Sorcery: Maho-Tsukai

Sorcery: Maho-Tsukai

I found a prestige class hidden at the very end of Oriental Adventures for D&D 3.0. Maho-tsukai is a blood mage with oriental flavor. As written, it works differently from the blood magic tradition that I've made before, so let's adapt it to GURPS too.

Maho-tsukai use blood to power their spells. They cannot spend FP, but must spend HP. Maho-tsukai cannot preserve their own blood or blood of others and use it later to cast spells (but see sacrifices below). They 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. Maho is also limited thematically in its effects – a maho-tsukai can cast Necromantic spells, Poison spells, summoning spells, and polymorph spells. This is roughly equivalent to three colleges.

Another way to gain energy for spellcasting for a maho-tsukai is to make a ritual sacrifice. To do so, the maho-tsukai 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 (Maho-Tsukai) that the victim has. The energy accumulated has a cap equal to the amount of points spent on Sorcerous Empowerment (Maho-Tsukai). Any surplus is lost. This energy dissipates at a rate of 1 point per 24 hours after the sacrifice, unless the maho-tsukai 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 maho-tsukai 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.

When rolling a critical failure on a casting roll, use the Diabolic/Horrific Table (GURPS Thaumatology, p. 258).

Maho-tsukai taint their bodies and soul to gain spellcasting abilitites. All spells have the Corrupting, -20% limitation (GURPS Horror, p. 22).

Weak Latency (Blood) perk exists, and blood mages and maho-tsukai are able to combine their powers as per Combining Powers (GURPS Powers, pp. 170-172), but not with other arcane spellcasters. Unlike other spellcasters, blood mages require a full minute of ritual movements and concentration to link up, but they get to roll against the higher of IQ and Ritual Magic (Blood Magic) to do so.

All maho spells have the Maho, -40% (Corrupting, -20%; Costs Health Points, 1 HP, -10%; Magical, -10%) power modifier instead of Sorcery, -15%. Note that spending HP to cast spells does not impose a shock penalty.

Finally, the Sorcerous Empowerment (Maho-Tsukai) advantage is Sorcerous Empowerment (Limited Scope, Maho, -20%) [16 for level 1, +8 points/level].