Now heavily criminalized in most parts of the civilized world, Essence Siphoning was once a widely-adopted, albeit poorly-understood, method of sourcing arcanic power for casting spells. At its most basic level, it involves the extraction of latent essence found within all living things. Many early schools of Destrean arcana used Essence Siphoning as its catalyst for development: for instance, the blood magic of the Royn'chemngka, or Versan Magicks, which is principally practised by the Jotunera of The Great Wide.

The reason for its strictly regulated use, at present, is due in large part to its wanton abuse by The Voltari of Kholea. In principal, one of the core tenets of Essence Siphoning is the assurance that the caster takes no energy from an unwilling source (in the case of sentient beings), or no amount of energy that cannot be regenerated in relatively short order (in the case of wildlife, or other vital things).

Contemporary practitioners of Essence Siphoning, in most cases, are either protected by their cultural status, or are licensed to deploy its usually-forbidden techniques in a situational, limited capacity (e.g. The Gorelocks of Oz Boz).

The least understood casting method in the realm, as well as the most dangerous. Null Draw arcanists are somehow capable of harnessing arcanic essence from an invisible, apparently-infinite source, and use it for their spellcraft. Scholars and arcanic researchers from across Destrea have attempted in vain to definitively prove where the essence used in Null Draw Arcana is sourced from, but no hypothesis has been verified thus far. All that is known is that the practice seems directly connected to another of Destrea's most baffling recurring phenomena: The Strangers to the Dimension.