This page is about the Godly form of essence. For other uses of essence, see Essence (disambiguation).
Divine essence is a quantified manifestation of Divine being and is what gives the Divine the power to punish and favor mortals, amongst other things. For example, this most unearthly "substance" is responsible for the actualisation of new Gods, as when Neraeos absorbed the essence of His father Caspian to become the new God of the Sea, or for powerful acts of genesis, as when the essence of Gaia and Twilight was imbued to a forest to lead to the creation of Darkenwood.
Only certain Order members and the Divinities Themselves may know exactly how much essence a God has, but anyone can contribute essence to any chosen God. This is usually done via a shrine and is called "offering".
Offering
Offering corpses and gold to your chosen Divine is what raises Their essence and allows Them to do many things.
Offering consists of three steps:
- Kill denizens or creatures for their corpses or obtain gold.
- Find shrines of the God you wish to make an offering to.
- OFFER <object> and your offering will be taken.
Different types of offerings will be worth different amounts of essence. For example, offering a pixie and a mountain lion will give different amounts of essence. Generally, more powerful creatures will be worth more Divine essence.
Defiling
Defiling is the process of destroying one of a God's or Goddess's holy shrines. Destruction of a shrine exacts a cost in divine essence from that Divine, and reduces the number of locations at which essence can be offered to Him or Her. Order members and Divine are immediately notified when a shrine is being defiled, and have the opportunity to witness the actions of the defiler. Successfully witnessing an act of defilement will generate a Writs (contracts):writ, which confers the right to kill or hire an assassin upon the defiler.
To defile, one must OFFER <object or gold> TO DEFILE in a room containing a shrine.