasty. Maybe even nightmarish.
Maybe this is a world where instead of skin colour, eye and hair colour are what people use to divide themselves up. Have the wrong hair or iris colour in the wrong part of the world and you're a target for intense discrimination and abuse. The navy has had so much trouble with crews of different races descending into conflict and violence between themselves, that they've taken the drastic step of essentially making everyone the same race.
Of course, that isn't going to magically fix things, as much as in our world you can't just make a European person look Chinese and that will fool a Chinese person for longer than a few sentences of conversation (or any at all if they don't speak the language!), but perhaps in the regimented and culturally homogenous navy, where individual cultures are cast aside in favour of a unified military culture, it's enough to stop the violence.
It could be seen as analogous to a school dress code or uniform designed to prevent gang violence by students wearing identifying clothing.
You could also flip the narrative, and instead have a navy that believes very much in "assimilating" other races, to the point where they physically change their recruits appearance so everyone looks like their race.
Naval combat is not fancy until the modern era. Firing cannon on the high seas won't be effective from long range. The cannon itself is not really accurate. The ship is wobbling. So does your target, wobbling and riding the waves. Usually the ships will try to get closer first before opening fire and raiding/boarding one another.
Surprisingly, your naval sect can fire accurately from long range, making battles with other navies rather easier. It does not guarantee 100% win rate, but often enough to damage the other ship very significantly even before it can get close and return accurate fire.
Some will say that your cannon operators and spotters are secretly very talented. Some will say it's just very high and pure luck. Some will say there's just a confounding variable that no one knows yet.
But your navy, oooh, they believe the gods helped them. Because gods like to see their subjects win fights.
That's why they mandated a magic-locked color change done to some part of your body. To appeal to the gods and praising their likeness.
