Blood Magic
Updated: May 30
Overview
Blood magic is the rarest and most dangerous school of magic in Ilisara. Where arcane magic draws on the mind and spiritual magic draws on the soul, blood magic draws on the body. Its wielders manipulate blood, flesh, bone, and vitality. It skirts the boundaries of what magic should be capable of, and can backfire with horrific consequences.
Blood magic is illegal in the Vestian Empire and largely unknown in the Isles. Its practitioners are few, feared, and seldom open about their abilities. Those who wield it well are extraordinarily powerful. Those who wield it poorly suffer system shock, a catastrophic physical response when the body is pushed beyond what it can sustain.
Origins
Blood magic originates with Arth, the god of vitality. Arth's domain was the life force of living things. His domain encompassed athletics, physical strength, bodily systems, and the art of manipulating physical tissue, blood, and bone.
Arth shared his knowledge and power with his most devoted followers, primarily orcs, who became the world's first blood mages. Orcish shamans rely on blood magic to enhance their bodies, heal injuries, sacrifice enemies, and send their people into frenzied battle states.
Arth's influence can never fade fully from the world. The Red Highway (a the trail of his divine blood soaked into the rock of the Dark Below) continues to leak his power into the world. Blood magic practitioners who spend time near the Red Highway find their abilities enhanced, and their judgment eroded.
What Blood Magic Can Do
Blood magic manipulates the physical substance of living bodies. Its applications range from healing to harm to outright transformation.
Healing
A skilled blood mage can reorganize bone marrow, sinew, flesh, and blood to close wounds. They can transfuse characteristics from one body to another, such as regrowing a lost eye using donor tissue. They can also suppress pain, slow a heartbeat, or accelerate the body's natural regenerative processes far beyond normal limits.
Harm
Blood magic can immobilize a target by controlling their blood pressure and muscular function. It can leech vitality from enemies to sustain the caster. It can be used to enthrall by suppressing a target's adrenaline, dulling their aggression, or making them physically compliant.
Fleshshaping
Advanced practitioners can use blood magic to reshape flesh entirely, inflicting or inducing physical transformation.
Vampires
The fusion of Blood Magic and Death begets the creation of vampires. A blood mage of sufficient power can rewrite the fundamental properties of a person's body, altering their relationship to life, death, and sustenance.
Risks and Limitations
Like all magic, blood magic is not inherently evil nor does it have corrupting properties on its wielders. However, because it can be used to do unnatural things it is generally frowned upon. The practical risks of using blood magic are system shock and pain resistance.
Blood magic can inflict system shock, a condition in which the body's systems begin to fail in response to magical overextension. Symptoms range from hemorrhaging and organ stress to full physical collapse.
Extended practitioners can develop an increasingly detached relationship with pain, as their bodies become instruments and tools rather than natural organs. Pain resistance can transition to general numbness and a lack of nerves responding to stimuli.
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