Leylines

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The Leyline Network is the lifeline of many societies across the galaxy, with every star system acting as a node in a veritable web of Mana transference. To understand the leyline network is to grasp at one of the most important fundamental aspects of our reality, and many are unable to do so.
— Hu Tao, Empress of the Progenitor Imperium

The Leyline network and its component leylines is one of the single most important aspects of magical manipulation, both on Pearalos and within the broader Milky Way galaxy. There's a lot of complexity to the leyline network, and while the Milky Way has known of them for thousands of years, Pearalos has only recently verified their existence as being more than mere conjecture.

The Vessel of Mana Transfer

Nobody knows how Mana is created, but almost nobody can use it in its Pure Mana state, which is how it begins life. The leyline network serves a dual purpose in this regard; it shuttles Mana from wherever it is created, across the universe in the so-called Universal Leyline Network, which takes Mana across the cosmos from galaxy to galaxy. Curiously, it is generally believed that each galaxy possesses 5 nodes that receive mana - the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy, and four points at the edge of the galaxy in cardinal directions. Owing to the lack of access to the galactic core of the Milky Way galaxy, most scientific studies have focused on the four cardinal nodes.
From there, Mana finds its way to the star systems in the galaxy, and then planets within those systems, and eventually to the mages that use it for their magical powers, but the specifics are far more complicated than that. Before we can talk more about the network itself, however, it would be wise to discuss the nature of leylines themselves!

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane

The Mana Problem

Leylines are a truly incredible phenomenon, and many scholars both on Pearalos and across the broader Milky Way galaxy focus their lives on the study of them, but time and again both come across a very similar problem: how did this system develop, and where does Mana - the force everyone depends upon for magical power - even come from to begin with? This is a fundamental question asked by arcanists - magical scientists - across Atronach, and nobody really knows the answer. Many believe that the answer has to be to do with Atronach itself - the broad metaphysical construct that enables attributes, levelling and more across the entire cosmos, and enforces several norms and rules - but that is at best broad conjecture, and at worst rampant assumptions. In truth, nobody may ever know for sure, not even the gods.

The Manifestations of Leylines

Leylines are present in many different shapes and sizes that vary greatly across the network, owing to the fact that network spans from a broad universe-spanning network down to planetary networks. All leylines share certain characteristics in common, which will be explained below, but the broad types will also be covered.

Shared Characteristics

All leylines share the key characteristic of not being physical objects, though they generally almost all have physical manifestations; they can only be detected by using techniques that are capable of detecting a Magical Aura - which means spells for Pearalos, and advanced aura-sensing technology within the Milky Way. Nobody really knows for sure what state of being that leylines exist within, but it has to be a state that renders them immune to many of the effects of the material plane, otherwise the theorised black hole leylines couldn't exist.

Node Characteristics

Galactic Leyline Nodes

There are two broad types of galactic leyline node; the confirmed Cardinal Galactic Leylines, and the theorised Black Hole Leyline at the centre of each galaxy. These are broadly distinct but serve the same purpose; they appear to intake Pure Mana from the universe-spanning branch of the Network, and send it to solar leylines and to other galaxies as appropriate.
Many have theorised that with the amount of Mana flowing through these leylines, even being able to skim a mere 1% of it would grant a civilisation a nigh-unending supply of Mana... but that has yet to be made into a reality, not through lack of trying, mind.
Cardinal Galactic Leylines - as their name implies - are located in the galactic north, south, east and west - from the central supermassive black hole - at the far edges of a galaxy, and do seem to follow the galactic rotation and 'orbit' the galactic centre. These leylines are usually located in deep space far from any nearby stars, and are as such incredibly hard to detect and track down, but their physical manifestation is that of a white hole - and indeed, nothing, not even light can enter the event horizons of these manifestations, which lines up with the idea...
This just offers more questions, however, as the leyline network itself seems to ignore these constraints and allows Mana in and out freely. As such, it's possible that white holes are specifically manifestations of the leyline network in deep space, which spew everything else out but allow mana to move freely.

Stellar Leyline Nodes

Stellar Leyline Nodes are much simpler to understand than galactic leyline nodes, and these are the first type of node the denizens of Pearalos are even remotely aware of (owing to the work of Dwarven astronomers with a high-powered mana-detection telescope). Stellar leylines are extremely plentiful, and are generally located in close proximity to stars - or even inside of them. They serve to connect every single star system to the broader network, allowing Mana to flow from the galactic leylines across the network to each solar system.
The precise manifestation of these leyline nodes is hard to quantify, as many of their properties can be easily mixed up with the supposed properties of the star they're located near or inside of; this makes the detection of these nodes uniquely difficult without specialised magical detection equipment, which is why it took Pearalos so long to even observe Lantyr's stellar leyline for the first time, as to the naked eye it's completely invisible.

Solar Leyline Nodes

While most of the Pure Mana passing through a stellar leyline is just heading to another stellar leyline, a good portion of it heads to the solar leylines, which are present around each planet in a Lagrange orbit. From these solar leylines, Mana makes its journey to other solar leylines, the star's stellar leyline, or it finally travels to the planet's surface and travels across the planetary leyline network to its final destination.

Planetary Leyline Nodes

Planetary Leyline Nodes are the final destination that Pure Mana takes on its journey; they crisscross planets in a web-like structure, and among them two of the nodes are more important than the rest; the Polar Leylines. The Polar Leylines connect to the solar leyline of the planet, and also to the polar leylines of that planet's moons, effectively acting as the core from which Mana travels across a planetary system.
This is also why many polar regions on planets are hot-points for magical activity; the sheer quantity of Mana flowing through this region makes it more likely that it 'spills out' and transforms the polar region. This is most famous on Pearalos, where the north and south polar leylines form the Polar Gates and contaminated much of the actual polar regions with powerful magical energies. The polar gates are an exceptionally dangerous and important facet of life on Pearalos - indeed, many of the world's most calamitous events are tied to the gates, yet they cannot be destroyed as they are intrinsically tied to the polar leylines themselves.
The broader leyline network on a planetary scale is generally equally spread across the surface of the planet, with a minimum of 500 miles between each leyline, and these leylines distribute the Mana within a 750 mile radius around them, ensuring the planet is fully covered with ambient mana.
When mana leaves these leylines as part of its final destination, it aspects into an elemental type and doesn't return to the network until it is expended or until it is drawn back in through artificial means, at which point it begins its journey again, but never leaves the planetary system itself - it will never travel back to the intra-solar leyline node.

Artificial Leylines & Leyline Manipulation

While Leylines are a natural feature of the cosmos, that hasn't stopped people from trying to manipulate them and even generate artificial leylines - this is by far the most common on Pearalos, but powerful Milky Way mages do it too - to have an on-demand source of Mana to tap for magical purposes.
To call leyline manipulation... difficult, would be understating it; leylines themselves are a metaphysical construct and that makes even finding them difficult, and owing to where many of the galactic and solar leylines are, leyline manipulation is only really practical on a planetary leyline node, and across the galaxy Pearalos is by far the more competent society at doing it.
Broadly in the Milky Way, it is possible to minorly impact a leyline's Mana throughput rate, allowing that leyline to be made stronger or weaker which impacts the area it deposits Mana into, but of the Milky Way's innumerable denizens, only the Progenitor Empress - Lady Hu Tao - is able to match the feats demonstrated regularly on Pearalos; in many ways, this is indicative of the divide between the broader galaxy and Pearalos; the galaxy at large relies a lot more on technology and that aids in their magical knowledge, but makes them less capable, while Pearalos has no such crutch to rely upon and thus has far superior magical talent.

Pearalosian Leyline Manipulation

Pearalos has a far higher magical skill than the broader Milky Way galaxy, as already stated, and this is reflected best in their ability to manipulate leylines. While most of the milky way can only minor impact the flow of Mana through a leyline, master magic users on Pearalos can massively influence leylines, slowing their mana throughput to a near-crawl or boosting it to extreme levels, and some of the best magic users on Pearalos - as well as the aforementioned Lady Hu Tao - can even create artificial Leylines.

Artificial Leylines

Artificial Leylines are functionally capable of all the same things as a regular leyline, and are even connected to the planetary leyline network at large, but are sustained by magical means - usually Liquified Mana powering the leyline generator that keeps it active - and consumes a part of the Pure Mana that passes through to maintain its link to the network.
Such leylines are extremely expensive, and on top of requiring the technological sustaining measure need a truly incredible magic user to form the leyline in the first place, and there are only five artificial leylines in existence, with four of them being on Pearalos. The only one not on Pearalos is located on the Ratatoskr - the mobile palace of the Progenitor crown - and was created by Hu Tao.
The Ratatoskr Leyline serves as the only example of a moving artificial leyline capable of linking to even solar leyline nodes based on its location, and is powered by the magical energies of Hu Tao's many magically-talented slaves, rather than liquified mana. The others are located in various locations across Pearalos, with the most famous being located in the city of Karali, seat of power of the Begum of the Farasids, Miral Pasaali.

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