Quintessence (MTAs)
From the White Wolf Wiki, the most complete White Wolf reference
Quintessence is the raw material of reality. It is what flows through the patterns of reality and what makes magic possible. The term literally translates to 'Fifth Essence'.
[edit] Tass & Quintessence
Quintessence is 'found' in two forms, although only one of them can be touched. It flows through the pattern of everything in existance, essentially keeping them in existance, however it has, and can often be found as Tass; Quintessence trapped inside a physical existance, and when loosed can be absorbed much like meditating at a node, where the stuff is found.
The true nature of Tass is practically unknowable, since Quintessence is immaterial and free-flowing, it shouldn't hypothetically possible for Tass to exist, yet it does. Metaphors of Quintessence being water and Tass being ice are the most common way of explaining the abnormality, but it goes nowhere towards explaining why something that should travel through a pattern could get trapped by it; Some theories are that excessive Quintessence at a Node has to go somewhere, Tass doesn't trap Quintessence it merely has an extremely long pattern that can store a large ammount of Quintessence inside, and another theory is that Quintessence isn't getting used enough by the world, trapped by the static nature of the world engineered by the Technocracy, a lot of Quintessence simply has nowhere else to go and condences at Nodes, although all of these have logical flaws in them.
[edit] Trait
Quintessence is used as a trait on a mage's character sheet, describing the amount of 'fuel' a mage has in their system to cast magic. It is measured on the same track as Paradox, and can be cancelled out by it. It is possible to use Awakened magic without Quintessence, but creating something out of nothing (Technically, fueling a pattern), is not. Quintessence can be expended to lower the difficulty of magic by one, or to make pattern changes or temporary patterns Permanent.
[edit] Manipulating Quintessence
Manipulating Quintessence is the purview of mages who study the Prime Sphere of Magic. Quintessence is invisible to those who don't have atleast a rudimentary (one point) knowledge of this sphere, without it, you cannot recognise a Node (although you need points on Avatar to take Quintessence from one) and anyone could sell you anything as being Tass without you being able to know any better.
Those with a high rating in this path can take Tass and create magical artifacts with their magic from it, can syphon the energy directly from it for themselves with ease or transfer it into another mage or artifact designed to hold it... Some can even draw spare quintessence that isn't being channeled into patterns into themselves, pulling Quintessence from the universal stream (Prime 5), although a large number of unexplainable phenomenons will most likely occur when this is performed.
