Overview
Essence-powered devices are magical technologies that store, channel, or release essence as their power source. Valrindor uses essence for fine devices because attempts to capture lightning at that scale become unstable. In Malverand, Arcanis and his collaborators use stored essence to power everyday tools, transport, weapons, gates, experiments, and clothing.
Development
Michael considers the idea of a constructed device that could channel magic before Raphael introduces him to Arcanis and Barachiel. Arcanis's first breakthrough is a glowing object that contains a captured spell, leading to essence lights. Contained-spell devices quickly spread through Maraveth as mages learn to repeat the process. He later teaches select engineers and mages to build dangerous massive machines that gather essence through mined crystals and produce essence cores.
Barachiel's copy magic lets Arcanis fill specialized containers and crystallized tools with spells, raw essence, or mixed magic. Jeremiah and Uriandel build towers and artifacts around the same research.
Forms and Uses
- Essence lights and food-preservation containers that use spell containment. Essence lights can take the form of glowing objects, embedded wall and ceiling lights, large crystals, street lights, ship lights, and brazier-like fixtures that imitate fire.
- Essence cores, essence-tower machinery, and tower-scale essence-storage machinery.
- Essence engines, skyship machinery, hull-integrated cores, and shipboard cables or devices.
- Spell containers and gate devices that release stored essence into gate-opening spells.
- Essence-powered clothing, including robes, underlayers, tunics, pants, shoes, reinforced travel garments, iridescent clothing, and essence-containing garments used for protection, endurance, concealment, or reserve power.
- Vault artifacts such as shield generators, prototype engines, unusual weapons, and glass casings preserved in artifact repositories.
- Reserve artifacts such as god cores and Malverand hearts, which can power ship machinery or keep a skyship mission alive.
Essence lights become common lighting in Malverand, Chronasis, Rimvold, Pelagia, Irrathis, and Varnhallow. Their light can be soft, bright, warm, colored, crystal-refracted, star-shaped, or strong enough to illuminate halls, arenas, gate chambers, workshops, ships, vaults, city streets, and rail cabins.
In Thalassai, clothing can be dense with essence, embedded with tiny or compressed essence cores, and infused with high-quality divine enchantments. Terranova exports textiles, and Calythos develops improved fire-resistant clothing before later crafting Cassian's iridescent tunic and pants with his best weavers. Jareth contributes specialized prototypes prepared for Thalena and also has a dark coat made with essence. In Maraveth, Eira and Kaelion wear essence-containing garments that slightly suppress their essence. Reinforced essence clothes have limits: Thalion's clothes burn and tear apart under the strain of his power.
Costs and Limits
Essence-powered tools need stored essence. Each device still needs an essence source. Small tools use stored reserves. Large machines and towers can draw enough from the environment to create corruption. The machines used in early essence gathering are dangerous to stand near, and mature ships still depend on cores, cables, engines, and reserve artifacts.
The Vireen expedition skyship extends Malverand devices to a whole vessel. Its essence-core hull turns the vessel into one vast essence core, with onboard machinery that depends on stored essence, god cores, and Malverand hearts for the gate project.