User:Average/Mana

Small scale life force. Without mana, you're generally on your way to death, you're generally unperceptive, and the unseen forces at large will rip you apart and you lose HPs per round. Since it is a critical resource, races have evolved different responses to mana depletion. Elfes will collapse at that point out of self-preservation, but they generally know when they've reached near that point and eat. Dwarfes generally won't notice and their hit-points will start to go down (3 HP per round) before they collapse, possibly dead if they push themselves harder than they should (hence the gods gave them one less time-slot per round than other races, so they have some chance of surviving or receiving help from those who have more). Azhians and Faerys will go narcoleptic and fall asleep (hence you don't see a lot of azhian fighting wizards) at mana depletion. Afrikans and Færuni will simply feel tired with the various adaptations to that. Aryans can get more assertive (mana strike) if they're feeling defensive, drawing upon a built-in extra reserve from their ancestry, but their wisdom goes down and they'll crash harder later, making them slightly vulnerable to attacks during sleep (they'll generally just go eat). Al Qadim either get fearful at that stage or assertive and seek to find shelter. Dragonkind lose their ability to think, but otherwise you wouldn't notice unless they try to exert themselves harder than normal (they get support from the gods until their karma is completed). Fey-types and animals will seek to find protected areas during mana depletion (generally just like the al-qadim). These are general effects, giving you a wider idea of the difference between races -- these effects can shift if their gods intervene.

Sometimes, mana is kept with your gods, like in a Cleric. In some cases, if a cleric allows their mana to go to zero, their piety is generally halved (by their gods), until they make a sacrifice.

Each class uses mana differently:

• Neo-Warriors and Fighters: transform it into muscle
• Leaders: use it for the leading, generally towards higher charisma, higher civilization, gives +DAM to fael members.
• Craftslan: use it for converting into an extra time quanta (crafty like a rogue)
• Clerics: direct it for healing
• Druids: can direct to transmute the elements or to move matter.
• Witches and Wizards: use it for spell-casting
• Herbalists: can create and animate life
• Explorers: explorers apply it to gain fab for their travels
• Magistrates: generally converts from CON (from everyone who is lawful) towards STR when needed, +HIT effectiveness depending on how many support their law

You expend approximately 50-100 mana for each completed sentence spoken at normal volume, twice or more than that for shouting and your ability to stand erect, speak, or move will falter if you drop to zero. 0 HP and 0 Mana = dead. Most will fall before they reach zero, giving anyone around a chance to notice. But, if you talk or expend your energy at this critical juncture, you will have perhaps no way back. And the chances to get hit on a critical attack are doubled.

Mana comsumption doulbles if your shivering in the cold, or if your STRength falls below certain levels under load, if you're try to parse very complex stimuli (multiple conversations at once, several moving threatening projectiles, running in unfamiliar or rough terrain, etc.), or if you have spellplague.

One hundred of these accumulate into a time slot: a unit of action. Sleeping (defined as rest without keeping subconscious "sentinels" for detecting movement, for example) will generate about 600 mana per round, if it is undisturbed, otherwise simple rest 300 if the player has eaten. Deep sleep can double that rate, but it only happens because your ancestry or your gods are making that happen -- not player-choice. Most races get 6 time credits per round. That expends 600 mana. Half of that's generally used for perception and cognition. Running and combat (both spellcasting and swinging swords) consume at twice the normal rate. If you want to stand still and cast all your mana towards a spell, it will depend on your level on how much you succeed, but at least 100 is going to be used for vocalizing the spell. If you strike an opponent right in-between their mana re-uptake between rounds (they've used all of their mana for the round), you'll get a critical hit. There are hardly any other "critical hits": the dice rule.

Mana can accumulate if you are resting/sleeping (one half-night = 10 rounds of rest = 6000 mana -- enough to start your day), if you have good or decent luck. Whether you declare one or not, the gods dictate your mana re-uptake, based on the larger scale agendas that are playing out and resolving. In meditation or prayer, they accumulate from dispensation from your personal gods. From rest, from the god(s) who created you and/or ancestry. From foods, you are generally taking the mana stored within it - expect to give back to the gods who created it in some form. That's the purpose of shrines and things.

Mages use the power of the word to call mana from the aethers to create the power of a spell. If you deploy all of your mana for a spell (beyond your time-slots) and you are not a mage, you will feel faint and be done for the day -- unless you have a restorative potion or rest. (If you are a mage you will have stopped just before depleting your mana reserves.) Druids increase their relationship to the aethers in order to gain more power to move their physicality. Healers direct it into others in order to heal them. Fighters store it in their muscle tissue, so they can wield their strength. So you can see, for all things mana is an important asset that people learn to master, more or less subconsiously as they master themselves.

Mage spells calculate damage based on how much mana directed towards their target. A missilus magici can make LVL HPs of damage/100 mana (if you hit your target); that means, if you are LVL 1, using 100 mana/time-slots, that generally equals 5 HP damage to your target per round, since you are using 5/6 time slots for your actual cast and one for your incantation.

If you go to -HP with a lot of mana, you go into other planes of awareness. If you go to 0 mana with plenty of HP, you run out of breath and lose your vision and/or hallucinate. So you'll have to calculate the risk of using all of your bonus time-slots, leaving you at 0 mana: vulnerable and unprotected -- the exact place where critical hits happen.

Mana is connected to XP. If you are in a life and death situation, you can sacrifice your XP and get half of the value in mana. This is how Gandalf survived the battle with the Balrog, becoming Gandalf the White. If you sacrifice all your XP to get Mana, you'll turn into a "basket-case" and will need to rely on others to get your solid footing again.

High mana translates into better fab scores, it gives you an aura of power, makes you ripped, or produce quality goods.

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DM notes:

• +MANA: resting, ingesting sweet & raw foods, bathing (not swimming) in clean running sunlit waters, meditation in the breeze
• -MANA: exerting effort, beyond simple walking or calm conversation, spell casting
• If 0: you can't breathe and probably need resuscitation (1 breathe remaining generally), you don't have vision.

Advanced:

• +MANA REGEN: holding space for and abiding with Nature goddesses (raw food diets),
• -MANA REGEN: purposeless life.