Sorcery: Blood Magic

Sorcery: Blood Magic

And now let's take a short break from the D&D conversions. Dominions 4 is one of my favourite video games. It's a fantasy turn-based strategy with a vast amount of nations, monsters, and spells. The most unique magic school in the game is the blood magic. It requires a special resource - blood slaves that must be sacrificed. Most of the spells of this type of magic deal with madness, bloodletting, blood boiling, healing, and, most importantly, summoning demons and TMWNMTK.

Blood Mage Spell List can be found by following the link.

Blood magic is one of the most ancient forms of magic. In the past, it was practiced in many places on the world, but nowadays it is considered barbaric and uncivilized. In most places, blood magic use is forbidden.

You cannot preserve your own blood or blood of others and use it later to cast spells (but see sacrifices below). Blood mages do not need mana to cast spells, and this fact allows them to cast spells anywhere. A blood mage cannot use FP or ER to cast spells, he can only burn HP. Blood magic is also limited thematically in its effects – a blood mage is able to manipulate blood, cause rage, pain, madness, summon fiends and beings from the Far Realms, transport himself to the Lower Planes, the Far Realm, or back to the Material Plane, banish outsiders, rejuvenate, heal (although he cannot heal himself using his own life energy).

Blood Magic’s Scope It might be reasonable to define blood magic’s scope in greater detail. Blood magic spells can do the following: -          Cause bleeding, either as toxic damage to a creature with open wounds or by afflicting the victim with Hemophilia; -          Summon fiends and Far Realm entities (demons, devils, yugoloths, demodands, kaorti, skybleeders, etc.); -          Transport creatures bodily to the Lower Planes, the Far Realm, or back to the Material Plane from there; -          Open gates to the aforementioned planes; -          Rejuvenate and heal living creatures (HP and FP), neutralize poisons, cure disease, regrow lost limbs, make bodies regenerate, (the caster can only cast such spells on himself when using blood points gained via sacrifice); -          Banish any outsiders, not only fiends; -          Strengthen bodies of living creatures (Afflictions that grants ST, DX, HT, increased Basic Speed); -          Grant fiendish characteristics: claws, horns, DR (usually with Tough Skin), leathery wings, Infravision, Dark Vision, Magic Resistance. These buffs are usually limited with Temporary Disadvantage that grant Vulnerability to holy weapons, cold iron, silver, or other appropriate fiendish weaknesses; -          Leech living creatures to heal FP, but never HP; -          Afflict minds with such disadvantages as Bad Temper, Berserk, Bloodlust, Bully, Combat Paralysis and other forms of madness; -          Cause internal damage by boiling or freezing blood; -          Cause pain, heart attack, or paralysis by freezing blood; -          Weaken bodies (reduce ST and/or HT with Afflictions, grant Low Pain Threshold, Easy to Kill, Easy to Subdue, Hemophilia, etc.); -          Cause Fright Checks (only Terror and Confusion, Awe and Despair are not appropriate); -          Destroy souls (instant kill spells); -          Take control of souls (via Possession with Telecontrol); -          Call down rain of blood (contaminates wells, pollutes the surroundings); -          Reflect incoming damage (DR with Reflection); -          Attack with hellfire (burning attack with Armor Divisor (2) and Affects Insubstantial); -          Create and launch blood projectiles; -          Create vampires via rituals; -          Increase fertility (both of creatures and crops), allowing creation of extraordinary hybrids; -          Detect blood and blood mages, but not blood magic or normal magic. In any case, this is relevant only if you are not enforcing predefined spell lists. I do enforce them, so if you are one of my players, just ignore this box and look at the spell list!

To gain energy for spellcasting, a blood mage can make a ritual sacrifice. To do so, the mage must make a successful Ritual Magic (Blood Magic) roll. The sacrifice requires 5 seconds to perform on a restrained victim. He can apply bonuses for extra time spent on preparations. The victim being sacrificed must be a sapient creature. The amount of energy gains is equal to (the victim’s IQ * the victim’s HP)/10. This amount is further increased by 20% for every level of Sorcerous Empowerment (Blood) that the victim has. The energy accumulated has a cap equal to the amount of points spent on Sorcerous Empowerment (Blood). Any surplus is lost. This energy dissipates at a rate of 1 point per 24 hours after the sacrifice, unless the sorcerer makes a successful Ritual Magic (Blood Magic) roll each day to prevent energy dissipation. A roll of 16 on this check always fails, and a roll of 17 or 18 is always a critical failure that results in losing all accumulated blood points. The energy can only be spent to pay the Costs HP cost of the spell or to cancel penalties to spell rolls (such as for distance) or as penalties to the target's resistance. Canceling spell penalties is 2 blood points per -1 removed. Lowering the target's resistance is 5 blood points per -1 to the target's resistance roll. Blood points can be spent to alleviate penalties for hardcore improvisation at a rate of 1 blood point to -1 of the penalty. This energy is cumulative, it adds to any unspent energy. This way a blood mage can make several sacrifices in a row to gain a significant amount of energy. Summoned creatures and creatures with no blood cannot be sacrificed to gain energy.

All blood magic spells have the Blood Magic, -15% (Costs 1 HP, -10%; Lesser Mana Sensitivity, -5%) power modifier instead of Sorcery, -15%. Lesser Mana Sensitivity in this case means that the spells can be cast in manaless zones, but that the magic still can be suppressed with specialized antimagic abilities that suppress arcane magic. Note that spending HP to cast spells does not impose a shock penalty.

Finally, the Sorcerous Empowerment (Blood) advantage is Sorcerous Empowerment (Limited Scope, Blood Magic, -30%) [14 for level 1, +7 points/level].