Essences

The Essences are five special perks you can find while exploring the world. When picked up, they each produce an effect aligned with their elemental energy, centered on you. These effects can be dangerous, even deadly, and it is advisable to be well equipped with protective perks, some extra hp, and a means to heal yourself before you grab one. The Essence effects can be removed, and the process of doing so creates one of the five corresponding Elemental Stones. Both the Essences and their respective Stones are involved in many quests, secrets and achievements - if you want to discover these for yourself, read no further.

Essence of Earth

The Essence of Earth is found in a ??? room along the map's east wall, inside a grey diamond composed of Brickwork.

When collected, every few seconds 8 explosive Magic Bolt projectiles are fired in an octagonal pattern around you, destroying terrain and setting off explosives. The small explosions from these projectiles can damage you unless you have obtained Explosion Immunity. Staying in the air, or timing levitation jumps so that you are above the ground when the projectiles are fired off helps to avoid the explosions.

A Tannerkivi is created when this Essence is consumed by an Essence Eater.

Essence of Earth spawns Magic Bolts around you.

Essence of Air

The Essence of Air is found in ??? room in the center of the Cloudscape, inside a grey brickwork diamond floating amidst the clouds.

When collected, it regularly shoots 16 Burst of Air projectiles in a fairly tight circle around you, pushing away powders, enemies, and objects.

It is generally a fairly safe Essence, but can easily result in many broken Potions and the occasional explosion from fragile explosive props.

An Ukkoskivi is created when this Essence is consumed by an Essence Eater.

Essence of Air spawns Bursts of Air around you.

Essence of Fire

The Essence of Fire is found in a small pocket of Water in the center of the island on the Lake, underground near the wooden effigy.

When collected, it periodically emits a large fiery explosion from you. The explosion isn't directly harmful to you, but will cause you to catch on fire. It can also set off secondary explosions from environmental hazards, e.g. explosive containers, or Materials such as Gunpowder. Its effect will also constantly prevent the Invisibility perk from activating.

Picking up this essence will permanently increase your and damage multipliers by ×1.3, meaning you will take 30% more damage from these damage types. These modifications are not reversed when the essence is removed.

The Lake Island, and the Essence of Fire it would contain, are both absent in Parallel Worlds.

A Kiuaskivi is created when this Essence is consumed by an Essence Eater.

Essence of Fire causes explosions around you. Note how the explosion causes no damage, but ignites you.

Essence of Water

The Essence of Water is found in a ??? room in the Westernmost reaches of The Work (Hell), inside a grey Brickwork diamond.

When collected, it periodically shoots a small red projectile from you in a random direction, which turns a small radius of material around its point of impact into Lava. Unlike the Touch of spells, which have similar effects, it does not transmute you or normal enemies, only the surrounding terrain and any rigid-body props. Explosive props will also detonate, releasing their contents, when afflicted by the transmutation effect from this Essence.

The projectile will home in on nearby enemies, quickly killing rigid-body enemies such as Kirottu kristalli.

The Freeze Field perk makes this Essence significantly safer to you, although becoming stuck in newly-solidified Rock does tend to become common.

A Vuoksikivi is created when this Essence is consumed by an Essence Eater.

Essence of Water shoots a small projectile randomly, turning material around it into Lava.

Essence of Spirits

The Essence of Spirits is found in the deepest depths of the Lake, within a ??? room.

When collected, it adds a Whiskey trail to all spells fired from a wand. This often causes significant amounts of Fire as well, as Whiskey vapour is very flammable. Having Fire Immunity or Freeze Field, as well as Breathless, is needed to avoid being harmed by the excessive amounts of the flammable liquid especially for rapid-fire wand builds. The constant Whiskey stain will also increase the spread of all casts, making spells significantly more difficult to aim.

It has been known to cause a fair amount of lag when using very rapidly-firing wands due to the sheer amount of excess liquid it can generate, and the large amounts of fire that can result from it being ignited.

A Kakkakikkare is created when this Essence is consumed by an Essence Eater.

Essence of Spirits gives all projectiles a Whiskey trail.

Removing Essence effects

Essences can be removed via a unique mechanism not applicable to other perks. In the Desert to the east, or the Snowy Wasteland to the west, you can find a stone structure containing a small blue orb - an Essence Eater. These can each be used once to remove any Essences you are currently carrying, producing one corresponding Elemental Stone for each Essence effect consumed (multiple stacks of the same Essence grant multiple stones).

This process can be repeated - but not indefinitely. Two Essence Eaters spawn in the main world, two more in the first Eastern Parallel World, and another two in the first Western Parallel World. After these are all used the only way to remove Essence effects is to advance to the next New Game Plus level.

While the other Essences spawn in the same place in each Parallel World, the Essence of Fire does not. The only way to get more than one of these in a run is to enter a new New Game Plus level. Fortunately its respective Elemental Stone, the Kiuaskivi can be found on Item Pedestals, and as a drop from Treasure Chests.

Quests and Achievements

The Essences are involved in the Uusi Aurinko (Sun) Quests, as one source of the necessary Elemental Stones.

They are also involved in several of the Moon achievements - for these it's necessary to have the Essence effect active while you do them.

History

• Nov 5 2019: Moved the Essence of Air from the Moon to the Western Cloudscape.
• Oct 23 2019:
  • The description of Essence of Water was changed from "The earth flows around your being!" to "The earth flows around you!"
  • The material created by Essence of Water changed from Acid to Lava.

• Oct 11 2019:
  • Renamed Essence of Explosion to Essence of Fire.
  • Renamed Essence of Light to Essence of Earth.
  • Added Essence of Air.
  • Added Essence of Water.
  • Added Essence of Spirits.
  • Changed the explosion size for Essence of Fire from medium to large, doubling its radius.
  • Decreased the damage of Essence of Fire's explosion from
    68.75
    to
    43.75
    .

• Sep 25 2019:
  • Added Essence of Explosion.
  • Added Essence of Light.