I've always thought each school of magic is somewhat ethically and morally compromised, not just blood magic Enchantment robs freedom of choice, yet can be lifesaving, when no one listens to reason or lethal options are out of question. Illusion is questionable, because school's spells deceive and misdirect, but powerful illusions can be physically real, yet faster to create than real life equilevants. Evocation is terrifying due to it's destructive force, but one can't deny it's potency or other qualities such as healing. Conjuration allows summoning beings from outer spheres (demons, angels, elementals) which is suspicious due to their otherworldly perspective, yet travelling becomes faster and conventional Transmutation manipulates all matter, which can lead to hubris or cataclysmic disasters, although controlling weather can save a farmer's crops from draught or prevent a ship becoming a wreck during a thunderstorm. Necromancy balances between life and death, disturbing the natural cycle yet giving another chance to those taken too soon. With Divination one can witness events, those that are best left undiscovered and those with decisive importance. Abjuration can protect you from magical threats while also nullifying attempts of crucial arcane casting, making this school one's best friend and worst enemy. Sangromancy is troublesome, because self-harming can be viewed as a death wish and blood sacrificing of others as ritual torture/murder, yet blood's power is unrivaled and flexible. Those who channel magical power, define how others perceive it.

Even necromancy (as a school) is not so cut and dry as the spells that restore people to life normally are also necromancy. In previous editions, many healing spells were also of that school

Sangromancy Sorcerer idea: The Blue Blood. While often used for nobility the true blue bloods hold real power within their veins. Near them blood fails to coagulate, meaning death saves within 5ft of them automatically fail (excluding them) while they regain a hit dice of healing. Their spilt blood can also be imbued with the properties of a familiar on a reaction to slashing or piercing damage, allowing them to see and hear through it for up to an hour or even cast through it on their next turn. Additionally, when conjuring a creature or creatures they may burn a hit dice as an extra component of the spell to make the creature/s a blood facsimile with the added qualities of resistance to non-magical slashing, bludgeoning, and piercing and Blood form: able to move through a space 1 inch wide without squeezing. Finally, when magically healing or being magically healed, they may use a reaction and burn a hit dice to have one target (including self) regain the maximum number of health.

As I have been collecting these books, when I saw Sangromany I was/is so excited to see this. I know with my time on the DnD reddits people want Sangromancy so much. Reading the spells and the flavor of them made me so excited. Sadly no one is going into this school in my campaign. But that means I can use it as DM >:)

I was in a campaign where I ended up playing a Druid (Circle of Blood) and a Sangromancer, she started off in the Old Ways trying to fix the land and help heal it the normal ways (the party and her not aware that Witches had blighted the land for a reason). She resorted to moving to the Circle of Blood to help take down the Witches and help restore the land, in doing so she started to learn more forms of Sangromancy and learned the true meaning of putting great gods to rest. To her, without this aspect of her learning, she could never have been able to allow things to grow in a blighted and cursed land, and she would never have been able to put to sleep a great and ancient beast the witches had awoken. She now teaches her craft quietly to the next generation of druid women to keep things that are meant to be sleeping sleeping but to also fight any wicked things that may wish to cause harm to the people and the land again.

Fantastic system using hit dice for something other than healing during rest. That on its own makes it so worthwhile.

I can imagine a player carrying around a bag of holding that is just filled with blood to use for their spells.

I love this video! I am currently playing a half elf in a homebrew campaign. Her base class is fighter, but a deep historical root of her Elvish ancestors was directly out of Blood Magic. And as she is finding out more about her mother‘s culture, she is becoming interested in Sangromancy. I’m excited to see where it goes!

imo any healing spell should be necromancy. or potentially sengromancy. Sengromancy looks mega cool btw, thanks for introducing, ima introduce it into my campaign!

Please do a video on necromancy

Yes, yes we would love an article Ben!!!!

Hey Ben! Great video. I'm late to the party and was just reading about Sangromancy. I was very confused by the mechanics until I saw this video and it makes sense now. Anyway, just dropping a +1 like to adding your thoughts to the Ghostfire Game Blog (if that is still in use.... it seems a while since it was updated last I checked!) Very intrigued by your ideas here!

Love this. I just started a short campaign with a player DMing for the first time Stormwreck Isle. The plan is to play through that and then I take over as DM afterwards to move the same group into Tomb of Annihilation. I made my PC a Dhampir Blood Hunter that is a lore delivery device for Chult. This video makes me want to have a whole war going on in Chult between Sangromancy and Necromancy users. My PC will explain, "I sacrifice part of my life to help others, they just use the corpses as parts". Love it.

Love the sangromancy school and the spells..would love to see some more blog entries with ideas for no -school related items or feats

I would love to see more about these proposed items. I would also like to see and option to allow for existing spells to be empowered by sangromancy, such as sacrificing a hit die to add additional dice to a damage (fireball) or healing (cure wounds) spell.

This video reminded me that I had an idea for a dhampire blood cleric (taldorei reborn) who came from a vampiric society and was basically an FDA agent.

This will also make for a good lore hook to help introduce the blood hunter orders to some dms

Just a reminder that Gentle Repose preserves a corpse from decay. This would thus preserve what blood remained with. Gentle Repose has potential uses I have not heard others talk about. One homebrew item I created was a vial enchanted with the Gentle Repose spell. This allows biological sunstances (notably blood, but could include spinal/cerebral fluid, fresh medicinal herbs, or tissue samples) to be kept near indefinitely, just as long as the vial remains sealed. The amount of material capable of being contained within isn't much, but it beats losing the contents to rot and vermin. This magic item can be how you can keep blood on hand as a spell or crafting component without having to use it immediately. I believe I made the vial a common magic item, but I don't recall the name I gave it. Oh well, just give it a cool or evocative name yourself if you choose to use the idea. A few of these (filled or not) vials might even be cool as treasure, now that I think of it. You can even reflavor them, such as canopic jars (which does increase their volume a bit). Imagine stumbling upon one of these while dealing with a mummy lord, and trying to find a way to harm or weaken the creature through its mystical connection with the sealed remains.

In my DND world’s society, sangromancy is considered highly sacred and it is really hard to access as very few spell casters know how to unlock it let alone cast it, it’s considered highly sacred because of its power, and because of the gods used Sangromancy to create life itself!

Would definitely love to see a more in-depth blog on Sangromancy ideas (: Blood Magic is always a very fun topic and would like to see what other ideas you have 🤔

I love Skarlet from MK. The character inspired a sangromancy-themed warlock (pact of the blade)

I mean, what’s so bad about necromancy when it provides healing for the players? Could be fun to play a Sangromancer Wizard who is a doctor.

i would LOVE to see you make a bhaal spawn blood cleric with perhaps like a 1 or maybe 3 level dip into barbarian with than the rp element that your corrupted blood calls to you and can take control of you making you give into murderous bloodlust with a wisdom save you need to constantly make any time you make an attack roll and if you fail, you go mad for a few turns while also having your rage trigger if you have it as you go full murderhobo on anything or anyone around you.

I'm gonna use this for my vampire boss. I'm taking the Strahd statblock amd adding sangromancy. But instead of sacrificing his own hit die or hp, he deals necrotic damage to the PCs and reduces max hp as part of casting the spell.

Ben. Hurry up with Arora. Lmao. XD. I wants mah Books package. Love these books.

This! This is exactly what I needed! Now my villains have an edge... but will my players (a notoriously unscrupulous bunch of miscreants) seek out such an edge for themselves?

I like the idea of a paladin subclass that has lost its divinity and depends on sangromancy for it's magical prowess. I envision a Dark Knight from Final fantasy or Shadowknight from EverQuest doing this.

BLOOD MAGIC!!! YESSSSS!!!

I'm curious as to why blood magic would not be seen as something divine? I suppose depending on the perspective of someone it could be arcane strictly but I as a traumatized ex religious person see things a little differently lol. As stated in the video, humanoids, everyone from orcs to human were made in a god's image and blood letting can have a cleansing and healing aspect to things as well. But I can also understand why it would be restricted to arcane classes bc of my experience in White Wolf games, specifically VTM with Tremere and blood sorcerer and the history of it. DM and players alike, don't feel that blood magic HAS to be arcane strictly. It can be both arcane and divine but hell even spice things up and made it strictly divine? Could be interesting 🤔

Sangromancy makes sense as something that can be achieved through things like sorcerer bloodlines. I play pathfinder 1e currently and sangromancy goes so well with the sorcerer and blood rager bloodlines. I like sangromancy as a boon that can be used to boost a spell's effectivity for a cost a certain amount of times before you have to recover, but making a spellcaster who is trained in an ability may know how to maximize the potential of a few drops of blood rather than slicing their palm wide open. I play an arcane cleric in a 5E campaign an whenever the discussion of the evil of necromantic spells comes up, my cleric responds with it simply being a tool like any other use of mana. Sangromancy in itself would be something that someone willing to hurt themselves for some reason would use. It requiring a sacrifice from the willing caster who must endure the pain of the power's use says something about what they are after and how far they are willing to go. Contrast that with someone who is kidnapping people to use as pools of extra blood for their experiments and you have a good contrast between a potential player character and a villain.

I still allow the sangromancy spells for the Blood Domain Cleric from the Tal'dorei Campaign and Tal'dorei Reborn

I wonder how an hombre headless horseman like class would be

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!

i would love a video on how to use the great beast, (or any being like it) i tried it already on my 2 games on Etharis, it was nice and all, the players praised me for it, but it didn't have the great despair effect that it should have and is described on the monster grimoire, so some help would be very appreciated.

I made a scenario where some blood mage ogres cut themselves and popped out blood elementals, and also the main bad guy immediately froze everyone in place and the party had to do skill challenges to get free of the magic, while the ogres were summoning more blood elemental by both cutting themselves and the held party members. they needed 3 athletics checks to break free, or 1 mysticism check to dispel the magic on them, or another person they could touch. it kept the tank bound for a short time, while the experts and skill monkeys were freed quickly.

My world has an order of knights-errant called the Brotherhood of Sanguine Steel. They were originally founded by an ancient and powerful vampire who learned the error of their ways and found a way to teach their craft to others. Blood magic represents the manipulation of various curses to a constructive end, which speaks to ideas of both sacrifice and making the best of a bad situation. They specialise in fighting monsters, fey, undead and other supernatural threats. One of my BBEGs is a rogue knight from this order who's trying to start a civil war among dragons in order to destroy and overturn their empire to create a new order created by humanoids for humanoids. He justifies the evil acts he has to commit to this end by using some of the philosophy of sangromancy: short term pain, long term gain. So far, it's mostly been blood hunters but I may use these subclasses and spells as well!

Here is an idea of a sangromancer background; think of a doctor background, in his hometown and some of his familes were afflicted with a blood disease. In desperation he reached out too this forbidden art and trough it - he discovered hes own blood were immune to the very disease, Trough very small trials and error the doctor saved them but at the cost of unwanted attention - which lead him to forever hidding his true identity and ever roaming the lands and some reasons ends up as a adventurer. 🌟

I actually like how necromancy is a moral debate in Skyrim, even though most do consider it evil.

Every vampire is a neck romancer. 😀

I was a little disappointed there wasn't a sorcerer sangromancer. Edit: I am going to try to get a character approved through a gm. Dragonborn vampire blood sorcerer!

I've generally found that 'crafting blood like origami' is my least favourite aspect of blood magic. Something about it just feels boring to me. There are so many really creative things you can do with blood magic, 'blood telekinesis' just feels like the safest, least creative option. It also leans away from the idea that blood is powerfully magical, instead just using it as an object to hit people with.

I rather like to play necromancy more as biomancy manipulation of the organic and life misunderstood by the people and even some of their practitioners but if one was to change their perspective and look at the details it’s not death but life.

As I started with Dragon Age, to me Blood Magic/Sagromancy would forever be the True Arcane.

When is grim hollow going to fantasy grounds?

imagine a character that's very down with killing people for their own benefit but whenever they're friends are involved they always choose them over themselve, like a altruistic self-serving character that uses Sangromancy to take his own blood then use it as a catalyst to heal his allies and self, he uses the blood of his enemies when he can, so he comes off like a psycho but it's just to heal people ❤

AHH BOO, Im a vampire who has learned to cultivate a high value cummunity

Playing in a Lot5R game definitely makes blood magic (maho) evil. No good comes from using it in that setting. Well, not unless you're happy becoming tainted.

Fun fact: I disagree with Necromancy as evil because of Greek Mythology where it originated and was used as a neutral force for divination via contacting the dead for signs and information as well as technical Necromancy in the form of being guided by or helped by the dead, necromancy can be a force for good but the company of death is most uncomfortable to the point many are driven to madness by necromancy.

First

I've felt like necromancy was more like recycling, (This is probably due to reading Eberron and the Karnnathi view of it). The REAL evil and ethical school of magic is enchanting. That school has no concept of consent. They're just like 'nah, you're mine now'. At least necromancy only deals with dead bodies.