Soul Merger

Monsterpedia Supplemental

Leylines and Mana Pools

While Labyrinths contain far more magic than the rest of the world, magic concentrations aren't uniform. In addition, soul energy flows from the place of people's deaths across the world, slowly reforming and reincarnating. Normally this would only be of interest to scholars and trivia masters. However since a concentration of magic and souls can lead to the formation of monsters, everyone needs to know the basics.

Leylines

The invisible web of souls that cross the earth, they're a strange cross between fault lines and currents. The 'fault lines' are where the greatest concentrations of soul energy flows. No one is quite sure why souls bunch up like that and follow these lines over the earth. However repeated magical testing has shown these lines exist and are mostly stable.

Some soul energy breaks from the leylines. However they still are influenced by the flow of the nearest line. This leads to a general current of souls and is how most humans get their souls when born. The exact details of that are something scholars still haven't worked out. The mother's soul makes it hard to see what's going on with the child until after birth.

Leylines tend to flow through places with a lot of life, so cities always have a number running through them. However the paths they trace to get to cities can be very strange!

We know leylines can change and shift because the rise and fall of cities have altered leyline paths a lot. The collapse of several large cities in the middle of the continent completely rerouted the leylines, meaning old global maps are totally useless.

Mana Pools

Mana pools are where magic tends to gather. Unfortunately there's no easy way of determining what spaces will become a mana pool. In fact we're not sure if mana pools can form and change on their own or if they just become more noticeable as the amount of mana in general increases.

The one uniform detail about mana pools is that they seem like they should be magical. These usually are places outside of cities, though works of art, magical campuses, and prisons have been known to be mana pools. Waterfalls, pristine springs, or volcanoes are far more common however. In general it leads to places that 'make sense.' Even if it only makes sense at particular times of the year, like when the monarch butterflies migrate through.

Debates about whether mana pools are caused by people's interest in an area, or if people are interested in areas because of the concentration of magic are being held in the underground lecture hall of the Tower. Please wait until the cleaning staff have secured the blast doors before starting the argument.

Where leylines and mana pools collide, monsters can form. Of course if they leave the mana pool they'll slowly start dying, but that still gives the monsters out in the wilds a good range to roam and cause problems. It can also end up creating a monster lair, where a huge beast like a dragon can set up as ruler of the area. These wandering monsters and laired monsters are significant dangers to travelers, and why caravans and constant patrols are vital to our way of life!