Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Everyone who ’s play a fantasy RPG in late yr is familiar withMana – a natural source of ghostlike energy ( usually colored gloomy ) that mages draw upon to fuel the molding of puissant patch . The term ' Mana ' , however , has much older origins than phantasy literature . set forth out as a Polynesian / Melanesian term for spiritual / strong-arm tycoon , Mana was adopt by fantasy writer and designers of roleplaying games to excuse why adept and witches could be sick turn … and why they could n’t do so indefinitely .
In advanced fantasy video games likeFinal FantasyorWorld of Warcraft , Mana is an in - game resource that essentially pretend as fuel for magic . A spell - casting supporter uses up some of their Mana whenever they throw away a spell : the more herculean a spell , the more Mana it costs , and once protagonist runs out of Mana , they need to wassail a special potion to restore their spell - casting ability . The concept of Mana is used so often in fantasy media because it ’s sluttish for people to grasp and puts a logical limit on the capacity of magic , keeping it from being used to solve every problem in the story or game . outdoors of phantasy medium , though , Mana is far more than just the charming equivalent of a battery .
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Among Hawaiians , Maori , Tahitians , and other Oceanic cultures , Mana is a unearthly quality , a mixture of life history - energy , charisma , just fortune , and report . People , places , and localization can all have Mana , and the cultivation of Mana through battle , righteous actions , and wealth acquisition is an important part of being a drawing card in many Polynesian / Melanesian societies . In these cultures , Mana is a multi - faceted Bible that can identify many different look of living and proper living … a subtlety other European Anthropologists failed to nibble up on when they first check about this construct . Many key Mana as a naive form of religion , a sacred energy consanguineal to " The Force " fromStar Wars ; others conflated Mana with other , non - Oceanic concepts of apparitional energy such as Qi , Pneuma , Orenda , Zemi , Oki , or Ruach . By the time these sociological theories got discredit as faker - science , Mana became a well - bang construct among antagonistic - cultural mystic , New Age Gurus , and writers of science - fiction and illusion .
Larry Niven’s “Magic Goes Away” Used Mana As A Metaphor For Peak Oil
In the later sixties / early 1970s , skill fiction writer Larry Niven ( the author ofRingworld ) took the concept of Mana and made it the core of hisThe Magic Goes Awayfantasy serial , a collection of novel and little chronicle about , well , how the legerdemain run away . In a prehistorical era of unimaginable creatures and spellcasters , a canny wizard called the Warlock detect that Magic is a non - renewable resource : each time a spell is cast , Mana is run out from the local landscape , and when all the Mana is tucker out , all the wonderment created by magic will go away from the earth . Niven ’s account of ancient refinement collapse from the overexploitation of magic act as a parable for the vim crisis of the early 1970s , with Mana being a stand - in for fossil fuels .
Tabletop Roleplaying Games Introduced The Concept of “Magic Points”
After the runaway success ofDungeons & Dragons , the public ’s first tabletop roleplaying game , a number of publishers dipped their own toes into the 1970s fantasy RPG market with titles such asTunnels and TrollsandRuneQuest . These whirl - off RPGs frequently attempted to skin downD&D ’s complex array of rules into something that gamers could pick up more quickly , and easily – peculiarly when it came to thaumaturgy . Instead of having wizard characters prepare and learn spells forward of timelike inD&D , spellcasters in many of these derivative games would spend ' Power Points ' , ' Magic Points ' , or some other metaphysical resourcefulness to cast spells .
Mana Spread to Video Games (& Card Games Like Magic: The Gathering)
The concept of ' Magic Points ' swiftly spread from tabletop RPGs to telecasting game RPGs , with classic 8 - snatch form of address likeUltima III , Dragon QuestandFinal Fantasyusing the term " MP " to represent the sorcerous get-up-and-go a phantasy hero could practice to cast tour . In some of these former games , the " M " in " MP " stood for Mana , and in the 1993 RPGSecret of Mana , the term " Mana " was used to describe an ancient source of trick the game ’s antagonists wished to claim for themselves .
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The feeling of Mana as a colorful , power rootage for thaumaturgy truly became omnipresent after the achiever of three particular game lines . First there wasMagic : the Gathering , the literary genre - defining collectible card game of duel wizards , in which players assemble decks of spell / creature card theme around five dissimilar colors of Mana . Then come theWarcraftandDiablofranchises from Blizzard Entertainment , which popularized the now universal automobile mechanic of represent a lineament ’s Mana capacitance using a risque meter .
For all that Mana is synonymous with magical major power these days , Mana in its original context is far more similar to the RPG concepts of Experience Points and Character Levels . In culture all across the Pacific , multitude endeavor to gain Mana through personal excellency , the acquisition of influence , and the performing of great deeds – like to how gamers in an RPG seek to explore , stark quests , and gain XP from vote out powerful enemies .
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Source : The Appendix
