Where does Mana come from?

from Elemental Forums

If I mouse over my income bar at the top of the screen, it says I'm getting 3 mana per season. Where is that mana coming from? If I look at my kingdom report, I see stats for income, food, production, etc, but mana hasn't been implemented there. Where should I be going to find out where that mana is coming from?

 

(Also, I've yet to meet another kingdom or empire, yet I have the uncanny ability to know how many cities and citizens they have. I know what techs they have. I know just about everything about them. Is this intentional?)

elemental
12,602 views 11 replies
Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I figured it came from my sovereign,  but there's nothing that tracks where that income is coming from.

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

I don't have any idea either. Technically, from different language this means inheritance...hahaha!

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

storks.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top


If I mouse over my income bar at the top of the screen, it says I'm getting 3 mana per season. Where is that mana coming from? If I look at my kingdom report, I see stats for income, food, production, etc, but mana hasn't been implemented there. Where should I be going to find out where that mana is coming from?

 

(Also, I've yet to meet another kingdom or empire, yet I have the uncanny ability to know how many cities and citizens they have. I know what techs they have. I know just about everything about them. Is this intentional?)

End of quote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA90IlymdZ4

Sovereign provides you with 3 Mana each turn. Each Elemental Shard adds 1 more. Different temples and statues research through the Magic tree also provide different amounts of mana (2 and 3 depending of the building).

 

(Intentional.)

 

Edit:

Just in case, mention that summons and enchanments will lower the amount each turn by the amount indicated in the description of the spell.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Wintersong, reply 5
... Sovereign provides you with 3 Mana each turn. Each Elemental Shard adds 1 more. Different temples and statues research through the Magic tree also provide different amounts of mana (2 and 3 depending of the building).l.
End of Wintersong's quote

I was waiting for some oldtimer with a hard-math and/or MP-competitive POV to chime in. Figures that someone I wouldn't immediately tag with either label posts about the practical info that underlines the aesthetic vacuum that's been the Elemental approach to magic so far. Gods, if irony were a person, I'd seriously wish I were a supernaturally-powerful assassin and I could kill it.

Where does mana come from? The aether of functionality-driven software development would be my guess. That's a fine source to invoke for summoning practical improvements to workplace tools, but it seems like a real drag coefficient when it comes to software toys.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Sometimes two adult life forces fall in love and the baby life force is called 'mana'.  Being that it is a baby it can exist in everything.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

hmm alien hybrids gestate in anything.... are they mana ?

 

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Glowing_Ember, reply 8
hmm alien hybrids gestate in anything.... are they mana ?

 
End of Glowing_Ember's quote

That sounds like more of a philosophy question. 

 

However, according to wikipedia it is debatable that even inanimate objects have mana, so I imagine aliens would have it too.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Mana comes from the mana mines. Deep underground caverns where Gnome slaves labour away relentlessly, chipping away at the walls for mana crystals. These crystals are then eaten by the Gnomes, and the resultant processed product harvested from their faeces is mana in the usable form for spells.

The shards were formed when the Titans developed chronic constipation, as they used to process their own mana crystals. Unfortunately, the shard defecations caused all the Titans to implode due to the internal vacuum created by the exit wounds and the air pressure created by the rapid outflux of stinky magic. That is the real story behind the disappearance of the Titans that no one wants you to know.

See, even fictional worlds can have crackpot conspiracy theories. |-)

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting landisaurus, reply 9
...However, according to wikipedia it is debatable that even inanimate objects have mana, so I imagine aliens would have it too.
End of landisaurus's quote

Damn, I'd totally forgotten that a Larry Niven novel was the first place I read about 'mana' mechanics. My sloppy brain has him indexed as a hard-science guy because my favorites of his work are about immortality drugs, organ banks, and practical approaches to the Dyson Sphere ideal.

Now that your wiki-quip and a wiki-moment have made me remember some reading from the '70s, I think that Niven's mana stories are probably a much closer literary model to what's going on so far than George R.R.'s extremely Tolkien-esque treatment of magic. But that might be just disappointed anti-fanboy retconning...