Pulse & The Veins

Pulse is the intangible lifeblood of all living things, the raw energy of creation. In the Vaelniersam canon, it originates from the blood spilled by Valens in the process at the beginning of creation. Though humans are "filled" with it in a way that can be sometimes directed and utilized as a kind of primitive magic, it is densest in the Veins that course throughout the planet and well up in select locations; where the "wounds" of world open up before mankind are where humanity is closest to creation. Those who enter become one with the world again, their body and selves dissipating into the flow of energy that maintains the cycle of life and matter on the surface. Over the years, as the population of living things has fluctuated, the size of the Wounds have grown and shrunk alongside it, supplying energy and perhaps also increasing the ease of return.

The outward manifestation of Pulse has only become part of daily life in relatively recent history. This increase may be due to the growth of the Wounds. Otherwise, it was a relatively rare occurrence even up until the Southern Campaigns some 5000 years ago, and so the schoolchild's question of "Why would the old armies fight with only swords and spears when there's Pulse?" is negated by the fact that there was not Pulse to be used. Rather, if old legend is to be believed, Pulse was used almost exclusively used by the ancient heroes who became the Observers and the Watchkeepers themselves, in those days where they walked the earth alongside humanity.

Truthfully, Pulse is an odd, unanticipated defect of creation. It sources from subtle seams in what one might consider the "soul," and so, as the energy of life in the world has increased, these seams have widened to allow it to leak through. When these seams "burst," there is either a seemingly irreparable fracturing of the being or, yet to be seen, intense energy with a vast potential to rival the great Guard itself.