Bodies, Souls, and Sources

Mana Belongs to the Body

Knowledge and caster level can survive the loss of a body, but biological mana does not automatically follow. A soul placed in a body that produces no mana remembers every spell and cannot cast any of them. Vessel, Undead Resurrection, and the Lich show three different consequences of this rule.

A corpse produces no red mana. A lich avoids this loss by preserving living organs elsewhere and drawing their mana across the distance. A Monk of Kaz'Nakaram follows the opposite pattern: the dwarf's body produces no spellcasting mana, but a Valerium implant provides a blue source.

Sources Own Reserves

Mana reserves belong to sources, not colors. Two colors drawn from one source share a reserve; two independent sources may possess separate reserves.

Frolix, like every Cerberan Psychic, can wield both red and blue mana. His cerebriles convert the red mana produced by his human body, so both traditions spend the same slots. The implant creates no second reserve. By contrast, a rule that truly adds another source must state whether it adds a reserve or merges with the first.

Transformation

Polymorph grants the magical anatomy described by its creature template and suppresses the original body's racial powers. A human who becomes a drow therefore uses the blue reserve and racial powers of that form, not the complete magical progression of a natural drow.

An explicit exception can preserve more. Blood Remembers lets the original body's racial powers remain active, but merges both colors into one shared slot reserve. Transformation changes which sources are available; it does not duplicate concentration for free.

Power across a Bond

A source can sometimes feed another body without moving into it. The lich draws from preserved organs. The Partage carries harvested power through water. Spell Conduit lets a summoned creature use a master's slot for a spell the creature already knows.

Each effect defines what crosses its bond: power, a slot, a color, or access to a reserve. The bond does not teach a spell or create a source unless it says so.

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