Reply To: HELP with running header text variable please!

Color swatches cannot be accessed & set through variables. So you're going to have to do it manually, I think.

Your '14 different master pages' sounds like the best bet. Create the basic design first; then base all your colored ones on this. The general idea is that you would not change anything on the derived pages — only change the base master page.

You can safely override text frames to change the color but make sure not to change anything else. That's vitally important! ID tries to keep track of the original of overridden items, but if you make it stretch too far it'll loose the connection and “derived” items will not update anymore.