Mana

Mana is physical power shaped by a mind. Its source determines which body can produce it, how it recovers, and how a caster reaches it. Its color does not determine a spell's school: the same effect can sometimes be rebuilt for another kind of mana, but doing so is a substantial research project.

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Power, Reserve, and Actions

Three values describe a spellcaster, and none replaces the others:

• Caster level measures the raw power placed into a spell.
• Spell slots measure how much magic the character can organize before resting.
• Spell actions measure how quickly that reserve can be spent during combat.

A vast biological source does not mean infinite casting. Human blood continually renews red mana, but concentration still tires; spell slots are the unit used to track that limit. Psychic traditions also use spell slots, while the Monks of Kaz'Nakaram call the same unit a Ki point. See Magic for DCs, interruption, components, and general casting rules.

Paths of Power

Path	Immediate source	Principal users	Defining trait
Red Mana	Living human body	Humans, human sorcerers, liches with preserved organs	Abundant and fast to recover, but chaotic and difficult to stabilize
Blue Mana	Psychic anatomy, converted red mana, or Valerium	Drows, Psychic monsters, Cerberan Psychics, Monks of Kaz'Nakaram	Stable and normally cast without speech or gesture; recovery depends on the source
Divine Mana	The Partage	Humans of the Ark and Clerics of Archon	Human red mana harvested, stabilized, and redistributed through a religious network
Runes	Magical objects created by dwarves	Dwarves	Dwarves ordinarily cast no spells; their magic accumulates in objects instead

These paths are not interchangeable by default. A formula designed for red mana does not become a Psychic power merely because its caster encounters blue mana. Any exception must state how the conversion occurs, as Spell Conduit does for a summoned creature.

Nature is a tradition, not a third color. A Ranger casts nature spells with red mana. Valerium produces blue Psychic energy. Unless an effect explicitly says otherwise, every mana reserve in the game is therefore red or blue; divine power is harvested and stabilized red mana rather than a third biological source.

Color, School, and Tradition

Color describes the power itself. School describes what a spell does. Tradition describes the method and body of knowledge used to cast it. These answers can differ: a Ranger and a Wizard both use red mana, while a Psychic can reproduce some familiar effects with blue mana and no spoken formula.

Learning one version does not teach the other. Converting a spell between traditions is research, not a choice made during casting. Detect Magic can reveal an effect's mana color and school because they are separate properties.

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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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What a Spell Slot Measures

Mana may fill a body, an implant, or a divine network, but a mind can organize only so much of it at once. Spell slots measure that concentration capacity. Casting spends the slot of the spell's level; Ki points are the same unit under another name.

The complete rules for slot formulas, caster level, and spell actions remain in Magic. Classes and creature templates replace the human baseline when their source works differently.

Spent and Reserved Slots

A spent slot is empty until it recovers. A reserved slot remains occupied by an ongoing effect and lowers the maximum currently available to the caster. Ending that effect frees the capacity, but does not fill it.

For example, a sorcerer with nine Level 10 slots and nine Level 9 slots maintains two Level 10 summons and four Level 9 summons. The usable maxima become seven and five. If the Level 9 reserve is empty, rest can recover only five usable slots while the four summons remain.

Recovery is still calculated from the base maximum, including reserved slots. A dedicated summoner therefore restores the few remaining usable slots at the same rate as another sorcerer with the same biological reserve. See Summon for its daily maintenance and release rules.

Recovery by Source

Recovery follows the source rather than the color currently being cast.

Source	Recovery
Living human body	Active or true rest under Rest and Recovery
Human red mana converted by cerebriles	The same active or true rest as any human source
Natural drow Psychic anatomy	Meditation, with different rates above and below ground
Valerium implant	Meditation under the Monk's progression
Divine distribution	Ordinary rest unless the Partage or a spell says otherwise
Creature anatomy	The creature template

A Cerberan Psychic does not meditate to recover converted blue slots. The slots return as the human source rests because conversion changes their color at use, not their origin.

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The Human Inheritance

Manatar placed red mana throughout the human body: in blood, organs, and every cell. Humans of Cerberus, the Ark, and Brazzant inherit the same potential. Their cultures train and exploit it differently, but they do not possess different racial mana.

Red mana belongs to the living body rather than the soul. A human corpse produces none, and an undead body cannot sustain a sorcerer's magic. A lich avoids this loss by keeping living organs elsewhere and drawing their mana across the distance.

Untrained red mana can manifest instinctively. Rare Charisma spells and desperate curses may appear through overwhelming emotion without a reproducible formula. Training does not create the power; it teaches the caster to repeat and control what the body already makes.

Human Baseline

Unless a class or another rule replaces these values, a human uses:

Caster level = 1 base CL + 1 CL per 2 points of Charisma.

Slots = 4 per spell level + ½ Charisma.

Charisma measures how strongly the human body expresses its mana. Intelligence instead governs the construction and DC of learned spells. Experience and story can raise caster level beyond the racial contribution, but caster level alone never teaches a new spell. See Character Creation and Progression.

Three Human Traditions

Cerberan sorcery follows the method built by Archon: speech, movement, visualization, and concentration give repeatable shape to chaotic red mana. Individual spells state their components. Silence, restraints, armor, or a wound during casting can therefore stop a red spell when they interfere with those requirements.

The Ranger uses the same red inheritance through an instinctive nature tradition. The Partage instead harvests human red mana, stabilizes it, and returns part of it as divine power. These traditions change how the power is learned and shaped; they do not divide humanity into different magical races.

Recovery and Blood

Human slots recover through ordinary rest. Active rest restores 10% of the base maximum at each spell level per hour, to a 50% ceiling. True rest restores 20% per hour and fills the reserve in five hours. Calculate recovery independently at every spell level and round once from the total time, not once each hour. See Rest and Recovery.

Blood outside a living body still contains red mana but grants no spell slots. Exploiting it directly requires an exceptional mechanism. The known examples are vampires feeding, Archon's Partage, and rare alchemical or magical procedures designed specifically to extract it. A flask of ordinary blood is not a magical battery.

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One Color, Several Sources

Blue mana is the natural power of Psychic creatures, but not every blue caster produces it in the same way. The source determines the reserve, caster-level progression, and recovery rules.

User	Source	Slot reserve	Caster level	Recovery
Drow	Psychic anatomy	4 per level + ¼ INT	Experience and story	Meditation: 10% per hour on the surface, 20% below; maximum 50% per day
Cerberan Psychic	Human red mana converted by implanted cerebriles	4 per level + ½ CHA	Human rate: ½ CHA, plus experience	Exactly like human red mana: active or true rest
Monk of Kaz'Nakaram	Valerium implant	4 per level + ½ WIS, called Ki	Experience and story	50% per hour of meditation, maximum 50% per day
Psychic monster	Its own magical anatomy	Creature template	Creature template	Creature template or GM

A Cerberan Psychic has no second ocean of power. Their cerebriles convert the red mana already present in the human body at the moment of use. Remove that red mana and the Psychic retains their knowledge but cannot produce blue power. See Psychic.

A Monk is the opposite case: a dwarf naturally produces neither red nor blue mana. The Valerium implant is the source, and Wisdom measures how much of its power the Monk can organize. See Monk of Kaz'Nakaram.

Psychic Casting

A Psychic power normally requires neither speech nor gesture. Thought reaches the organ or implant, blue mana takes shape, and the effect appears. A material component remains necessary when it physically participates in the power.

This does not make blue mana immune to the rules of magic. Casting still requires concentration and actions, damage can interrupt it, and abjuration or a Barrier can stop it. Its stability does make it harder to disrupt: a blue spell is interrupted only when the caster takes more than 35% of maximum HP during its casting, rather than the 25% threshold of red magic.

Stability also allows blue effects to hold their shape at low spell levels. A Psychic Barrier, for example, lasts minutes per caster level where the red version lasts rounds. A high-level red sorcerer can produce similarly stable effects through mastery, as shown by the progression of individual spells; blue mana reaches that stability earlier.

Innate Power Is Not Automatic Knowledge

A blue source does not grant every Psychic spell. Drows awaken racial powers in a fixed order—Levitate, Darkness, then Telekinesis—through experiences that change them. They possess no natural telepathy; mind-to-mind speech still requires a Psychic power.

Cerberan Psychics train new pathways in their cerebriles. Monks learn to direct their implants through discipline. Psychic monsters know only the powers written in their templates. Sharing a color of mana permits compatible casting; it does not share spell lists, memories, or technique.

Emotions can provoke the life experiences through which a drow awakens a new racial power, especially among drow women. Once awakened, however, the strength and behavior of blue magic are not modified by the caster's current emotions.

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Elementals form when excess magical particles accumulate for a long time in a place dominated by a single element. The mana gathers a body from that element and eventually awakens as an intelligent Psychic creature. A Fire Elemental is living flame, while an Earth Elemental gathers a body of soil and stone. An Air Elemental holds itself together from wind and magical pressure. A Water Elemental forms in lakes, rivers, seas, and deep currents. Other environments produce their own elemental species.

Elementals are territorial and seek powerful creatures to challenge. When two elementals of the same kind meet, they fight to the death. The victor absorbs the loser and becomes stronger. An elemental can nevertheless be convinced to serve someone whose Charisma is great enough to impress it.

An elemental does not age. It has the patience of the substance that formed it and can wait without becoming restless. Elementals are intelligent, but their goals remain simple and they never become great conversationalists. Once a task is complete, they prefer silence, stillness, and rest.

Every elemental understands and speaks every language. This knowledge does not make it talkative. Elementals never communicate through telepathy, even though mental attacks can still reach their minds.

Some mortals become lords among them. Fire elementals recognize Aldor the Infernal as one of their lords. Earth elementals grant the same place to Perennus Albion. Archon holds no such title. His divine magic creates Water Elementals, and natural Water Elementals dislike both him and the copies moving through the Partage.

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Divine mana is human red mana harvested, stabilized, and redistributed by the Partage. It is not a third biological color. Its golden appearance marks Archon's transformation of the power, not another inheritance carried by human bodies.

Harvest and Transformation

The Partage takes blood, spell slots, and caster level from a human source. Consecrated water carries the harvest to Archon or a center of the network, where blood and impurities are removed and the remaining power is transformed. The Partage creates no mana: every gift it grants was taken elsewhere.

First Partage performs this exchange through a local circuit. Partage turns the Ark's waters into a network that harvests and redistributes power across a civilization. Their spell entries define the ordeal of the source and the limits of each operation.

A Distributed Source

A Cleric's divine caster level is granted by the Partage rather than produced by an attribute. Distance, damaged waterways, isolation, abjuration, and the destruction of consecrated water can weaken or sever that gift. Rank and proximity to the network govern how much power is offered; the recipient's Charisma governs how much can be borne.

The divine reserve is especially stable:

Slots = 6 per spell level + ½ Intelligence.

Unless a spell says otherwise, divine slots recover through ordinary rest. The Cleric of Archon chapter defines divine caster level, ranks, spell mastery, and the class's complete progression.

Liturgies

Divine formulas are precise liturgies rather than the complex visualizations of Cerberan sorcery. This makes them easier to reproduce, but their catalog is narrower. It began with Archon's conjurations, healing, and the operations required by the Partage; Archon and the Censors later converted other spells.

Divine magic heals directly and holds effects more easily than low-level red sorcery. It also depends on an institution. A Cleric can lose access because a distant aqueduct was destroyed, a Censor withdrew the gift, or the Partage itself ceased to function. The history and social cost of that network belong to The Ark.

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What Stability Means

Stable mana keeps the shape imposed upon it. A Psychic can enchant a weapon and maintain the effect by reserving a spell slot. Low-level red mana disperses or changes too easily for the same technique; a Cerberan sorcerer normally needs gold to stabilize a lasting enchantment.

Stability does not make a spell permanent or immune to interruption. It changes how well the effect survives after casting and, for blue mana, raises the damage threshold that interrupts the spell. Individual spells state their duration, concentration, and slot reservation. High-level red sorcery can achieve greater stability through mastery.

Gold controls and stores human mana. It binds potions, supports permanent enchantments, and lets red magic remain in objects rather than bleeding away. The crafting procedure belongs to Enchanting Magic Items; its economic consequences belong to Gold, Mana, and the Price of Power.

Gold has no effect on blue mana. It cannot stabilize a Psychic spell, replace a reserved slot, make a Psychic enchantment independent of its creator, or turn a Psychic summon permanent. Blue mana lasts through its own stability and through the Psychic who continues to maintain it.

Red Spell Memory

Magic leaves traces. Red mana particles absorb fragments of the places they cross: images, sounds, and emotions. A spell leaves a denser trace than ordinary presence. Divination can gather and read these particles when its formula provides a way to do so.

Spell memory is not the memory of the creature who shed the mana. A rich trace may preserve an illusion in great detail; a weak one may offer only a face, a cry, or the fear that filled the room.

Blue Spell Memory

Blue mana leaves a narrower and cleaner record. It preserves the shape of the Psychic act—what kind of power was used, where it was directed, and the intention carried through it—while retaining little unrelated sound or scenery. This makes a blue trace precise, but not a complete recording of the surrounding scene.

Reading and Hiding an Aura

Detect Magic reveals whether magic is active, whether its mana is red or blue, and which school shaped it. At greater mastery it can expose the spell, signature, order, age, and approximate caster level of effects it recognizes.

Magic Aura can hide these properties or replace them with a false aura. Detecting a color therefore reveals the nature of the trace, not an infallible history of everything that created it.