7 Magic Rocks

1. Dungeon Core

The core of the DungeonVerse is the dungeon, and at the core of every dungeon is a glowing magical rock that, in some instances, is intelligent and self-aware. The majority of dungeons are small and weak, and have similar cores, with low levels of awareness. But, awareness isn't required to churn out monsters, cultivate essence, and create a defensive structure. Dungeons come in a large number of flavors.

Mono-type Dungeon - these are weak and low level dungeons and many are not even recognized as dungeons. They do not create traps beyond the most basic, their internal layout is simple, and they have a single narrow creature type they churn out in large numbers. These are more commonly known as Lairs, brood nests, or warrens. Normal warrens might put out swarms of rats, multiple packs of wolves, flocks of aggressive birds, bears, and other superficially mundane creatures. These are technically normal creatures and do not have any innate magical abilities. Normal warrens are a great place for starting adventurers. The cores from the these dungeons can be used in the same manner as Beast cores (see below), but can also be used as spell foci.

Biome Dungeons - these are dungeons that are integrated into the environment and are almost always elemental in nature, such as forest dungeons, underwater dungeons, and frozen dungeons. Biome dungeon cores are generally used in the creation of legendary equipment, or are used as power sources to charge thaumatech devices such as the works inside a bathhouse, negating the need for things like boilers, or water pumps.

2. Beast/Monster core

As animals accumulate essence, they undergo the process of monsterfication, becoming essence users themselves and gaining supernatural size, abilities, and eventually monstrous intelligence. One of the side effects of this is that they develop a core, where their body processes the essence they draw in, and it is where this energy is stored until it is used to power an ability. When slain, these cores can be collected and are an important part of the magical commodities market in the DungeonVerse.

Uses for beast cores:

Used in the creation of magic items and the creation of a variety of basic alchemical bases and reagents

Adventurers can crush and 'consume' them to replenish their essence pool, keeping them in a fight. This is a very expensive way to do this, and inefficient. A single monster core can be used to make a good number of mana potions. These are generally limited to how much can be consumed, and there is not really a limit to how many monster cores an adventurer can crush and keep going.

Essence-Users, including non-combatant essence users like highly skilled craftspeople, can crush as consume beast cores to advance their ability in essesce manipulation. Most heroes advance their skill through fighting monsters, raiding dungeons, and doing quests. Someone who is a boot maker, or blacksmith is really keen on going on a murder hobo spree to increase their skills, and the alternative is taking a lifetime of meditation and training to reach the basic level. Most such non-combatant essence users will use a mix of crushing monster cores and practicing their craft in the safest part of a dungeon. This is part of the draw of Terrasquestone and the Gygaxian Gyre, the entry level of the dungeon has high essence density and is almost completely safe.

Almost.

3. Quintessence Stone

Quintessence stones are commonly occurring crystallized formations of essence. There are thousands of different types of quintessence, ranging from the expected water, ice, storm, fire, and the rest of the fantasy standard to beast quintessence like wolf, minotaur, or dragon, to highly esoteric types like celestial, inverse, and weird quintessence. In their purified form they appear as small spheres like marbles, and either require experience with quintessence, or an identify ability to determine what they are.

Quintessence stones are generally low value, as they are used in large quantities to power ritual magic, or 'magitek' devices like the above-mentioned heating and cooling systems. Having a magma type dungeon core to power a forge is fantastic, but those are pretty freaking rare, so it is much more common to have a forge that is powered not with burning wood or coal, but a steady supply of fire quintessence.

These are a neat idea, but a bit of an awkward fit, they kinda overlap with dungeon gemstones, but i like the idea of the animal and esoteric quintessence being usable, and the utility roles basic quintessence stones provide, such as the mentioned powering of forges, water heaters, and even ambient lighting, moving Terrasquestone in a contemporary level of modern comfort setting rather than smokey torches in wall sconces and crumbling castles where the armored knights never take off their armor

4. Essence Stone

An Essence Stone is technically a greater form of a quintessence stone, in the same way that a diamond and coal are technically the same thing. The difference is that where quintessence stones are used as plug in power sources for creature comfort devices and to power things like flaming swords and adding ice effects to arrows, the Essence Stone is larger, more powerful, and can be used for other more valuable purposes.

The most valued use of Essence Stones is to change an essence-user's creature sub-type.

The outcome of using an Essence Stone varies, there are no set rules, just general observations. For example, three different people can use the same essence, and get different outcomes. The example that comes to mind is the Wolf Essence. The barbarian uses the Wolf Stone and becomes a werewolf barbarian, a permanent rage furry. A ranger uses the Wolf stone, and gains the ability to speak with wolves and run with them as a brother. The druid uses the wolf stone and his base form becomes a dire wolf and he has to use his shapeshifting ability to temporarily assume a human form.

This is one of the methods driving the wide variety and disparity of races across the DungeonVerse, as the changes made by an essence stone are permanent and deep. The druid who turned into a dire wolf IS a dire wolf, and if he has children, they will inherit his true wolf form, same as the barbarian, and the children of the ranger of wolves will have a strong resonance and sympathic bond with wolves. This is more pronounced in some races, more than others. Elves tend to create entiure new branches of their species through the use of a specific cluster of essence stones.

Absorbing an Essence Stone requires a Body/constitution check, difficulty depends on how well the essence aligns with the person trying to use it. People can accumulate more than one such essence, though 3 is generally the max that should be allowed, with anyone having more than 3 would demonstrate demigod levels of endurance and ability.

5. Awakening Stone

Awakening Stones are also highly sought after and prized because they operate in a similar manner to Essence Stones, granting those who absorb them access to new powers and abilities they didn't have before. These grant the user a permanent boost, advantage, merit, spell-like ability, or the like. A good rule of thumb is to rather treat these as esoteric objects, and their connotations tying back to clerical domains as a general ground. If you are more familiar with Cultivation Lit, and LitRPGs the basic concept here should be easy to pick up.

An Aspect of the Predator Awakening stone would grant powers related to stalking, tracking, hunting, ambush, and similar effects.

A Clear Mind Awakening stone would help magic users, clerics, and others who use intelligence as their prime attribute

6. Pharosite or Star Crystal

These are incredibly rare, as they are strange crystals that glow as they consume essence. Most that were found were long ago destroyed, as they didn't store essence, they drew it in and destroyed it.

It is believed that these stones fell from the heavens and came from the heart of the Sun

7. Magicite

All known Magicite crystals are unique, there are no duplicates of any of them. They are not all equal, but they are all powerful additions to any essence user's arsenal. These are the crystallized souls of potent spirit beings. Some might call them the petrified souls of deceased gods, and likewise consider their ownership and use by adventurers blasphemous.

The most powerful known magicite is the Terrasque stone, held in the heart of Terrasquestone. 99% of the people in the city have no idea of this object, the Lords of the Citadel know, and only the High Lord is allowed into the chamber where it is kept. This does create a Schroedinger's Dilemma. Does the mighty terrasque actually exist, physically slumbering somewhere down in the Gyre? Or, does it only exist when the stone is activated, tearing its way out of the ground as part of its summoning ritual? There is proof of the beast, as its shed scales, discarded teeth, and other useful bits have been recovered from the Gyre, but for all the centuries of its depths being explored, the beast itself has never been found slumbering.

Monks in Tir Artach claim to have a magicite stone that allows them to summon a Solar Dragon. Despite this claim, there are no records of anyone seeing the stone, though attempts have been made to raid the distant monastery, but only records remain of these efforts, and there are fields of vitrified stone and glass along the approaches to the monastery.

The Old Empire was rumored to have many of these, including a chained entity that was obviously evil they held as a thrall, a titan whale monster with giant legs, and other similar horrors. The ultimate fate of these items are unknown but it is generally hoped these stones were permanently lost or destroyed in the cataclysm that ended the Old Empire.