Blood Magic

School of magic

Classification	Compound School
Prime blend	Aqua + Imago + Aion
Core discipline	Lineage, vitality exchange, inherited patterning, and temporally burdened biology
Key distinction	Blood Magic is not identical to healing. It works through blood, kinship, inherited affinity, sacrifice, and the dangerous movement of living reserves.
Spells	23

The compound school of Aqua with Imago and Aion, feared because it treats lineage and vitality as usable structures. See The Schools of Magic.

Philosophy

Blood Magic is one of the most feared and misunderstood schools because it treats lineage and vitality as usable structures rather than sacred untouchables. Its most disciplined practitioners insist that blood is not power by superstition, but by biology, memory-in-time, and carried compatibility.

Even responsible use is dangerous. This school teaches that every transfer leaves a mark, every borrowed reserve comes due, and every lineage working risks consequences beyond the present moment.

Blood mages are dreaded for what they can do with so little: a bloody rag left behind after a brawl is enough for some workings to find you again. Sellsword companies pay well for a vein-healer who keeps men standing through a battle, and pay again when those men wake years older. The boldest go to the Blood River to study its banks, where the Hemophages hunt travellers to feed the river, and few come back. Besieged towns still name the healer who bled herself white to keep a besieged town's defenders on their feet until the relief came, and was buried before the feast.

Example Places of Study

The Crimson Ledger: A secretive scholastic tradition concerned with lineage custom and inherited compatibility.
The Vein Houses: Practical battlefield schools for emergency vitality transfer, whose students follow sellsword companies from war to war.
The Red Chapel: A religious order that permits tightly supervised sacrificial healing rites.
A hematists' hall in an old surgical school: Anatomists and ritualists focused on blood resonance.
The Kin-Table Circles: Family-based traditions where techniques are guarded within lineages.

Common Spells

Blood Sight · Vein Open · Vein Seal · Lineage Call · Crimson Thread · Heritage Pulse · Sacrificial Spur · Blood Mark · Coagulate · Borrowed Strength · Linebreaker · Hemalock · Vital Debt · Ancestor's Claim · Scarlet Compass · Sanguine Shield · Inheritance Knot · Pulse Theft · Kinbound Oath · Red Memory · Lifeline Mortgage · House Ward · Crimson Resurrection Fraud

Typical Cost/Power Source (every spell): Usually fed by the caster's own blood or a prepared blood sample, with stronger workings drawing directly on vitality, lineage resonance, or stored life reserves.

Blood Sight

Purpose/How It Works: Blood Sight identifies recent blood presence, source direction, or kin-linked residue.
Notable Exceptions: Old dried blood in crowded sites is hard to parse cleanly.
Example Use: Bounty-takers know a wounded outlaw passed this alley within the hour.
Casting Methods: Touch and scent cast, a few heartbeats. Sample-linked read, a few breaths.
Range/Duration: Nearby traces. Brief reading.

Vein Open

Purpose/How It Works: Vein Open encourages stalled or constricted blood flow back into motion.
Notable Exceptions: Dangerous around untreated ruptures.
Example Use: A healer restores circulation to a crushed hand before tissue dies.
Casting Methods: Vessel-line touch, a breath or two. Needle focus, a few breaths.
Range/Duration: Touch. A short while.

Vein Seal

Purpose/How It Works: Vein Seal tightens vessels and slows blood loss.
Notable Exceptions: It cannot fully save catastrophic arterial severance alone.
Example Use: A field medic buys time for a wounded scout to reach surgery.
Casting Methods: Pressure-point cast, a few heartbeats. Bandage seal, a few breaths.
Range/Duration: Touch. A short while to the better part of an hour.

Lineage Call

Purpose/How It Works: Lineage Call detects close kin nearby by reading the resonance of shared blood.
Notable Exceptions: It weakens across adopted, broken, or magically altered lines.
Example Use: A mother finds her child in a burning manor through a kin pulse.
Casting Methods: Blood focus cast, a breath or two. Family token rite, a short chant.
Range/Duration: Nearby, out to a few streets. One directional reading.

Crimson Thread

Purpose/How It Works: Crimson Thread links two bodies for controlled vitality exchange or shared physiological burden.
Notable Exceptions: Poor matching harms both sides.
Example Use: A veteran lends strength to a comrade during retreat.
Casting Methods: Blood-linked touch, a few breaths. Thread or cord rite, a short chant.
Range/Duration: Touch or linked line. A few moments to a short while.

Heritage Pulse

Purpose/How It Works: Heritage Pulse confirms shared ancestry, blood-right, or line membership.
Notable Exceptions: It confirms resonance, not a rightful claim by itself; who inherits is still settled by kin and the strong.
Example Use: Claimants to a house seal are tested before succession.
Casting Methods: Blood sample cast, a few breaths. Altar or ledger rite, a short chant.
Range/Duration: Touch to samples or subjects. Instant result.

Sacrificial Spur

Purpose/How It Works: Sacrificial Spur spends the caster's own blood for an immediate boost of magical output or bodily strength.
Notable Exceptions: Repeated use quickly becomes crippling.
Example Use: A trapped mage fuels one final barrier by opening their palm.
Casting Methods: Self-blood cast, a heartbeat or two. Blade-and-bowl rite, a few breaths.
Range/Duration: Self. One short surge.

Blood Mark

Purpose/How It Works: Blood Mark tags a target through a drop of blood so later tracking or sympathetic workings can find them more easily.
Notable Exceptions: Washed or deliberately altered blood can weaken the link.
Example Use: A beast-hunter tags a shapeshifter with a flick of blood before it breaks for the woods.
Casting Methods: Fresh-blood cast, a few heartbeats. Inscribed mark rite, a few breaths.
Range/Duration: Touch or close strike. From part of a day to several days.

Coagulate

Purpose/How It Works: Coagulate forces spilled blood to clot rapidly.
Notable Exceptions: Dangerous if used blindly on internal bleeding.
Example Use: Surgeons stop diffuse bleeding over a wide wound surface.
Casting Methods: Touch cast, a few heartbeats. Powder-assisted clot rite, a few breaths.
Range/Duration: Touch. Immediate.

Borrowed Strength

Purpose/How It Works: Borrowed Strength gives an ally temporary vigour at direct personal cost to the caster or donor.
Notable Exceptions: It drains reserves unevenly and can drop the donor after the crisis passes.
Example Use: A shield-bearer is kept on their feet long enough to hold the door.
Casting Methods: Hand-link cast, a breath or two. Shared blood token, a few breaths.
Range/Duration: Touch or short link. A short while.

Linebreaker

Purpose/How It Works: Linebreaker disrupts hostile kin-based, inherited, or blood-tagged magic by severing its resonance line.
Notable Exceptions: It is less useful against generic non-blood magic.
Example Use: A captive prince breaks the blood-lock tracking him.
Casting Methods: Counter-blood cast, a few heartbeats. Sample-cutting rite, a short chant.
Range/Duration: One hostile blood effect. Instant disruption.

Hemalock

Purpose/How It Works: Hemalock freezes movement by interfering with blood pressure, circulation, and muscular response.
Notable Exceptions: Extremely risky and taboo in many traditions.
Example Use: A berserker drops to one knee as his limbs refuse their usual surge.
Casting Methods: Directed vessel cast, a few heartbeats. Marked pressure knot, a few breaths.
Range/Duration: Across a small room. A few heartbeats.

Vital Debt

Purpose/How It Works: Vital Debt delays a lethal consequence that will later demand repayment in weakness, age, collapse, or future injury.
Notable Exceptions: The debt always comes due somehow.
Example Use: A mortally wounded courier survives long enough to deliver the warning.
Casting Methods: Emergency self or touch cast, a breath or two. Blood-ledger rite, a short chant.
Range/Duration: Self or touch. From later the same day to weeks before repayment manifests.

Ancestor's Claim

Purpose/How It Works: Ancestor's Claim awakens a family trait, inherited memory, or old resonance briefly.
Notable Exceptions: It can also awaken buried weakness or ancestral trauma.
Example Use: A duellist calls up the old blade-instinct of their house for one decisive exchange.
Casting Methods: Bloodline invocation, a breath or two. Ancestral reliquary rite, a short chant.
Range/Duration: Self. A few moments to a short while.

Scarlet Compass

Purpose/How It Works: Scarlet Compass tracks a blood-marked target over distance through sympathetic pull.
Notable Exceptions: Running water, ritual cleansing, and counter-magic can disrupt the line.
Example Use: Bounty-takers run a fugitive noble to ground across half the city.
Casting Methods: Sample-and-compass cast, a few breaths. Basin and needle rite, a short chant.
Range/Duration: Nearby to a whole valley with a strong sample. From part of a day to several days.

Sanguine Shield

Purpose/How It Works: Sanguine Shield hardens a blood-based defence around the caster by converting living vitality into a temporary protective buffer.
Notable Exceptions: It costs real reserves and weakens the caster afterwards.
Example Use: A blood-mage survives the first volley at the cost of staggering after.
Casting Methods: Self-blood cast, a few heartbeats. Bracer or ring focus, a breath or two.
Range/Duration: Self. A few heartbeats to a short while.

Inheritance Knot

Purpose/How It Works: Inheritance Knot preserves a trait, gift, burden, or vulnerability within a line.
Notable Exceptions: It is ethically fraught and often used abusively.
Example Use: A house binds its resistance to one poison across generations.
Casting Methods: Family-line rite, a long chant. Cradle or grave binding, an hour's ritual.
Range/Duration: Bloodline-scale. Years to generations.

Pulse Theft

Purpose/How It Works: Pulse Theft steals vigour from a weakened target, transferring short-term stamina or stability to the caster.
Notable Exceptions: Extremely taboo and less effective on healthy resistant targets.
Example Use: A desperate killer draws strength from a dying foe to keep fighting.
Casting Methods: Touch theft, a few heartbeats. Hooked line cast, a breath or two.
Range/Duration: Touch or short range. Instant transfer with brief benefit.

Kinbound Oath

Purpose/How It Works: Kinbound Oath seals a promise through shared blood, making betrayal heavier than a normal vow.
Notable Exceptions: Coerced blood gives an unstable and often cruel bond.
Example Use: Exiled siblings swear mutual return if either claims the family seat.
Casting Methods: Shared blood and vow, a short chant. Family altar rite, a long chant.
Range/Duration: Participating kin. Until fulfilled or broken.

Red Memory

Purpose/How It Works: Red Memory draws ancestral emotion, instinct, or fragmentary memory from blood relics and preserved remains.
Notable Exceptions: It gives impression more often than literal narrative.
Example Use: A sealed vial from a dead hero reveals fear at one forgotten name.
Casting Methods: Relic-blood reading, a few breaths. Shrine rite, a short chant.
Range/Duration: Touch. Brief read.

Lifeline Mortgage

Purpose/How It Works: Lifeline Mortgage trades future vitality, longevity, or recovery for immediate impossible output.
Notable Exceptions: The later cost can be devastating and hard to measure fully.
Example Use: A healer saves ten lives in one night and wakes years older.
Casting Methods: Desperate self-binding, a breath or two. Contractive blood rite, a short chant.
Range/Duration: Self-powered. Immediate surge with future debt.

House Ward

Purpose/How It Works: House Ward creates protections keyed to a bloodline so only the rightful line passes or wakes its benefits.
Notable Exceptions: Mixed lineages and concealed heirs create loopholes.
Example Use: A manor recognizes the returning heir despite all false seals.
Casting Methods: Threshold blood cast, a short chant. Full estate rite, an hour's ritual.
Range/Duration: One dwelling or chamber. Months to generations.

Crimson Resurrection Fraud

Purpose/How It Works: Crimson Resurrection Fraud mimics signs of life without true restoration, forcing warmth, pulse, or movement in a dead or dying body.
Notable Exceptions: It is not real resurrection and is often used for deception or denial.
Example Use: A tyrant's household hides his death long enough to show him on the walls once more, so the besiegers do not storm before dawn.
Casting Methods: Touch fraud cast, a few breaths. Full corpse-manipulation rite, a short chant.
Range/Duration: Touch. A few moments to most of a day, depending on integrity and cost.

In the Writers’ Guide

How Magic Works FoundationsDark Magic
The Schools of Magic FoundationsThe Compound Schools, The Common Spells, Access, Reputation, and Fear
Raised Corpses A Bestiary of CaeldonUses and Dangers
Glossary Foundations