Talk:Mana

As it currently is, this article is incredibly choppy and nigh unto unreadable due in part to the unrefined peppering of copies of entire posts from Armifer in the middle of each section of the article. I propose these sections actually be rewritten so each section is coherent and flows well. I'll do this myself if no one objects. Reene 18:57, 25 May 2008 (CDT)

I don't have any problems with it being edited, provided the information stays intact--Legeres 02:08, 26 May 2008 (CDT)

No objection either. As one of the folks guilty of pasting content in, I'd love to see this more organized. --Ogoh 16:29, 27 May 2008 (CDT)

Gravity/Time

I found a copy of Armifer's post about mana frequency that I knew I had saved somewhere...

>>Holy mana is based on 'divine intervention' - and I believe it resonates on a middle ground between Elemental/Lunar being the polar opposites.

(Divinity) Holy Life Elemental Lunar (Gravity)

The opposite of Lunar is Holy, which you may take however you wish. Elemental is a middle-ground "frequency."

-Armifer "...and we shall be able to see the heavens more clearly, the heavens which, though they still may be cruel, nonetheless will not deny to us their eternal beauties." -Giovanni Boccaccio

According to the player rubric used before this post, "Time" was the opposite of Gravity. Armifer used the term "Divinity" in its place to connotate a wavelength occupied and usable only by the Immortals. The only point I am trying to make is that there are 6 wavelengths of mana, not 7. Listing Divinity at one end and then both Gravity and Time at another seems to be a fallacious mixture that has included both Time and Divinity, which to my understanding are different terms for the same mana frequency.

Article rewrite

I rewrote most of the article, mainly the stuff directly copy-pasted from Armifer's posts. It should be more readable now. I've archived what I culled below for posterity.

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When you successfully CAST a spell, the mana leaves the picture. You have successfully twisted the mana in the right way to produce the spell energy you need, and have released the mana to go back to its natural state. What you're left with is spell energy that is in a spell pattern, and the spell will endure for as long as that pattern is coherent. The spell pattern is still there, can be detected and possibly even dispelled with the right magic, but is made out of spell energy instead of mana.

Defining "spell energy" and "mana" differently in this way may seem obtuse, and...well, it kind of is. But it's used to define two important ramifications in the magic system.

1: Mana is never created or destroyed, only temporarily manipulated. You do not rip mana to shreds, or dispel mana, or exhaust your supply of mana; mana is effectively eternal for mortals. Good thing, too. Otherwise after thousands of years of magic use, Elanthia would be barren of the stuff.

2: Magic resistance, defined as resistance to mana manipulation, does not impact a spell once it is being contested. A Barbarian's BMR might weaken the pattern, but if it still goes off he doesn't get any benefit to dodging a magical lightning bolt any more than he gets a benefit to dodging actual lightning bolts.

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(On mana appearances)

Holy appearance: Golden. By default it has almost no substance, like a shadow of a real mana stream. Clerics perceive it getting more "real" as their Devotion increases. Paladins see it as "real" all the time, but its appearance reflects their soul. Diseased blotches appear around the Paladin in proportion to the amount of sin and hubris in his soul. Even with a pristine soul, they never go away entirely.

Life appearance: Empaths tend to perceive it as something very light and airy, brightly colored and generally pleasant to look at. Rangers perceive it in darker, earthen tones. It ebbs and flows regularly, much like a heart, and tends to shift this way and that when not under the hold of a magician.

Elemental appearance: Bards perceive it aurally rather than visually. Warrior Mages see something that has an amalgamation of elemental traits, and could in general be described as harsh to handle and "fiery," slow to move naturally but libel to jerk out of his mental hold if he's not careful. In both cases, Elemental mana is not the magician's buddy or some target of hippy communion; it is a wild, mindless thing to be mastered.

Lunar appearance: Cold and white, very much like clear starlight. In opposition to Holy, Lunar mana is always seems very much "real" and with a sense of gravity to it. It seems almost static on the level of individual streams, but moves regularly in great, inexorable tides across the planet. Lunar mana has a creepy ability to sometimes form runes, symbols, and other expressions of meaning in the nominally random flux of this tide.

Arcane appearance: A string of dark stains, like a vein of coagulated and discolored fat and grease, hanging in the air like limp ropes. It's never seen moving naturally, though if an area is left untended the streams might be in some radically different configuration when the Necromancer returns. The volume and intensity does not change in these shifts, only its appearance.

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What would happen if someone theoretically tried to force Life and Holy mana together?

Nothing exceptionally interesting, outside the normal necromantic backlash.

The inability to mix Holy and Life has the very noticeable side effect of not allowing a "holy necromancy" to exist, yet it doesn't seem directly related to this end. The gods do not show up and smack you for doing it, it just...doesn't work. It appears that a divine edict has found an accomplice in natural law.

Perhaps the gods have meddled with the laws of the universe to prohibit it. Perhaps this proof there is some innate, cosmic evilness about necromantic mixtures, to the point where the very mechanism is repelled by the emanations of the gods. Or perhaps this is just one very interesting coincidence.

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That should do it. Reene 05:55, 21 June 2008 (CDT)