Anima

**Anima**

**(Material)**

Anima, a strange substance that is not physical until made such by an outside force. Anima exists in every living being to some degree. Anima in the earliest civilizations was treated as the major currency and was forced into physical form creating Silver. Anima provides the life blood for all living things plant or beast. Even the planets themselves have a presence of Anima within their cores. The first major race to be known to manipulate Anima was the Elven. This was in part due to the fact that the Elven themselves were made by the Ancients by simply giving sentience to Anima itself. The Elven in the first days of their birth before choosing a physical form had all been nothing but the same material they then used to shape worlds and craft life to inhabit them.

The Elven are not the only ones to use Anima however, even the humans began to manipulate Anima in a way that would be known as Magic in its many known forms. Anima is never in a single state of being and changes when it inhabits a living being and becomes the life force that keeps the soul bound to the body. If the body is the vessel and the soul the consciousness then the Anima is the glue that binds the two together. The further you get into history (Closer to documented history) the less Anima becomes present as both a currency and a general idea. Mankind made its own names for Anima over the years. The celestials and the demons continued to fight over control of Anima for its ability to make everything but the spark of life itself.

Anima looks like what you might think it looks like, everything and nothing. The physical manifestation is in fact silver. The gas form of the material resembles a multi colored smoke that often will not obey the laws of physics on the planet. The Normal form of this material is simply unknown, no one really knows what anima looks like because it takes so many different forms. The Ancients may know but who could really even fathom it if it was described to them?  All forms of this material have entirely different properties than each other. The Gas form is known to be like crack for mages and if it is inhaled it will cause the average living beings life span to greatly lengthen as well as their ability to use magic. Sometimes one is the direct result of the other but usually they come hand in hand. A large enough dosage however will cause even the strongest species to become unstable and eventually cause a catastrophic reaction.

Anima has been termed the spirit in some cultures that differentiate the spirit and the soul, but it has few other names as its concept in truth was lost to time. The wars that take part in the celestial domain are primarily in part to the presence of Anima in all life and the desire to be the one in control of the ability to shape reality. At one point in the Elven history they began to war over planets for the Anima used to shape these planets. Though most of those wars resulted in the destruction of entire planes of existence and of course planets it was considered infighting to the Elven. It was hardly documented as wars and more as simply squabbling for turf among the culture.

In recorded history there are only a few species who devour/destroy/shape Anima knowingly. One of these species is the Apex predator of the Vampires, a species that is rarely spoken of. They are known to devour the Anima within a living being and what happens to the soul is something scholars have debated for a long time. There are those creatures in other planes that seek to destroy Anima as a whole to cause a wound to the plane as a whole. This is due to the fact Anima is akin to the blood of the root plane and while it spreads to the other planes like limbs in circulation destroying it would cripple many races. There are other races that simply shape Anima through long study or through flukes turned into practice in all earnest. Often times these races are considered deities no matter which one of the three they do, but just because someone can do this does not mean they are a god.

Anima has no alignment meaning it does not know the difference between good and evil or law and chaos it simply exists. Those who manipulate Anima are the ones who are supposed to have the moral compass to know the difference. That is not a burden that Anima has on its shoulders that is a matter for the soul to determine and the body to suffer the consequences of. The wizards who first used anima were much stronger as the presence of Anima in each race became drastically less with every creation after the Elven. Even the Elven became more solid and lost their old properties as Anima does when it becomes silver. But that is the tale of the Elf kind and a tale for another day.