Blood mage - requiring details

Thanks for everyone for this information *hugs*

Nygarth wrote:

Kristeas Sunbinder wrote:There's a thread on Blood Magic in "The Infirmary" in the group forums.

That's my creation, yes. If you have any questions I'd be happy to help.

Me and Nygarth here has for a long time been looking at the 'Blood Magic' trying to establish what it is and can do, be capable of doing, within "friendly" as well as "Hostile" uses.

We've of course mainly been tossing about ideas, since we can never claim what isn't actually there to be actual lore, but Blizzard is slim on their blood magic.

Even so, we've spoken of it much and can probably help you some if need be.

In my humble opinion, blood magic is stigmatised for two reasons:

1) Because of the shedding of blood (which is never a safe thing). To draw blood from yourself or others is a frightening thing. It's no the matter of the blood itself such as the act of shedding it. You have to hurt something or someone to draw your power, and I sincerely a doubt a few drops of it would help much.
When a person donates blood about 500 mL is taken, this is the maximal safe amount of blood to draw. Enough to make a lot of people feel dizzy, nauseus or even faint due to the blood pressure falling (and indeed, you do take about 10 % of the blood in the body). The difference here is that in modern times we have vacuum draw, syringes and anti-coagulant coated narrow tubing controlling the flow. In the wow era, the only way to get that much blood is to make a deep cut.
If much blood is necessary, you essentially have to take the victim with you. And if you need lots of power... chances are you'll kill them (remember, you don't even have to take all of the blood. Just drawing 1,5 L could be enough to kill).

2) Because it seems to me that blood magic is the primary tool of the trade of Warlocks and Necromancers. Warlocks are all about secret names, control, health and demon blood. It is even suggested that drinking specially prepared demons blood is the traditional introduction to becoming a warlock (immeditatly initiating the fel addiction).
In game there's really only two blood magic spells (exceoting the death knights) I can think of: Blood bolt. And Blood Pact. The former from blood mages, the latter from imps.
In addition, all the really famous and powerful blood mages, most notably Kael'Thas, are also warlocks.

*pokes* I've used a http://www.wowhead.com/item=37567#comments as syringes before and there's Seal of Blood still ingame for npc's aswell. One of them uses it in combination with "Judgement of Blood".

Isn't Seal of Blood less blood magic and more a symbolic technique used by the Blood Knights (same applies to judgement of blood)?

And indeed, there are syringes. My point was that the drawing of blood for the purposes of donation is a very major procedure that requires a lot of tools to do properly. In order to draw the same amount of blood in normal blood samples you have to use about 50 - 100 tubes.
The reason drawing lots and lots of blood is difficult is that it congeals and quickly. Even with a needle it's actually very difficult to draw more than seven tubes from the same arm. The maximum I've pulled off is nine, but that patient was taking heparin regularly. After that the vein sort of starts to close up and block access.
When donating blood, you use larger needles and often use stronger pressure (often with the help of a machine) to collect the correct amount. I don't see the wow era pulling that amount of blood off safely.

I tend to do fire cupping (or more specifically, wet cupping) for drawing blood rather than syringes. Feels more fantasy to me.

Gahalla wrote:Isn't Seal of Blood less blood magic and more a symbolic technique used by the Blood Knights (same applies to judgement of blood)?

The "spill blood to get an effect" would be much more clear in Seal of Blood than Bloodbolt and Blood Pact. Seal of Blood uses your own blood and significantly more than Blood Pact, and I imagine Bloodbolt being quite a volume of blood, but it doesn't seem to hurt the caster either.

Indeed, though in principle the technique is the same as a syringe. You draw the blood out by creating a low pressure so the blood flows out on it's own. Either by vacuum (modern tubes), mechanical force (old syringes) or through heating air (firecupping).

In either case, you'll only draw out as much blood as a regular nosebleed (you can draw more with syringes/tubes mind).

The "spill blood to get an effect" would be much more clear in Seal of Blood than Bloodbolt and Blood Pact. Seal of Blood uses your own blood and significantly more than Blood Pact, and I imagine Bloodbolt being quite a volume of blood, but it doesn't seem to hurt the caster either.

Huh, didn't know that. Very well... it sounds very much like blood magic.

Well, we used to burn churches and kill our own so noobs could practice rezzing on them, the good old days before Liadrin became a hippy.

>.> If we still had Seal of Blood for players, i'd totaly use that for roleplaying.

In terms of getting the Blood out of the willing or unwilling helper, Orth tends to just make a cut that just breaks the natural barrier of defence. The skin. That is a powerful ritualistic act for him, wholly necessary, but the cut itself more symbolic than life threatening. Then it's through that cut that the Blood can be magically taken, absorbed into the Bloodmage directly, or stored elsewhere using simple manipulation of the liquid, something any Arcanist could do frankly. Then it becomes a matter of life and death, depending on how much you take/ absorb. The act of which becomes highly addictive, as any empowering magic, thus more dangerous depending on the willpower of the caster.

Nygarth wrote:In terms of getting the Blood out of the willing or unwilling helper, Orth tends to just make a cut that just breaks the natural barrier of defence. The skin. That is a powerful ritualistic act for him, wholly necessary, but the cut itself more symbolic than life threatening. Then it's through that cut that the Blood can be magically taken, absorbed into the Bloodmage directly, or stored elsewhere using simple manipulation of the liquid, something any Arcanist could do frankly. Then it becomes a matter of life and death, depending on how much you take/ absorb. The act of which becomes highly addictive, as any empowering magic, thus more dangerous depending on the willpower of the caster.