Mana
Mana is a special form of currency used by Legion to create and improve items, as well as for other special purposes. Mana is generated by Legion technology through a process involving the efforts of the hive's members. A Legion accesses a Mana Nodule inside a Hive Tree or similar facility and makes special actions to capture light energy and convert it into Mana. Mana is stored in special magic stones called Mana Crystals, which are created by actively gathering energy by the hive's members, as well as by the queen by harvesting the hive's latent energies. The crystals can then be inserted into the Mana Nodules to perform crafting procedures.
To create or enhance a Legion item, a Legion can access a nodule, spend a sufficient amount of Mana Crystals in the place of crafting materials, and perform the relevant crafting checks. One can also pay the full base price in Mana Crystals to have the hive's computer create or enhance an item automatically.
The value of Mana is 5 per $1. This conversion can be used to calculate anything that would normally use dollar units, including crafting and trading. Otherwise, crafting Legion items is mechanically identical to crafting any other sort of item.
Legion Armor
All Legion armors are typed "Legion". Legion crafted armor cannot be repaired by normal means, but instead regenerate any damage they have taken over the course of a full day of being retracted. All Legion armors are retractable, meaning that a character who possesses the armor may choose which of their retractible armors are out. Retracting or forming legion armors each take all of your move actions for two turns. All Legion Armors start without superior quality enhancements, and superior quality enhancements may only be purchased with Mana. Superior Quality Enhancements that have been newly purchased do not manifest until the next time the armor is formed. Each Legion armor also has a "ports" rating which determines the highest level of the Port-bearing enhancement they may take for that specific armor.
Legion Weapons
Legion craft their own weapons, using Mana as the base currency. The costs are five times the normal costs in mana. When a Legion crafts a weapon, if that weapon has a base cost(before enhancements) of 200(dollars) or less, they may choose to make the weapon retractable. Retractable weapons take a hand action to extrude or retract and may not be lent to anyone else, and impose a -8 penalty to anyone trying to grapple it away from you.
Manacharge Crystals
Standard Legion facets are capable of creating Mana-infused crystals that can be installed into armor with the Port-bearing enhancement or used by Legion Pilots with the Extra Port ability. Each of these crystals grants a special ability determined by the facet of the person who created it.
To create a Manacharge Crystal, a Legion must make crafting checks while accessing a Mana Crystal Nodule in a Legion Hive Tree or similar facility. The base value of a Manacharge Crystal is 50 Mana times the level of the facet required to create the specific crystal. The skill used to create a crystal is the specialty skill of the facet involved. Manacharge Crystals are created just like any other Legion item, either through manual crafting or automatic generation.
See the individual pages of the Legion Facets for information on the Manacharge Crystals' functions.
Generating Mana
The process of the creation of Mana is mechanically similar to working a job. Normally, the job of Mana generation calls for Personality, Accuracy, or Intelligence with the Magic skill. This job's equivalent of promotion manifests as improving skill in energy collection with the nodules' psychic interface. The available perks for Mana generation include Downtime, Fulfillment, Training, and Discount.