Aura

The Aura

The aura is the evaporated form of the Essence, a cloud of magic energy surrounding a being. The Aura generally appears to be a fog of magic around a person, shifting as they move about the world and forming different colors depending on its density and spread. Traces of one's aura can be left behind, although they will quickly dissipate once not being fed by the essence.

Color, Size, and Shape

Auras come in many different colors and shapes that are unique to every individual, but also change over the course of their life, status, mood, and energy. Dense auras allow for fueling greatly powerful spells, but typically are much smaller. Auras that are larger have a much greater range but will almost always be much thinner and unable to power strong magic. Individuals can learn to control their aura's size and density at will for much more versatility in their magic. The size of an aura varies per individual as does the most common 'calm' shape where the aura is not pulled in, but typically will reach around 10 feet around a person, being more dense the closer one comes to them. Shape varies on mood, with calm individuals having wispy, cloud like auras that flow easily and have no discernable shape. Those under stress or who are fearful often 'tuck' their auras in, causing it to be much more form fitting. Omnia, Dragons, and both the Minor Gods and The Major Gods have significantly larger auras, proportional to their much larger essences, with omnia the smallest on average of this group and the major gods the largest.
Color is an excellent indicator of a person's mood, as the aura is formed by the depletion of their essence, which changes depending on such. Stressed and fearful individuals, even if incapable of using magic, will flood their auras to be much denser and change the color to be much more opaque in brighter more luminescent colors. Dragons and Omnia will often deliberately manipulate their auras for threat displays and warnings for others of their kind to keep their distance, manipulating their auras to be as large, dense, and opaque as possible. This is generally a warning for others to back off or else risk being attacked.

Usage in Magic

What fuels all magic a being can use is the aura. Depending on density and size, a person's range with spells can be greatly enhanced or severely weakened. All magic consumes the magic in the aura as way of fueling the spell, with more powerful and more complex ones requiring more energy to use. As the aura forms from magic shed off of the essence, it replenishes fully within a day and is widely used for this purpose, although some alternatives exist for much more powerful spellcraft.
Depleting one's aura is not deadly and has no major, deadly, physical effects, but can be incredibly draining on the mind. It also leaves a person unable to use most forms of magic until it replenishes from the essence, and depleting an aura repeatedly can cause damage to the essence itself. While a person's aura is depleted they cannot used most forms of magic, but some forms will still work and instead use the body or even the essence itself as a fuel source, being extremely dangerous with extreme side effects. This is the most common in draconic forms of magic when used by non-dragonkin, thought to occur due to that most races have significantly smaller auras than dragons.