The world of Terminus has dramatically transformed over thousands of years through a recurring phenomena known as Planar Collisions: mysterious events where pieces of foreign worlds and realms are embedded into Terminus, bringing portions of their native people, creatures, landforms, deities and ethereal energies with them.
In Pantheon, this ethereal energy is a tangible essence known as Mana. On Terminus, Mana can manifest in many different colors, each having its own unique properties, strengths and weaknesses. After being subjected to these Planar Collisions for millennia, the native Mana energies of each new realm have slowly mingled and branched out in different combinations creating a web of different fields that affect the denizens of Terminus in different ways. We call these colored mana fields: Mana Climates.
When inside of a Mana Climate, players will be able to equip special items called Relics. When equipped, Relics will allow the player to slowly "soak up" the color of Mana in that particular Mana Climate. For example, your party of adventurers travel to a forgotten battlefield, where one of Terminus’ major wars was fought in ages past. Let’s assume this area is enveloped in a red Mana Climate. As you travel and fight in this area, if you have a Relic equipped, you will notice it slowly filling with Red Mana. Now what do you do with a Relic full of red Mana?
Many different Class spells and abilities will have a particular Mana Affinity. A simple, non-official example would be the Wizard’s Fireball spell having a red Mana Affinity. The Wizard doesn’t naturally generate red Mana, and therefore cannot take advantage of Fireball’s red Mana Affinity. However, if she has a Relic containing red Mana, every Fireball she casts will draw from that reservoir and activate the Mana Affinity.
Activating an ability’s Mana Affinity can apply a wide range of bonus modifiers to that ability, including the chance for powerful effect-procs, depending on the quality of the Relic and the depth of the particular Mana Affinity. Each time an ability with that Mana Affinity is used, it will drain a percentage of the Mana contained in the Relic, until the Relic is empty. (Hint: fighting inside of a Mana Climate will allow your Relic to continually replenish itself in and out of combat!)
Be sure to post your questions for the Pantheon dev team in this article’s forum thread. We'll be collecting them and sending them on to the devs to complete over the weekend! We’ll cut off submissions in this thread on Thursday at 5:00 pm Eastern (2:00 pm Pacific).
