Blood Magic

Blood magic is an ancient, dark art practiced in far corners of Creation, including among the reclusive people of the Blessed Isle. A forbidden and cruel magic, the Immaculate Order, the Evening Corps, and all such authorities that deal with the arcane and mystical regard blood magic as a vile and wicked danger to all that are exposed to it.

Blood Witches

Practitioners of blood magic are known as blood-witches, whose very name is like a boogeyman to children in the Realm. Blood-witches are usually thought of as a kind of mystical creature on par with the sack-hag who carries away naughty children or the fish-man who drowns children that disobey their mothers.

The blood-witch, however, is not a figure of myth, but an actual category of sorcerer. The knack for blood magic is believed to be passed through the matrilineal line, from mother to child. Children who carry the knack for blood-witchery do not necessarily become evil, and must be taught the intricacies of their power or it will never manifest.

In folklore, blood-witches are frightening old creatures who hide in bogs and caves, weaving spells from sacrificed fools and the blood of dogs. Such a stereotype proves of little use in identifying a blood-witch. Effective blood-witches integrate into society and work their magics in secret.

Identifying a Blood Witch

The only certain, universal trait of blood-witches is that all individuals inducted into blood magic develop bright red irises.

However, not all indidividuals with red eyes are necessarily blood-witches. For example, the Lza people of the Dragonswrath Desert are a tribe of nomads with red eyes, but no knack for blood magic has been identified in them.

Female blood witches are generally more powerful than male blood witches.

How Blood Magic Works

All sorcery is based on applying the sorcerer’s will on the world. All sorcery depends on some kind of source external to the sorcerer – the ambient energy of the Dragon-Lines, the hidden powers of herbs, the blessing of a powerful spirit to channel their energy, etc.

For blood magic, this source of external power is the raw life-force contained in blood.

The breath mediates the hun and the po souls, but blood is the network within the body by which energy and Essence are distributed. Because of this, the blood of a living thing is full of latent power and the imprinted remnants of the power it once carried. Blood magic seizes this lingering life-force by violence and channels it to produce permanent alterations to the world.

The most powerful blood is fresh and from a living source. Human blood is more powerful than animal blood, but the difference can be made up in quantity. Menstrual blood is the most powerful of all, which some believe is why female blood-witches are more powerful. Aging blood cannot be used as a source of power, but remains connected to its source, which allows for its own uses.

Blood magic is naturally destructive. By forcefully seizing the life Essence of the source, blood magic disrupts communication between the organs and the breath. Being subject to powerful blood magic can rend a person’s soul from their body, the medium of communication between body and mind permanently severed by the act.

Blood magic does not generally take the form of spells in the way that most sorcery does. It cannot be used to heal, as the act of healing is antithetical to the seizure of power by force. Some potent blood-sorcerers can use the lingering soul-connection of blood to call up the deceased and raise unquiet dead, although such powers require massive amounts of sacrificial blood, much of it from the witch’s own body.

Common Feats of Blood Magic

On the whole, blood magic is more specialized and less powerful than sorcery, which may lead to the questions of why it is so dangerous. Firstly, blood magic is inherently destructive, as noted. Secondly, blood magic is extremely efficient and speedy compared to traditional sorcery; a talented blood witch can achieve 90% the efficacy at a fraction of the cost to herself, supplementing the difference with energy stolen from the suffering of living things. Third, blood magic is viscerally disgusting, which drives the fear that it provokes.

Effigies

One of the most powerful and elusive blood magics is the effigy. In creating an effigy, the blood witch severs her own hun upper-soul and shunts it into a wandering effigy crafted from blood, bone, and flesh. The blood-witch’s po soul remains with the original body, submerged in a pool of sustaining blood.

The effigy allows the blood sorcerer to operate out in the world without exposing her true self to danger. A spectral bloody sinew connects the hun back to the po and the original body, allowing the blood sorcerer to abandon the effigy and return to her original body with but a thought.

Destroying an effigy does not harm the blood-witch, for she simply retreats back to her original body. The only way to kill an effigy-witch is to destroy her original body, which is the root of her effigy.

Thankfully, no documented blood-witch has been able to operate more than a single effigy at a time, since it requires her hun soul. The effigy must always take the shape of the blood-witch; to do otherwise seems to prevent the soul from settling into the effigy.

The notes of Yasim, a notorious Anathema blood-witch put down in the early days of the Realm, indicate that some ineffable nature of the Chosen prevents them from splitting their soul sufficiently to create effigies.

Rune-Binding

Many of the Blessed Isle’s blood-witches work their magic through the use of mysterious runes in an indecipherable language. The writings of Yasim indicate that such runes are revealed in dream to the blood-witches by a “figure red and looming.” Regardless of their origin, the runes seem to underly the ritual power of blood magic.

Blood-witches must draw these runes in fresh blood of a living thing, and sanctify such runes with a drop of their own blood. The full extent of the runes is unknown, but definitely includes bending space (allowing for the creation of sanctuaries), protection from harm (redirecting such harm to the still-living source of the blood used to cast the rune), and inflicting pain and misery on those on whom the runes are written.

Whatever language the runes may detail, they resemble no known language. Hunters fear that the existence of such runes points to a deeper, more powerful presence underlying blood magic – a presence whose power and grasp are unknown.

Binding, Tracking, and Harm-at-a-Distance

Blood-witches can bind living things to their will through imbibing their fresh blood. Through this binding, the blood-witch can gain control of the creature’s motor functions. Often these creatures are birds, wolves, or other useful beasts. Binding humans requires so much blood that the victim is usually killed. The blood of the Chosen is burning fire to the blood-witch, and imbibing Chosen blood directly causes great pain and can burn a blood-witch from the inside out.

Even old, dry blood can be used by a blood-witch to track and scry. Many blood-witches form talismans of the blood of their victim, which then points the way to that same victim for years to come. A target’s blood can be placed into mirrors or chalices to scry on the victim, although the older the blood, the less the connection can be maintained.

One of the most dangerous abilities of the blood-witch is to construct a poppet of the target in the form of a doll or drawing, bound by the victim’s fresh blood. Pain and harm inflicted on the poppet can then be carried over by sympathetic link to the target. Ritual cleansing and protective priestly wards are required in order to shield the victim from a poppet.