The Lantern Hall
Painting: an ancient lexicon open on a carved lectern in a dark chapel of books, glowing runes and symbols lifting off its pages like fireflies.
TermGeneral term

Mana

A pool of magical energy spent to cast spells and replenished by rest or potions, usually shown as a blue bar. It is the chief alternative to Vancian magic and made famous in card games by Magic: The Gathering's lands.

A pool of magical energy spent to cast spells and replenished by rest or potions, usually shown as a blue bar. It is the chief alternative to Vancian magic and made famous in card games by Magic: The Gathering's lands.

Origin

From a Polynesian and Melanesian word for spiritual power, described to Western readers by R. H. Codrington in The Melanesians (1891); Larry Niven's 1969 story Not Long Before the End imagined mana as a finite, exhaustible resource.

Quick answers

What does "Mana" mean?
A pool of magical energy spent to cast spells and replenished by rest or potions, usually shown as a blue bar. It is the chief alternative to Vancian magic and made famous in card games by Magic: The Gathering's lands.
Where does the term "Mana" come from?
From a Polynesian and Melanesian word for spiritual power, described to Western readers by R. H. Codrington in The Melanesians (1891); Larry Niven's 1969 story Not Long Before the End imagined mana as a finite, exhaustible resource.

Nearby in the archive

Vancian magic

Tabletop term1974

A magic system in which wizards memorize a limited number of spells each day and forget each one as it is cast. Named after the fantasist Jack Vance, whose Dying Earth magicians could hold only a few formidable spells in mind at once, it defined D&D spellcasting for decades.

Hard & soft magic systems

Literature term2007

A hard magic system follows explicit rules and costs that readers understand, so characters can solve problems with it; soft magic stays mysterious and wondrous, like Gandalf's. Games need hard systems, which is why every RPG turns magic into rules and resources.

Painting: five glowing orbs of elemental magic, white light, blue water, black shadow, red fire, green forest.

Magic: The Gathering

Card game1993

Richard Garfield's card game of dueling wizards invented a genre overnight: collect random cards, build a deck, tap lands for mana and fight across five colors of magic.

Cooldown

Digital term

A waiting period after using an ability before it can be used again. Cooldowns replaced or supplemented Mana as the main limit on powers in MMORPGs and action games, turning combat into a rhythm of rotations.

Mentioned in 7 other exhibits