Essence Magic is the primary passed on magic system of Vilhun, but its users can be found all across Vendrith. It relies on drawing raw essences from the casters surroundings to then concentrate into magical abilities, as opposed to colloquially named “slot”-based spellcasting, where the essences are stored ahead of time and released in high-power bursts over the day.
While a caster can wield both ways of wielding magic – and almost all of them do by the nature of cantrips! – the vast majority focus on one, whether by not having knowledge of the other system, or by a preference of one over the other, as both have their strengths and weaknesses. The basic difference being that slot spellcasting has a limited amount of power before needing to rest and prepare new spells but allows for instantaneous usage of the spells, while essence requires lengthy on-the-spot incantations, but it is available at all times during the day.
Center of Magic
Vilhun is the region most associated with essence casting, bringing near-orientalist fascination to itself, including negative connotations. This issue is especially strengthened due to its political and cultural friction with its neighbors, Mogxa and Galae.
Despite the friction, this large difference in magic methodology does also bring a lot of cultural exchange in metropolitan areas from exchange magic students and scholars.
While slot spellcasters primarily view essence as a more raw, basic form of magic that can be studied as a form of mastering the fundamentals such as cantrips, Vili students primarily focus on translating complex (and to them, woefully inefficient) Mogxian spells to become castable via essence methods on the fly.
Rules
Note
The full rules for Essence Spellcasting is available in Magic+.
Essence Spellcasting merges spell slots and spells known into one value, and gets rid of the consumable aspect of spell slots. As such, you are able to cast a mostly infinite amount of spells in a day, with your selection of spells being limited to the amount of spell slots you have.1
Spells are then cast using Essence in combat or using Incantations out of combat.
Essence
Essence is a value that denotes the maximum rank of spell you can cast, which increases as you fight over the course of a battle. You start to increase essence by casting a cantrip (or by rolling initiative after 5th level via Initial Draw class feature).
The amount of Essence you gain is called Essence Draw, and it is equal to your Maximum Spell Rank - 2, with a minimum of 1.2 Your maximum amount of Essence is referred to as your Essence Pool, equal to your Maximum Spell Rank.
On your turn, you can then cast any spell up to the rank equal to your Essence. If the spell has a casting time of 2 actions or longer, you increase your Essence by 1, able to cast a higher rank spell next turn. Otherwise, you suffer an Essence Leak, which reduces your Essence to 0.
Once you reach an Essence value equal to your maximum rank, casting another spell causes an overflow called a Essence Cycle! This reduces your Essence to 0, and are able to use special Terminus free actions, giving you powerful bonuses.
Once you have reached an Essence value of 0 after the first Essence Draw, whether by completing an Essence Cycle or suffering an Essence Leak, you must have a class feature such as Essence Rebirth (gained at level 3 for most casters) to continue casting spells for the encounter. If you do, you can repeat the cycle of casting a cantrip, casting spells up to your maximum, and finishing an essence cycle.
Specific Spellcasters
Sorcerers, Wizards, and anyone else who gains 4 spell slots per rank gain an extra 5th slot to compensate for every essence caster being able to cast nigh-infinite amount of spells compared to Vancian.
Psychics, and anyone else who gains 2 spell slots per rank have a special mechanic where they after they cast their first spell, they immediately incur an Essence Leak. They still often win out by being able to cast more than 2 spells in a day.
As an extension of the rule that you have as many spells known as you have slots, Animists must choose which spells they prepare from their apparitions every long rest, up to the amount of spell slots they have. Also, they must pick one spell per rank to be a signature spell, instead of having them all of them as signature spells.
Magus, Summoner, and other Bounded spellcasters act by slightly different rules do their alternative spellcasting progression. They always cycle back to 0 Essence after casting a spell, requiring a cantrip every other turn. With each cycle, they increase the essence draw by 1, up to their maximum, after which they are tapped out and can no longer cast spells. Affording them 2 to 3 spells in a span of 5 turns per encounter in a sequence of Cantrip → Spell → Cantrip → Spell → Terminus of Bounded Might.
Strategy
The gameplan with Essence Spellcasting revolves around 3-4 turn cycles, of gaining your Essence via cantrip or Initial Draw, and advancing your Essence up to your highest rank.
In comparison to Vancian Spellcasting (using spell slots as consumables) you lose on the tempo of being able to start combat with your highest rank spell and pre-buff ahead of battles. In exchange, you are able to cast more throughout the day, not worry about how many copies of a spell to prepare, and have advantage in long fights via Terminus bonuses.
Incantations
Incantations are the out of combat way of casting spells, with a longer casting time (except reactions, i.e. Gentle Fall). An incantation takes either 20 seconds or the spell’s normal casting time, whichever is longer.3 At the end of that period, you cast a spell up to your maximum Essence Pool and incur a temporary cost. Casting an incantation reduces both your Essence Draw and your Essence Pool by 1, and if that would reduce your essence draw to 0, you can’t draw essence or cast essence spells. This cost can be removed when you Refocus, dismissing the active spells and incantations.
You may avoid this cost by increasing the casting time to 1 hour (or longer, per the spells casting time). However, a long incantation is dismissed when you cast another incantation, “short” or long.
If an incantation creates a permanent object, even if it doesn’t have a duration, the object disappears after casting a long incantation or recovering your essence draw and essence pool from the incantation. If you created a permanent object with an incantation and you do not cast another incantation or long incantation for 24 hours, the object retains its permanence and does not disappear.
Footnotes
-
For example: Psychics have 2 spell slots per rank, while knowing 3 spells. In Essence, they know 2 spells, as many as they have slots. ↩
-
For example: You are a 7th-level Wizard. You have access to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th rank spells. As such, your Essence Draw is 2. ↩
-
If your timing is tight enough that you don’t have 20 seconds to spare and you’re keeping track of things round by round, chances are good that you should already be in an encounter… ↩