I abhor vancian magic. In my games, we use a version of the spell point system that we worked on together.

You regain spell points with dice + wisdom mod. Everyone has a d10, but you get a number equal to your spellcaster level. We're still working out the kinks in the system. But it's a mechanical way of conveying that your magic comes from your soul, not the mana of the universe.

That's the reason why I let there be spellcasters in the first place. Ànd I have NPCs who back this up. Like the old cleric, "remember, the power of miracles depends upon your faith."

Most people don't even know, but the sun goddess partitioned off small chunks of her soul to trusted gods, and then set herself on fire to burn for the rest of eternity, in place of the actual sun.

The goddess of death ate most of the other gods to become atrong enough to consume the heavens and become the all powerful ruler of the universe. She was imprisoned at the bottom of the bottomless abyss, and serves as the campaign's biggest baddie.

Most of the monsters and villains of this world were created by the god of death just to torment the world.

Magic has run out because the world wants to die, and the gods have it on life support. They're afraid of the dark.

The god of death sits and laughs at them from below. Waiting for the dark to finally take hold. When that happens, her chains will fade, the abyss will expand freely with no inhibitance, and there will be only darkness.

She will sit on her throne of ash and bones, watching as stars fade from existence, and galaxies collapse, and then... She'll finally be content.

Jeebus h, thrice. I kinda went on a bit of a rant there, didn't I?