Junk Mana in Heartstones

He needs his clones at zero so he can use legendary hart stones from the beginnin

Kemizle

I always assumed the toxic stuff was a byproduct of the structure of the mana, like more pure heartstones would be more "malleable" in a sense, but less pure ones were more structured. The more structured heartstones don't integrate well, so they leave behind bits and pieces of heartstone that can crystallize with other impure heartstones making a sort of magical cancer. The original Garth dealt with this by cutting it out and making his familiar.

Karolus

I think since the tree could eat hearthstones by digesting them it could only digest 1/10 of the stone, this way he needs to get ten times the amount of the stones that he would normally get to directly take by himself. The pro about giving the stones to the tree even if it only able to get 1/10 of the stones energy is that it would be permenant to the future Garth that are born from the tree.

Thundermike00

@MuffinMan that was basically my take on ‘junk traits’. E.g. Garth’s body is a plant. It’s probably not gonna like a the ‘personality/species’ mana bits of a frosthound. A Warrior isn’t going to like the class bits of an Archmage’s heartstone. Etc.

PJ LeBlanc

So core radiation/impurity mutations, I like it -dood-

Prinny Knight

I also agree with PrinnyKnight about the slimes

I think it should be both. Mana cultivated by the original heartstone owner that's been tainted by their class/race and traits that can't be easily adopted by humans. Traits and mana that have an overbearing impact on human psyche which renders them harmful. For example, imagine a devil bloodhound. A human who consumes too many of their heartstones without purifying the dangerous traits will suffer physical ailments and will eventually become more impulsive, vicious, and eventually animalistic. The mana could just be responsible for the physical response you've described in previous chapters.

could it be both...maybe? also it could all just make a person more prone to magically based illnesses/viruses/mana leeches etc. plus the shits. for the obvious reasons. think Magical Maleria

tehlu

Adding on to what I said, when enough of the slime gathers, it would form a whole new core, made entirely of the negatives/anti-core -dood-

Prinny Knight

Sounds like the birth of slimes to me, corrupting ones at that -dood- I mean when enough gunk is gathered, starts hunting for more which would happen to involve sentients -dood- Would lead to possible dissasters or better yet, uses -dood-

Prinny Knight

Why not both? Just varieties of either concentrations.

Ashrothe

That’s what the other guy said.

Macronomicon

I'm for junk traits it leaves open an interesting Arc for insane canablistic plant liches or a new creature made from cast off traits

Austin Gibbs

I've always liked the idea of magic being akin to drugs, like the lyrium from dragon age, or the wyrd from the night angel trilogy. Powerful, if used occasionally, but disastrous should they be used wrongly or too frequently. That kind of fits with what I have imagined for the mana poisoning from the cores.