Mana is what you spend. Soul is what you are made of.
Every mage starts with a full soul. It is not a bar on your screen and there is no number to read. You find out how you are doing by how the game treats you, and by one colour on the casting bar.
Two ways to lose it
Your soul is a ceiling minus a fuel gauge: soul = ceiling - fuel.
- Sacrifice lowers the ceiling, for good. Learning is paid for in soul, and what you pay is never refunded.
- Fuel is soul you have burned by using magic. It can be recovered.
The ceiling is a share of your total soul. These are the shares, and they are percentages of the total, so they scale
with the soul_total setting (default 2000).
| What it is | Share of total | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Learning numerals | 21% | Permanent. Split across the numerals 2 to 9, bigger numerals costing more |
| Learning spells taught by mobs | 35% | Permanent. Split evenly across all such spells |
| Forging a Philosopher's Stone | 35% | Permanent. Paid once |
| The rest | 9% | Can never be spent |
| One cast of a soul-burning spell | 0.5% | Fuel |
| One imbuement | 0.5% | Fuel |
A numeral or a mob-taught spell that a mage earns, instead of taking it by force, costs half its share.
Learning never takes you to empty, and neither does an imbuement. If paying for a numeral, a spell, a Stone or an imbuement would leave you with nothing, the game refuses and you keep your soul. Casting a soul-burning spell, or awakening a Stand, can take you all the way down.
At the default total of 2000, one cast or imbuement burns 10 points, the Stone costs 700, and 180 points can never be spent. Costs round down.
Other things burn fuel too.
- Some rituals, summons and tributes take soul.
- Each hit with your own Zanpakutō costs soul, by default 2 points per level above the first
(
bankai_soul_per_level). If a hit would drop you under 0.25%, the sword falls back to its first level instead. - Most Stand abilities cost 2 points, and some cost more. An ability that would take you under 5% sends your Stand away instead.
- A circle that fires a soul-burning spell burns its owner's soul, but never below 9%, and only while the owner is online.
- Lifting a placed Black Hole with a Philosopher's Stone burns your soul down to 8%. At 8% or below, the lift is refused. See The Trial of Yourself.
Creative players burn no fuel. The permanent sacrifice is worked out from what they know, so it still applies.
Tiers
What your soul does to you depends on how much is left.
| Tier | Soul left | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Whole | 50% or more | Nothing |
| Whispers | 40% to 50% | Whispers now and then, more often in the dark. Glyphs flicker in front of your eyes |
| Voices | 30% to 40% | You get shoved and the screen shakes. Casts can fail outright |
| Weird | 10% to 30% | The world near you misbehaves: small fires, some blocks turned to stone, crops dying |
| Curses | Under 10% | A curse lands on you every so often: blindness, nausea, weakness, slowness, mining fatigue, hunger, poison, darkness or bad luck |
| Empty | 0 | Reset (see below) |
Each tier keeps the effects of the tiers above it.
- A failed cast (Voices and below) is rolled when you cast. The failure chance is 5% by default
(
soul_cast_failure_percent). The mana is still spent. - Whispers and shakes are cosmetic. Shoves, failed casts, fires, stone, dead crops and curses only happen to players in survival mode.
- The world effects leave alone any block that holds a circle, any block entity (chests, furnaces and the like) and any Mana Block.
The only readout
The casting bar that runs when you fire a CAD changes colour with what the shot would leave you with.
| Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Green | After this cast you will still be above 10% |
| Yellow | This cast leaves you in the Curses tier, or you are already there |
| Red | This cast would take you to zero |
While your soul is high the bar is only a cast timer, and it stays green.
Empty: the reset
If your soul hits zero you start over.
- Every Philosopher's Stone and Mana Gem you carry is destroyed. That covers your inventory, the bags you carry and the chests of your network.
- Your circles in loaded areas are cancelled. A circle in an unloaded area is left, with nothing to pay for it. Mana Blocks stay where they are.
- You forget everything you have learned, and have to learn DISCOVER again.
- Your mana pool and your soul start fresh.
Getting it back
Fuel comes back from eating certain foods.
| Food | Restores |
|---|---|
| Enchanted golden apple | 0.5% |
| Golden apple | 0.2% |
| Banana | 0.2% |
| Glistering melon slice | 0.07% |
An enchanted golden apple pays back exactly one cast. The glistering melon slice can be eaten for this. Food can only restore fuel. It never lifts you above your ceiling.
Soul does not regenerate on its own. Apart from food, one Stand ability can share soul with the players around it. The permanent sacrifice does not come back at all.
For server admins
soul_total sets the total everything is a share of. The soul_* settings tune the tier effects. All of them are
listed under Commands and Config.