“Mana did not make it into the D&D rule­book because Gary Gygax and the oth­er cre­ators of D&D based their mag­ic sys­tem on the nov­els of Jack Vance, where a lim­it­ed num­ber of spells could be mem­o­rized, cast once, and then forgotten.”

One of many amaz­ing insights into how the con­cept of mana made its way from Poly­ne­sian antiq­ui­ty into today’s gamer culture.

(via The His­to­ry of Mana: How an Aus­trone­sian Con­cept Became a Video Game Mechanic—Vol. 2, No. 2—The Appen­dix)