Essence

Essence is a magical substance that permeates the Homunculus World.

Essence and the Physical Body
When a person consumes Essence, it can alter and create a new organ to control Essence. This organ, called the animamea, is normally placed between the Hippocampus and the Frontal Lobe of the brain. In small quantities is just inhabits some space between the two, but once a certain amount of Essence is consumed and indoctrinated into the body, it starts to rewire and reuse parts of the Hippocampus and the Frontal Lobe. This damages long-term memory, social skills, personality, one’s sense of right and wrong, and more!

Furthermore, it alters a person’s body and anatomy for either survival or aesthetic purposes. These alterations can become more extreme the more Essence one has, simply because the alteration effect is more effective and the person no longer makes as sound decisions. People who have consumed small amounts of Essence are normally called Induced.

Essence and Intelligence
Essence,when gathered in large amounts, seems to bear some form of artificial intelligence. Living with a person can alter the AI to match the person’s personality. If the person is particularly strong-willed, the Essence will continue in the area of the person’s death rather than circulate through the earth. Small to individual units of Essence don’t portray this property.

Power
Essence can be used to generate large amounts of energy, and is commonly used in power plants and devices.

Electrical Currents
Essence can create electromagnetic barriers, create electrical currents, cause lightning (through said electrical currents), and magnetism.

Kinetic Energy
Essence can create and store kinetic energy, which can be reapplied according to a user’s will. This also applies to thermal energy.

Mass and Matter
Essence can create a physical form, making an extremely strong substance. When a greater amount of Essence is needed than the amount at hand, Essence hybridizes to form a strong alloy with its surroundings to satisfy the quantity demanded.

Essence Tools
Essence tools utilize bacteria and plant matter to mimic various applications of Essence

Essence and the Conservation of Matter and Energy
Essence has the ability to manipulate existing forms of matter and energy, but also contains a somewhat mystical quality: Creation. Through unknown mechanics, Essence can create energy and mass out of nowhere, but only through a large gathering of Essence or a large amount of skill. This is called the Creation Principle.

Essence Consumption
Essence is more like a battery than a fuel source. A person who uses it doesn’t have to find more, but simply wait for the Essence to gain energy again. This “charging” property is an aspect of the Creation Principle.

Essence Range and Duration
Essence is heavily tied to the person wielding it, and the range of influence it can have depends entirely on the amount of Essence they possess. For example, King Mandolin of the Mandolin state can impact areas within 1500 meters, or a bit less than a mile. Except in cases where Essence changes the person’s appearance and form, Essence does not create long-lasting effects. Essence can only impact an area as long as it has power left and its user is within the radius.

Essence Mastery
The animamea is like a muscle, so training it is similar to muscle memory. As a result, there tends to be a duality between Essence users. Users who manipulate Energy tend to become specialized in energy manipulation, and become unrefined in matter manipulation. Similarly, users who specialize in manipulating or augmenting their body become unskilled at using energy manipulation. This is called the Specialization Principle.

Furthermore, when people change their forms using Essence, their new muscles and whatnot need time to adjust and acclimate. As a result, people are weakest immediately after changing. The time for adjustment varies depending on how drastic the form change is. For examples, werewolves are finish adjusting an hour after transformation. They are still stronger than the average human in the hour long adjustment period, but not as strong as they could be. This is called the Adaption Period.

Essence Appearance:
Essence, in small quantities, takes on the form of small flecks of light that quickly float around and move. They gravitate towards each other, and in larger groups they start to form cube-like shapes. These cube shapes can come apart and together at will. It becomes denser the greater quantity there is, but doesn’t get much bigger than a foot by foot cube. Even in extremely large amounts it doesn’t become heavily weighted, and also can still float.

User Terminology
There’s no specific term for people who wield Essence. Generally, terms like Wizard, Sage, and Sorcerer are used to describe these people, but these titles are usually inconsistent. For example, in Mandolin a magister is a government representative who uses Essence, but werewolf communities call practiced Essence users sages. These terms normally have whatever value that is given to them in context.

People who consumed Essence are normally considered human as long as they have decent reasoning and social skills though. Once their minds degrade enough or they change form enough, they are either labeled as embryos. Embryos normally have a change in form, and are genetically and physically different enough to not be homo sapiens. Non-humans do maintain a high level of social skills and personality.