Celestial Lense

Essence, magic, is much like the air that swirls around the mountains, sighs in the boughs of the forest and breathes through the bustling cities of men. It is ever present, usually hard to notice, but painfully noticed in it's absence. Whereas a Hellpit is a naturally occuring spring of negative forces, a Celestial lense is a gathering of positive energy. Unlike the fluidic nature of Hellpits and their negative energy, the Celestial Lense follows a more rigid form of light and air.

Much less common than hellpits, Lenses tend to be much larger affairs, generally covering an acre to a square mile of terrain. Lenses also tend to be cyclical in nature, rather than permanent features of a landscape. Thus, a certain lense might only flare to live during certain events such as a phase of the moon, a time of day or the like. The more common the event, generally the weaker the lense is. One that flares every morning with the rising of the sun will be much weaker than the Lense that flares once a year when during the Summer Solstice.

Areas that are host to a Lense are without fail affected by this blinding display of power. The most common side effect of a lense is the transmutation of rocks and soil to living metal. This has the downside of killing most vegetation in the domain of the Lense, though trees and other large plants in the area are sometimes also transmogrified into metallic versions of themselves. Lunar Lenses lean towards silver, while Solar Lenses are generally brass or gold. Sidereal Lenses yield a strange iridescent metal that most call starmetal.

Of Life and Limb
If the changes wrought by a Lense affected only plants and soil, there would be little to comment upon. Animals and men caught inside of a Lense during a flare are forever and irreversibly changed. In the case of men, the flare is an epiphany, one that often imbues clerical abilities upon it's survivors. Those who are of evil and chaotic spirit find a Lense to be a place of burning pain and blinding light. This has a side affect of reducing the ill-meaning person to a pillar of salt. Hermits and Holy men are likely to seek out Lenses for their ability to provide communion with the higher forces of the universe.

Creatures that are not blatantly evil, IE not zombies, undead, demonic minions, etc, are altered by the surge of positive axiomatic energy flowing from a lense during a flare. Coats and pelts take on metallic hues, while teeth and claws are changed into bright hard metal. The creature gains an increase in strength and stamina as well as an instinctive knowledge of good and evil. Predators remain predators, but will hunt evil as their prey, while herbivores become immune to poisons and such.

The Harvest
Those magi who do not mind the positive and axiomatic elements of a flare can use flare mutated materials, such as stones from the Lense, water gathered during a flare, or some other element in casting magic. Parts of animals can be used, but once the animal in question is killed, all of it's parts are rendered into inert organic matter. Naturally shed feathers, antlers and the like are generally preferred materials for this reason.

Water gathered from a Lense during a flare is automatically Holy Water, and as a bonus, this water if kept in a blessed vial will shed a small amount of light when placed in the dark.

The Golden Egg
The story of the Goose that laid the Golden Egg could certainly be a variation for the Celestial Lense. Such an animal could certainly exist as a result a Lense Flare, equally valid is the fact that the golden egg contained a plain yolk and if killed the insides of the goose are simply blood and guts.