Do you use mana or something else in your fantasy settings ?
Apologies for the low quality Photoshop but I'm terrible at art.
Anyways in my world's setting magic is controlled by a new cell called glint. It's a small cell that's in all matter but is in larger quantities in sentient creatures like humans and elves. It's a purplish red color and flows through your blood. The higher your glint levels the more powerful your spells can become, more spells you can learn, and more golems you can create. Some races have more on average than others too, like a high elf has more glint than a human and a human has more than a dwarf.
Glint is used up when casting spells but also while healing, the higher your glint the faster you heal. Glint regenerates naturally throughout the day but your diet and lifestyle can help your Glint regeneration rates. Glint can also be extracted much like you would do with plasma to make medical stuff.... Or drugs.
Glint is rather useless on it's on but when used with certain runes or mixed with certain ingredients it can cast spells, enchant items, make potions, and much more. However your glint levels are stuck in place basically, you can't work to get more glint. So you have to work with what you have. There are drugs that let you surpass your glint temporarily but none permanently. There is however a forbidden spell to do so but the cost is not worth it to most.
The gods also have their own form of glint called "golden glint" which is what grants them god hood, if a mortal was given golden glint they'd get god like abilities but to become a god their entire blood system would need to be replaced with golden glint.
Does anyone else have their own unique mana system/alternative?