Since this game is supposed to be about a number of super beings, who have skills to rival Titans and whatnot, I am thinking that they should be the preeminent casters in the game. As I am sure most people agree. My idea is that the channeler him/herself, should BE the focus of the shared mana pool, and that other casters who have been imbued by the channeler, use the channelers own mana to cast their spells. 

This is based off of the idea that Frogboy posted in the Labor Day dev journal. It would work more specifically like this:

Channelers use some kind of rare resource, (Crystal? Eternium or whatever) burning it to imbue a Champion, this champion gains the "Essence" stat. Channelers do not have essence, as they are the source of this elemental power. Lets say the champion starts with 3 essence, which is what they start with now. This means that they can only draw on 3 points of the Channelers power per game turn, so if they are fighting, they get 3 mana. This resets every turn, but if they cast too much they may be too great a draw on the channeler (constantly using all of his mana), making him incapable of casting some of the larger spells. Then, as the champion levels, they are able to spend points (to simulate meditation and training) in essence to gain the ability to draw on more of the Channelers power per turn.  

This means that the Channeler is THE caster, whereas every other spell caster is only drawing from his power. As his children are non immortal progeny, they should gain this Imbue-ness automatically, since they are genetically linked. (They should also have either greater starting essence, or an easier time raising the skill, like and extra essence per point spent, just to make them more special.)

This also opens the door for a more organic end-of-empire scenario: When you slay the leader of an enemy empire, rather then the whole thing just collapsing instantly, it takes all of his power out of his area of influence. This means that all the enchantments die, and the world begins to fall back into its dead form, turn by turn (the grass or rockwhatever the empire has shrinks the same way it grows), and when this dead zone hits one of his cities, providing that you have not captured it and put it under your power, the city dies. This means that even a animal (empire) with its head cut off can still do some damage in its death throws.

You could also apply this system to succession. So when Channeler dies, he may be able to pass his essence onto who ever is first in line for the throne, taking a permanent/semi-permanent (perhaps a quest to restore this?) penalty to the global mana pool, but making so that the child is the new source of power. However, I am not sure how much I like the idea, as it does seem to make the channeler a little less important, though it does give a better purpose to the line of succession. 

Thoughts?