I have been Roleplaying on this server for a while now and more than once friends and members of our guild asked about this very niche kind of Magic.
I decided to write a guide from the ic PoV of my character:
–imgur.com/a/UjelbOs–
Text version for faster browsing:
To my brothers, sisters, daughters and sons.
Blood is life… And as long as its ebb and flow is controlled, so too is the life of our enemies.
A master of the Blood Arts is the annointed arbiter of Life and Death.
-Sir Xotrios Drak'ash
Blood magic is one of the most forbidden realms of magic that a disciple can delve into, a tortured form of Life magic.
There is power in the blood of all livings and non, for even the ichor of undeath can be harnessed to fuel your spells and each disciple must find his own personal way to succed in this eternal struggle.
Each kind of blood of is different, precious and the correct combinations are required to perform certain spells.
Relentless in our eternal hunt, we pursue the divine power it can offer, and more.
- Basics and Terminology:
A disciple must use their resevoir of gathered blood to fuel this kind of magic. While his own blood allows the disciple to conjure his spells, End comes when he is able to use the blood of another creature to manipulate and control it, a practice he must be not shy to perform.
Sanguine Pool
Sanguine Pool
This is what I call the average amount of blood present in the body of a disciple. It must be managed accordingly, its limits known and kept into account everytime he weaves this kind of magic.
A disciple’s only limit to the amount of Sanguine Pools he can harvest power from, at the same time, lies in his skill alone. Every foe and every ally is a walking source of tremendous power and salvation.
Blood Tribute
The practice of tapping onto your own spilled blood to initiate a spell sequence, offensively or defensively alike. Cutting your opponent will achieve the same attunement but towards his own Sanguine Pool.
- Traits:
Crimson Exemplar
A disciple that spends enough time using the Arts and delves into the knownledge of his Sanguine Pool will be able to push his body beyond limits otherwise unreachable by his living or undead kin. Bones won’t break, muscles won’t tear, nerves won’t snap.
Haemorrage and Regeneration:
The first real step in the arts is the ability to accellerate the bleeding of your opponent after a Blood Tribute, or slow yours to help the natural regeneration of your Sanguine Pool.
Hyper and Hypothermia:
Once able to accelerate and slow his Sanguine Pool or that of others, a disciple must learn how to tether the Pool and dominate its temperature. It can be used to provoke feverish shivers or surging, confusional heats and if mastered, this spell alone can provoke the metabolism of a subject to collapse.
- Spells examples:
Crimson Shell
A disciple can force a portion of his enchanted Sanguine Pool to outburst through the wounds he suffered or those provoked to pay a Blood Tribute. Weaving the blood and influencing its flux so to shield himself with it will offer an average amount of protection.
Power Word : “Release : Ban’dinoriel”.
Rune: “High Home”.
Encarmine
“To paint red”.The disciple must learn how to tap onto a Sanguine Pool to siphon Blood out and reshape it into a reflection of his personal fashion and taste to strike at the enemy as a solid object. On impact, the projectile will shatter and bathe the victim in enchanted Blood, attuning the body to a various array of curses.
It may look like an easy and simple feat in the eyes of a begginner, but more than one Master specialized into this techinque to overhelm many assailants with a rain of thorn shaped projectiles or to pierce through the Heart of a colossal foe with a strike of a single, crimson spear.
Infinite possibilities.
Incantation : “Come to me, my muse to write. Heed my desire : fly and strike”.
Rune: Oriour+Sethai.
Martyrdom
The disciple sacrifices half of his Sanguine Pool to bathe the ground all around him in his own blood, weaving his magic to bring benefits to his allies. Based on principles of Enchantment and Abjuration, the spell will gradually rejuvenate the body of his allies, heal their wounds and bring vigor to their bodies.
Incantation : “Through my sacrifice I bid you stand, unconquered”.
Rune : Lecai.
Red Funeral
A different variant of Martyrdom can be used offensively.The disciple’s blood decays all that is living and inhaling its magical fragrance brings fever and allucinations.
Power word: “Requiem”.
Rune: Lacoi.
Drak’ash
Whith absolute mastery of the princeps and baseline incantations I explain in this tome, you will be able to create spells of your own that will reflects your personal approach to warfare. This is both an example and my pride, my creation, my homage to my lineage and testament of my achievements. A superior form of Encarmine, Drak’ash is a tribute spell that will claim my Sanguine Pool whole, surging out of my body and reshape into a soaring,serpentine drake. With mastery in Hyper and Hypothermia the blood heatens up until it boils, exploding on impact and freeze in the matter of instants, encasing what remains in front of me in a crimson tomb of frozen Blood.
Incantation : “Aranal : Anar’endal Sin’draco”.
Rune: Sarathai–Lathain–Urithair–Cinath–Oriour.
- Runes:
(See the imgur link page n.11)
- Know the Prey:
The knowneldge of the spells. the principles behind them and their application is nothing if not intertwined with a deep knownledge of what being a disciple fights.
The disciple will delve into Anatomy and Physiology, to learn the exact position of each race’s vital organs, veins, muscles and bones.
Trolls, Orcs, Taurens, Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Sin’dorei, Shal’dore, Kaldorei, even Draenei can be studied and analyzed. Dedication is essential.
- Gorgon Rites:
With the right reagents, runes and incantations, the disciple can perform the most sophisticated of rituals through a Blood Tribute :
Sanguinaria
Sanguinaria
“Bloodshards”, commonly known as Blood crystals. Gems of coagulated blood siphoned from specific victims, those relics act as empowering and anchoring tools for your rituals. To observe a Sanguinaria is to accept the information of our superior nature, the craft of Blood magic, and the tools to use it. Such complex ideas and philosophy cannot be spoken or instructed, only shown.
Divination
Divination
The disciple knows that every Blood is unique, different and precious. He must spend time studying samples of what he gathers, experimenting on it until success is achieved. A cup of bronze, silver or gold is an efficent recipient for the diviner. The more time the disciple spends examinating the Blood, the most he will gain from it.
-The creature’s name and race.
-The creature’s age and gender.
-The creature’s diet and constitution.
-The creature’s magical proficiency.
Paying a tribute from his own Sanguine Pool will agument the Disciple’s efforts, if he mixes the fluids together and drinks from his cup of choice.
Scrying
Scrying
The disciple will sign a runic circle on the floor, or the ground if indoor, carving the pattern of Runes with supreme precision. A circle to contain Sanguinaria and bones, a smaller one to intertwine those with the last and most important one that will be carved around the bowl he will use for the Ritual.
The bowl will contain the disciple’s Blood Tribute and that of his Prey. It will be used for the ritual and for the ritual alone. It wont be soiled by external sources and only the Disciple will interact with it, ever refilling the content with further offerings.
The Ritual requires no Lights, Moonlight shall suffice and if indoors, eighteen candles shall.
The disciple will invoke the power of Blood, his Masters and his teacher while weaving his magic. Only then he will gaze in the pool.
Domination
Domination
Tethering with a subject’s Sanguine Pool can be used to force a condition of reverence and obedience if the victim is made drink from the Disciple’s Sanguine Pool in exchange. Domination is only achieved after multiple succesful practices through the time, but can be mantained permanently if the Disciple is true to the principles of it.
Restrictions
The disciple must meet the eyes of the victim.
The disciple must speak in a language that is understood by the victim.
The disciple cannot force the victim to end his life.
Depending on the Disciple’s mastery of this Art, the victim can be enthralled to perform a wide array of tasks, and his mind in passive influence and control:
- Command
The victim will perform a single-word action.- Mesmerize
The victim will feel conditioned by your presence alone, will obey to more elaborated Commands.- Memento
The disciple will be able to remove a memory from the victim, unnoticed.- Submission
The victim will act under the effect of Mesmerize through a longer lapse of time.- Devotion
The victim will defend the Disciple by his own will.
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Life and Death
I believe that the apex of the mastery in the Blood Arts means becoming an arbiter of Life and Death. If the Disciple comes so close to master all the teachings and forge a path of his own he must delve in the duality of those two cosmic forces sorrounding him and only then he will learn to bend their tethers on this plane to his will.
He will be able to gift part of his Sanguine Pool and offer it as aTribute for a subject to be returned from the otherside at great cost. The incantation I will not provide, nor the place, the reagents and the right positioning of the stars to perform it.
For this mistery you must unfold yourself.
