The Secret of Mana

Summary

Mana (not to be confused with magic, the art of manipulating mana) constitutes a foundational rule of the universe. Like gravity, it is omnipresent, and exists by its own ruleset. Because the universe of Veltrona has this new axis, all the 'rules of physics' behave in newer, unpredictable ways.
How these changes manifest varies, but for the most part, civilizations work with them just fine. A civilization that has no concept of magic (somehow) will still develop along predictable and usable physical properties. Those that develop magic will be able to realize completely new, different, and esoteric designs by utilizing mana. Conventional rules, like the laws of thermodynamics, can be changed or even ignored by magic.
Much like muscles in the body, mana responds to willpower and the mind. How both work ultimately influences every kind of magic that exists. This in turn creates wildly divergent schools of magic, as well as understandings of how to approach it. A warrior with a strong mana affinity can bolster their physique to literally impossible capabilities. A mage, in the same stroke, could become a mistress of fire and lightning, but still possess a relatively mundane or frail body. Monsters are a notable example of those whose bodies have extensively adapted to using mana.
Mana exists everywhere all the time, so all things have long lived, adapted, and worked alongside it. This has affected the evolution of Veltrona in a ready capacity beyond just the emergence of ‘monsters’. Fauna, flora, geology, and more are all shaped by the different presences of mana. It is because of that creatures like chontzincoatl, or plants like gloomweepers are possible. The study of these natural things is a limitless field of research.

Aspecting and Mana

To understand mana is to understand aspecting–that is, mana taking on polarized characteristics of certain things. In its original state, mana is a non-polarized thing. Most cultures describe this state as 'pure mana'.
Pure mana takes on a blue<->teal color, with fantastic plasma-like appearances. Some ancient cultures have regarded this state of mana as 'fire water', due to the visual similarities. Others have confused it as being aspected toward water, much to their unfortunate results. It is easily able to be influenced into any aspected direction, and maintaining a pure state is actually rather difficult to do.
For most practical purposes, pure mana is rare and incredibly hard to utilize. If one's magical arts are not made with pure mana in mind, it will cause all sorts of problems. An example would be a water mage trying to do water magic: not only will it fail, it may backfire tremendously. This is because pure mana is either being mishandled in the spellcraft, or its suddenly aspecting which causes it to transform wildly. To utilize pure mana without contanimating it with aspecting is a significant hurdle to overcome.
But what is the aspecting process exactly?
Pure mana that interacts with things with an aspected nature, itself, becomes aspected.
Fire turns pure mana into fire mana. So too does water, wind, and veltron turn it into their respective manas. It is a wholly natural and ever ongoing process, hence why pure mana is difficult to find in nature. It exists for brief moments before becoming other, different kinds of mana. How does one utilize pure mana without it aspecting then? So it is the difficulty involved starts to become apparent.
Aspected mana, for the most part, does not agree with other types of mana. Fire prefers fire, water prefers water, and so on. They are naturally exclusive and to force aspects together creates instability. This is more than a simple understanding of opposites, rather imagine it as fundamental forces keeping them all separate. Even if 'fire' and 'wind' are thought to be compatible, they will still oppose each other as much as 'fire' and 'water' do. In scholarly vernacular this is referred to as the 'elemental threshold', even if the manas involved are not elemental per say. If the threshold is overcome, aspected manas start interacting in fantastically wild ways.
Regardless of how it is aspected, mana consumed is mana utilized, and so it tends to lose its aspected nature and 'disintegrate'. The consumed mana disseminates back into the reality, where it gradually regains its potency. For the most part, very few things are aware of or affected by depleted mana, and it virtually disappears from existence outright as far as most civilizations are concerned.
For there to be enough consumed mana to create noticeable effects, it would be similar to there being ever increasing amounts of gravity from mass. That is, by the time you would have physical effects from so much left over mana, it would be analogous to the birth of a star or black hole.
It is important to reiterate this is a highly technical, finely detailed examination of mana. It is not knowledge that arises in everyday life except through cultural memes and ideas. For example, knowing mass is what influences gravity is largely a scholarly matter. Now if the scholars were out in the vacuum of space, their understanding of gravity would matter a lot more all of a sudden. It is best to regard mana in a similar light: only those practicing it as a detailed craft need that much understanding.

Mana Families

In an objective sense, all manas are unique from each other and so demand their own special attention. People being people, in trying to understand mana throughout the ages, certain ideas have become common place. The 'mana families' exist as ways of grouping together manas that appear similar to each other. However, these classifications exist because people assigned them based on observations or assumptions. In the end, mana is mana.

Elemental Mana is ascribed to mana types most commonly found in nature. This includes manas like fire, water, wind, and veltron. Some others, like ice, lightning, and metal could also be considered elemental in nature. However, as they are rarer and more particular to find, they're often put under another classification.
They're sometimes derided as 'simple' manas, as they exhibit only a single kind of nature. However, because of that, they are the widest applicable kinds, and can be bent to all kinds of purposes. In such a light, more natures for more 'complex' mana types can ultimately limit what they do. Or, so most people on Veltrona believe.

Compound Mana is a more controversial classification because of its conceptual issues. The likes of lightning, ice, metal, and tempest manas are usually put under it. The fundamental problem is people misunderstanding what 'composite' means. It is not like if one of these manas is broken down, it will become other manas. It is itself; it will never be anything else.
However, these manas share natures with other types of mana. Lightning is both transformation and motion; so it is sharing those natures with fire and wind. When fire and wind overcome the elemental threshold, lightning mana is 'created'. The nonstop confusion and problems that arise from this misunderstanding have plagued the magical world since forever. One cannot take ideas from fire and/or wind and then 'combine' them to achieve understanding in lightning mana. They have to understand lightning mana on its own terms.
Because of constant efforts to find a classification that works, other names have arisen over the years. Composite, shared, advanced, esoteric, unique, etc, are not uncommon ways of trying to categorize these 'dual natured' mana types.

Primordial Mana are those which exhibit truly bizarre properties and natures, and are almost never found on Veltrona easily. The two principle examples are eclipse and radiant manas. They're considered divine or otherworldly manas, and exist largely within the Heavens themselves.
Some scholars have taken to calling them tri-natured manas, though. Radiant mana exhibits natures similar to fire, wind, and veltron. Eclipse does so for water, wind, and veltron. As with composite manas, they're wholly unique and cannot be broken down or anything. Still, that natures seem to share across more 'complex' mana types is endlessly interesting to research. There are some primordial manas that defy these expectations, so the tri-nature name is not a fitting one.

Polluted Mana

Also called 'corrupted mana', 'rotten mana', 'diseased mana', polluted mana is the result of a will deteriorating raw mana into a toxic substance. It can also result from mana being combined or altered in such ways it loses cohesion and stability, but not enough to completely evaporate yet. In simple terms, it is chaotic and failed mana from something going wrong.
As a whole, while somewhat usable as mana, its toxic nature eats away at the things utilizing it–organic beings become unhealthy, inorganic beings or objects become weak or brittle, etc. The mental state of such beings becomes directly affected because of how mana and willpower interact. Like holding a solid chunk of uranium in one's hands, it may offer power, but the price it extracts is viscerally lethal.
For the most part, polluted mana is an exceedingly rare occurence in nature. Most mechanisms create cohesive and stable forms of mana in their myriad processes. The ones that 'fail', create such minute amounts of polluted mana it usually doesn't matter at all. It is when the realms of people and their chaotic natures arise that it begins appearing much more.
Magical arts that fail in spectacularly awful ways often result in forms of polluted mana. Something between the magic and its mana sources just causes the natural mechanisms to collapse and fail. These incidents, too, are normally minute but discernible. However, the matter of mana and sapient wills is where the true ugliness of its nature becomes apparent.
Sapient beings naturally produce mana as they commit sexual acts together. Historically, it has led to a number of interesting memes within the spheres of magical people. However, when rape, sexual assault, or other non-consensual forms are done, the mana created becomes deeply polluted. In other words, such vile acts trigger a natural defensive response to prevent exploitative abuse.
The objective hows and whys of this are not known for certain, but some suspect some goddesses' influence at the heart of the matter. As polluted mana in such significant concentrations is very noticeable to mages or other magical people, it functions like a death mark on criminals. To a lesser degree, it serves as an objective sign a potential partner is not actually receptive or willing. This defensive behavior operates at the will/soul layer of a being, functioning almost like an immune system after a fashion. Regardless of the current person's state, it will trigger, so things like intoxication do not inhibit it at all.
As an example, in the case of the vampyr, the willful sharing of mana-rich blood is very important to prevent pollution. Otherwise, their mana-sensitive physiology will rapidly decline from taking in something so horrid.
Non-sapient beings exposed to polluted mana tend to mutate into more violent and malevolent entities; or, barring that, rotten, malformed, and other distinctly incoherent natures more than usual. Sapient beings can, somewhat, resist the effects when exposed in small or accidental dosages. Continued exposure will result in physical and mental degeneration, the effects of which be self-destructive, addictive behavior.
The final stages of polluted mana corruption is characterized by extreme mental and physical illnesses; dementia and a collapsing immune system are common examples. Those who endure enough to utilize polluted mana as a source of strength invariably become abominable types of Forsaken. Vampires are one such example.

Physiology and Mana

Since mana, like gravity, is literally everywhere, that means all things are affected by it, and so physiology as well. How living bodies come to handle mana is a complex field of research, mysticism, and spiritual exploration where all three often intersect together. All life has adapted and learned to utilize the available mana within themselves and other things to varying and different degrees.
Eating, for example, is a common and reliably safe way of intaking more mana than normal. Others, through practices like controlled breathing, intake mana through the nostrils and lungs. Some absorb it through their skin, as one does heat from sunlight. These all have their advantages and disadvantages, and no one method is queen.
But, how does mana work inside a living thing, like a person or an animal?
Generally, it can be seen through two distinct methods: inherited mana capacity, and adapted mana capacity.
Inherited mana capacity is an organism's natural mana nature: the way their cells work, how organs function, muscles give strength, magic formulates, etcetra. This is entirely informed by the ancestry of the organism, and the capabilities of their species. It is why dragonkind and humanity have such fundamentally different ways in which they handle mana.
Most common vernacular for this idea is something like 'mana foundation' and 'natural mana strength'.
Adapted mana capacity is when an organism takes in more mana than normal, then adapts toward a newer mana nature beyond their inherited one. For example, if a baseline human had a capacity of 10 bottles worth of mana, but trained and grew to have 50 bottles instead, then they have an adapted mana capacity (of at least 5 women, arguably). This idea is how many organisms are able to grow in strength and improve beyond their species' normal characteristics.
How it works is incredibly varied, because the process of adapting mana to the body is fundamentally affected by how it's done. Animals do so through a mixture of eating and/or absorbing ambient mana, which their bodies aggressively turns into stronger and stronger adapted mana. Sometimes this causes their entire bodies to suffuse with the mana, sometimes it results in their organs becoming super efficient, sometimes a new organ forms that acts like a magic furnace within them.
People are different in that their thoughts, beliefs, and abilities can affect how adapted mana manifests further within them. The will is, consciously or not, a powerful force in this process that is always working. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse; the body and the mind coming into conflict can be bothersome in itself.
But, how does this process work?
Like food that is digested by the stomach, mana that is taken into the body is digested by the body (and mind, if present). It is integrated and then utilized in ever increasingly denser, more concentrated mana–which usually translates into more power, efficiency, or otherwise. It cannot be rushed nor cheated very easily, requiring due diligence and attention to work that is no different than any body builder, soldier, courtesan, or other hard worker.
How to accelerate or refine that digestion is a critical distinction that appears in professions/lifestyles like mages, cultivators. Mages typically refine their bodies to fuel complex, pre-designed forms of magic like spells or enchantments. Cultivators refine their bodies in pursuit of concepts like ascension and immortality, to redefine their existence and become 'higher'. While the two share common overlaps in a lot of ways, their end goals are markedly different, which affects how their processes ultimately work.
The demands in pursuing that sort of refinement are nothing to joke about. Considerable resources are dumped into each individual effort, causing a sinkhole effect in the surrounding ecosystem. That is, competition for resources becomes fierce because increasing one's adapted mana capacity becomes increasingly expensive. Hence, while theoretically everyone could pursue such work and improve themselves, there may not be an availability of resources to do so.
Something that has dramatically shaped the creation, utilization, and flow of magic and personal improvement as a concept throughout the world.

Offspring and Inheritance

There is endless academic debate over the nature of adapted mana capacity and its affects on one's offspring. Do two 'powerful' parents in a 'weak' species produce powerful offspring, or similarly 'weak' offspring as is the norm for the species? If two 'powerful' bloodlines continually interbreed together, do they eventually produce only powerful offspring, or does the damaging effects of incest cause degeneration instead?
The simple answer is nearly always "it doesn't seem to matter", as offspring will inherit something but rarely ever what is expected–be it positive or negative. The offspring may have something of an improved mana capacity, or may suffer from too much mana and potentially die or suffer debilitating, lifelong damage. In fact, the risk of the offspring being harmed is usually more the case than any direct benefits. No end of medical research, care, and attention is required in order to mitigate these problems.
In the cases offspring are successful, rather than some inherited benefits from their parents, the nurturing they receive is more important. That is, having an environment that supplies them resources and opportunities is the most meaningful thing to be done, rather than something like 'bloodline purity/power'. That said, it's rather common for powerful families to try and intertwine their magical arts with their bloodlines. Usually this means some component or process that requires one to bear (or offer) their blood, as a sort of security feature to prevent misuse by others.
Whether or not that qualifies as a bloodline inheritance is debatable in itself. However, most people may view it as such since it may just be an academic argument. What usually happens is the parents construct some form of magic that is then imparted to their offspring, which then aides them in their growth or becomes available later on. This is something that is found most often among immortal species, who have the time, energy, and willingness to devote such extreme care and expenses into their children.
However, it is not a bloodline inheritance that is passed along simply through procreation. It is the result of outside efforts from some individuals to another, so the species itself is not directly affected.
That said, it is not as if nothing happens. How or why it happens, though, is a mystery no scholar has ever really managed to figure it out. Immortals have observed that, in the span of hundreds of generations, the temperament of species may begin to shift. In potentially thousands a more permanent adjustment would happen. That is, in other words, the same effects of genetic drift that happens normally in procreation is virtually indistinguishable from any efforts by people to affect the process.
There are cases of extreme, if somewhat damaging, genetic tampering that have gone on. The baarham are most notorious for this, as efforts by Sorcerer King Ghown saw their species dramatically altered within the same generation. It's not clear how King Ghown managed to do so, but for whatever power it bestowed upon the baarham, it caused incredible damage to their species they still haven't fully addressed. It's likely that same ability is what led into research, and the eventual creation, of the chimaera.
While it's proven that some form of deliberate tampering or engineering is possible, the capability to do so is so outside the realm of understanding, no one except the baarham have seemingly figured it out. There are some theories the vampyr may know of it, in part or full, due to their intimate relationship with blood.

Corpus and Soul Vestiges

Mana itself becomes a vehicle through which living beings can leave vestiges of their existence behind after death. In a sense, it is the other twin of conveyance–an echo of someone who once lived, rather than something given from one to another. These vestiges take on two principle forms: the corpus, and the soul.
The Corpus, or body, Vestiges of a being are a library of lived experience throughout time itself. The bones carry the weight, the blood carries the potential, the muscles their strength, the organs that of life, and so on. When that being dies, their decaying body can contain an echo of that library in its many constituent parts. What each part contains is often specific to its function or purpose, making it one meaningful piece of a much larger whole.
For example, the heart of an immortal being like a dragonkind is a powerful organ. Capturing the experience of what it was can empower others, if they have the understanding and ability to do so. Hence, people, who possess such means the most, may covet the corpus of those of great ability or power for themselves. Animals are more particular, in large part only taking on the ability of their own kind over others.
This process is not necessarily guaranteed by default, but it does exist. How and why the specifics work are a mystery, with some believing cannibalistic consumption necessary, or more sophisticated means such as alchemical refinement. More often than not, acquiring the mana of the corpus is where most start and end. A further complication is attempting to desecrate the remains of the dead is a good way of angering them, potentially engendering the Forsaken undead.
On the other hand, what of those who wish for their legacy to live on?
If Corpus Vestiges are the physical remnants of a being's passing, the Soul Vestiges are the echoed memories and will of that being. Soul Vestiges are unique to sapient beings, with nothing of the sort ever known to come from animals or otherwise. They're physical manifestations of memory itself, attaching themselves to objects of personal importance or even physically creating a shell resembling such.
However, Soul Vestiges have powerful and important memories of the departed, containing and conveying all of what that entails. They may be dearly personal, rage-filled hatred, depressively all-consuming, and any other of life's myriad emotions. Withstanding such things is a test of physical and mental prowess and conditioning, and not at all simple to do. Many early records concerning "possession" relate to someone being overtaken by a Soul Vestige's fragmented memories.
It is not as if the Soul Vestige itself has a 'will', as it's more akin to a left over message. Rather, one could say that a person, overcome by these new memories, have part of their own personality supplanted by the departed. Recovering one's sense of self can be a traumatically difficult thing to do.
It's ultimately not clear if the departed have some influence over their own vestiges, for necromancers have never found a conclusive answer from the dead. It is not as if Soul Vestiges are necessarily 'ideal' for leaving behind such important knowledge, either. They are, however, universal insofar as any person may do so.
Notably, both types of vestiges do generally decay:
Corpus Vestiges follow that of normal decomposition, with bones lasting the longest and blood disappearing the quickest. Organs often fall in between the two, and degrees of putrefaction may save them for longer periods of time. Vampires and vampyr, as well as other blood-drinking species, have a profoundly intimate relationship with blood. More than just a nutrition source, it can offer much in the ways of sharing power, knowledge, or more intimate details. Indeed, the Blood Corpus is perhaps the reason so many civilizations and culture tend to have a notable regard for blood's value and potential.
Soul Vestiges do not seem to decay overtime, but rather over relevancy. The further they are, in either position and/or time, from where they were relevant, the faster they fade away. In theory, as long as one's Soul Vestige is relevant, it may potentially last forever. Ones left behind by immortals, notably, have remained for hundreds or thousands of years before finally being taken care of by the living.
Soul Vestiges also have a particular vulnerably toward being destroyed physically. Most often are, either by intention or accident, and the undead usually are the culprits of doing so. To the undead, whose sense of self is already deteriorating significantly, the Soul Vestiges of others are extraordinarily dangerous. Animals seem perturbed by Soul Vestiges, and will actively avoid them–or destroy them otherwise.