Fonts of mana are not unknown, but are in short supply. These are natural rifts in reality that produce raw magic, sending it flooding out into the environment.
The problem, as far as natural mana sources are concerned, is that a mortal being can merge with the font. This requires a very difficult check against Realm Magic, and can be very dangerous if you fail, but if you succeed you'll merge with the mana source and incorporate it into your own being.
This gives you an enormous boost in personal mana, and enables you to draw mana directly from yourself rather than the environment (which is much safer; a botched spell cast entirely with internal mana generally won't harm you). Basically, it makes you into a god. Maybe not a major god, if the font was small, but a god nevertheless.
If slain, the font inside a god will remain... and gods can become more powerful by killing and absorbing the mana fonts of other gods. Of course, the more potent your total energies, the riskier this is... and it's believed by many that having too much mana eventually drives you mad. So prudent gods are often willing to tolerate lesser deities who keep in line.
There might be one or two heavily guarded super-fonts in the setting. Locations that the local gods guard because while they aren't willing to risk instantaneous destruction by absorbing it, other deities might be willing to take that risk. Magic is exceedingly easy there, so they are tightly controlled and generally guarded by multiple avatars and mortal troops.
Posted by Kiz at December 11, 2004 02:59 PMCommentsPost a comment