The essence

**The essence** is a resource used by wielders to cast spells when in combat. A wielder must have enough essence to cast a given spell. There are a total of 5 essence types, representing 5 schools of magic, as well as sixth school of combination spells, where two types of essence are combined. For information on spellcasting, read the page about Magic.

## Types of essence

There are 5 types of essence in the game. Order, Chaos, Destruction, Creation and Arcana. Although all factions share the same spell book, they have vastly different essence generation. For example, Arleon will generate mostly Order essence, followed by Chaos and then Creation. But Rana will generate mostly Creation essence, followed by Destruction and Arcana. These factions will therefore have access to vastly different spells throughout a game.

There generally isn't a strong theme for the types of essence and what magic they unlock. But one important distinction is between order essence and the other types. Order is the only school of magic that does not have any spell dealing direct damage, whereas all the other schools have multiple damaging spells throughout. It is therefore counterproductive to build a wielder for high spell damage, whilst focusing on Order Essence. Order is best suited for a Wielder who's choosing skills improving their troops, rather that their magic.

## Generating essence

The essence can be generated in a couple of ways: From units, from wielders themselves, from spells and from some unique interactions. Unless otherwise stated, essence is generated at the start of each turn, and then on every subsequent turn. For units, it's on their own turn. For Wielders, it's at the start of every combat round instead, since Wielders don't have a personal turn.

### **From units:**

Wielders, which are the commanders of the armies, draw essence from their troops. Each stack of a unit creates a certain amount of essence at the start of their turn in combat. A stack only needs to have 1 unit to create the full amount of essence. Which type of essence a unit creates is a part of their stats. Take an Arleon footman, who has +2 order essence, thus giving their Wielder +2 essence at the start of their every turn. Because essence is tied to units in this way, it greatly effects how armies are put together, as the choice of units influences what spells will be available.

*Example:* Two Arleon players face off. Player A has a human focused army, which generates mostly Order essence. Player B has a Faye focused army, generating large amounts of Chaos essence. Player A will therefore use Order spells, focusing mostly on the spell Rally to buff all their units at once with increased Attack and Defense. In contrast, Player B uses their Chaos Essence to cast Chain lightning, using their essence to deal direct damage to the enemy units.

#### Special units:

There exist two special units, which can generate large amounts of essence, namely Necromancers and Chelun elders. They both have the "charge essence" ability. This ability reads as follows:

> "Generate this unit's Essence for the wielder"
>
>

These units can effectively generate their essence twice, at the cost of ending their turn. This stacks with the spell "Strengthen Essence" described below.

### **From wielders:**

Wielders can personally generate essence though skills, powers, specializations and items. This works in a similar way to units, except for the fact that wielders don't have their own turn. They therefore generate essence at the start of each combat round.

*Example:* Giandra has specialization "+1 Chaos essence". She has leveled "Chaos magic level 2" giving +4 Chaos essence. She also has "talisman of Chaos" item, giving her further +2 Chaos. Giandra will therefore generate 7 Chaos Essence each round of combat. Later, she gains the Power "Attuned", giving er +1 in all Essence types. Now she gains +8 Chaos essence, as well as +1 of every essence type, each combat round.

#### Unique skills:

There are also some unique skills for generating essence. The skill "essence burst" gives Wielders extra essence of all 5 types, but only once at the start of combat. And the skill "Essence leech" generates essence when enemy units die. See details on the Skills page

### **Spells:**

Two spells alter essence generation in units: "Strengthen essence" increases essence generated, whereas "destroy essence" eliminates essence generation. "Strengthen essence" can be used multiple times on the same unit, increasing the amount essence the unit generates, to a maximum of 6 essence per type each round. This ability stacks with the "charge essence" ability mentioned above.

*Example:* A Necromancer normally generates 1 destruction essence and 2 arcane essence on their turn. By casting "strengthen essence" 3 times on the unit, it now creates 3 destruction and 6 arcana essence each turn. By using the ability "charge essence", the Necromancer generates a further 3 destruction and 6 arcane essence and ends their turn, generating a total of 6 destruction and 12 arcane. Casting "strengthen essence" one more time would not further increase arcana generation, but would increase destruction generation.

### Other:

Essence can be generated through 2 special structures that give a global bonus to all the friendly wielders: Research in tier 3 economic technology buildings named "Wielder research", and buildings on the map called Spires.

*Example:* Arleon has researched "order within lvl 1", giving +1 order to all their wielders. In addition, they control a "chaos spire" giving +1 chaos essence to all their wielders.

## Tooltips:

There exist some useful tooltips in the game, to better show the player what essence they have available:

Hovering over the Essence ball beneath the Wielder portrait shows how much of that Essence type is generated, which sources are generating it, as well as highlighting the relevant units.

When opening the spell book, it's again possible to see how much essence of each type is generated each round, by looking beneath the colored orbs. If a Wielder does not generate at type of Essence, the spells are grayed out, to show that they will never be avilable.

Hovering over a specific spell shows how many rounds of combat it would take to generate enough Essence to cast it

## Strategy

Essence cannot be stored after combat. Any leftover essence is simply lost. This should motivate the player to use all available essence each battle, in order to reduce loss of troops.

A stack with 1 unit generates as much essence as a stack with 100 units. It is therefore an advantage when generating essence to have armies with many stacks, so the wielder gets more essence each round. But beware that whenever a unit on one team dies, the other team gets a "momentum" buff. Having multiple small stacks would risk giving the enemy the momentum buff multiple times.

When building an army, it's important to consider if it matches the chosen Wielder. If the player for example wants a spell damage focused wielder, it's paramount to actually have units that generate essence to cast damaging spells, rather than having units that generate Order Essence.