Essence

Essence can have many meanings in Lusternia, however this article concerns the three main mechanical meanings: essence collected from the Ethereal and Elemental Planes, personal essence used by demigods, and essence accumulated by divine orders.

Essence from Ethereal/Elemental Planes

Killing some denizens of the Ethereal and Elemental Planes rewards a unit of essence flavoured by the denizen's home area.

Light Essence

Light essence appears to be created from palpable light energy, rolled up into a small sphere which floats in the air.

Comes from starsuckers and dream leeches.

a bit of dark essence

The dark essence is utterly impenetrable. It looks like nothing more than wadded up shadows.

Dropped by a morbidly tainted grub and a decaying gargoyle.

a bit of cloud essence

Looking like a miniature cloud in its own right, a bit of cloud essence radiates a cold, chilling aura, the fluffy interior surrounded by a swirl of icy winds. Occasionally the essence darkens, loosing a few trickles of precipitation before lightening once more.

Formed by the shrieking deaths of stormeaters, cloud carrion and aerial stalkers.

Uses of Ethereal/Elemental Essence

Essence of the correctly corresponding type can be placed into a Nexus of Power to generate power.
- Certain entities, typically powerful Cosmic or Nature beings, can convert essence of any type into their favored type.
Essence can be transmuted by Wildewood, Wyrdenwood and mages with chemantic training into various reagents.
- There is also amorphous essence produced by beaker artifacts that is specially for chemantic purposes. (See ASHOP 198, 219 and 260.)
Throughout modern history, it has been common for various one-time projects or transient entities to require large amounts of elemental essence.

Demigod Essence

Mortals who reach level 100 become demigods and from then onward gain essence in place of additional experience. They can then spend this for various powers. See Demigod and HELP DEMIGOD for more information.

Divine Essence

Divine orders, as well as their cults, have a pool of essence built up primarily through offerings and drawn upon to erect shrines and enact miracles on behalf of their deity.

Note: The deity does not need to be active for the order to generate or use this essence.

Generating Divine Essence

Offering a corpses or gold at a shrine.
Offering figurines (or wonder braziers) imbued with esteem.
Order members empowering the denizens of their deity's God Realm.

Uses of Divine Essence

Erecting shrines
Beseeching the god for shrine powers.
- See HELP 11.3 OFFERINGS AND SHRINES for a list of shrine powers and how to use them.
Cult members can call upon powers their leader has unlocked in the Veneration skill.