Creating Magic Systems: The dark power of blood

[@JustInTimeWorldbuilding]

Check out my books here: www.mariemullany.com/work Blood magic is a prominent feature :D

[@Silver_Girl178]

Blood magic is the ultimate "how badly do you want it? Okay. here's what happens once you get it," setup. Love it!

[@_furydance8890]

I read from somewhere that "milk is filtered blood", and I think this could be a good point in a blood-based magic system. Maybe milk can be a substitde for blood or something even stronger than blood. but, since you know, milk only come from a subset of human race, in a certain period, that would definitely make the gender dynamics very interesting to explore.

[@snakeswithwings]

im pretty sure a lot of your bodily fluids are byproducts of blood. i know for sure sweat is, so im not sure that would work exactly that way

[@comentedonakeyboard]

There is even an inbuild conflict, since magic would of course compete with babies for the milk supply, leading to potential dark magic.

[@kit888]

I'm also thinking - blood as identification (opening locks, activating weapons), blood to seal an agreement, mixing blood from different people as part of a spell, and not just to bind a voodoo doll but also to create a monster. BTW Melisandre killed Renly before she met Gendry. The leeches were for Joffrey, Balon Greyjoy and Robb Stark.

[@JustInTimeWorldbuilding]

Ah yes! It's been a while since I read the books :) Blood as identification could definitely add a great element of security.

[@leigh-anjohnson]

My recent story idea has a historical war between witches and vampires where the war was ended by a Covenant signed and sealed with both blood and magic. The Covenant making it so that vampires could not feed on witch blood, which they were drawn to because it made them more powerful, but now they would burn if they drink it; and witches were forbidden from using blood/death magic to control or attack vampires (a form of necromancy to control vampires since they are technically dead/undead). The Covenant also has more minor rules that would come into play in the story. When a splinter group of witches wants to break the Covenant and use forbidden blood magic for some nefarious plot, both the witch leaders and the vampire leaders want to prevent this, and keep it quiet so that their cold war will not be reignited.

[@JustInTimeWorldbuilding]

Oh that sounds like a great premise for a story. It’s got a definite urban fantasy feel to it

[@zombiedemon1762]

I'm at 1:17 and I just want to say it's awesome that you mentioned that Greek connection to blood magic. I'm pretty sure it was an ancient Greek belief that blood is the soul or at least is where the soul is inside the body. Similarly, what the Greeks believed about blood seems to be what the Egyptians believed about hearts. In an anime called Hellsing Ultimate, vampires drink blood NOT ONLY for continued survival in undeath BUT ALSO to drink the souls of whoever's blood they drink. Although that's kinda not revealed until one of the last few episodes. Similarly, I'd like to see a fictional Egyptian vampire-like monster that eats hearts instead of drinking blood.

[@zombiedemon1762]

3:57 I would probably have the doll be made of the hair from whoever it's supposed to be linked to.

[@rockclanhawkstar1454]

For one of my worlds, the primary magic is Blood based, as not only is blood and veins the house of the soul, but blood also connects them to the sun goddess as that is where all blood is from. The blood magic so far only has one ritual to it, being that it allows one to turn into a werebeast, or in my worlds case, Lykobeast.

[@elderscrollsswimmer4833]

Terry Goodkind had the idea of drawing spells, but to use either specific sand or blood. Now if you wanted really big magic and happened to be a monarch, you have a building made in a spell form and then have people live in said building, providing the blood without the blood ever even leaving their veins.

[@haetrow759]

I once read that iron was believed to ward of or even prevents magic from being castet. It also protects from witches and demons. This is very contradicting to the trope to usually use blood as a magical power source. It would be really interesting how that would play into a magic system. If people would be able to cast magic by themselves, why are they able to do it? If people need protection against magic they can just splatter some blood around.

[@JustInTimeWorldbuilding]

A very interesting thought and a great twist on the normal trope

[@zombiedemon1762]

What if you make a story about iron being just another strong source of magical power and one of the multiple reasons why blood magic is super powerful?

[@comentedonakeyboard]

Perhaps the secret to magic is using copper based blood? (Evidently not from Humans)

[@zednumar6917]

Anything that is part of you or is intimately associated with you will always be connected to you through the Law of Contagion in magic. Blood therefore created a poweful connecton to you that someone can use against you.

[@hhowdy]

For my story blood magic is called Scorning and is one of the forbidden tomes of my fantasy world. Scorning is vile and cruel and forbidden for a reason just like avatar you can freeze someone like a statue if they wanted and by far more devastating can explode peoples body parts with ease, primarily the head. For such an overpowered magic system there is a catch to “Take The Toll. Suffering for suffering.” For each spell a Scorner wants to cast they must chop off something from their own body. This gives limitations because there is a point to where you can’t chop anything else off unless you want to bleed to death. The more blood and flesh sacrificed the more spells you’re able to use. And the more spells you use the more you’re toll goes down and you can’t use any anymore. The Scorn spells are called the 51 vials. Just to put into perspective cutting out your eye and your ear will get you maybe one vile. Slicing your face cheek to neck will barely get you one vile. Since the limitations are so drastic Scorners result to drastic measures to get what they want some cut off their entire nose, some cut off their lips, some chop off their tongues, some knock out their teeth. Male Scorners even resort to cutting off their own penis and balls just to get the use of vials. Some even cut out their own kidneys. Scorners also found cheat codes to get the vials they want like chopping off each tip of every finger which adds up to one vial. This makes it so it’s visual and you’re maybe able to spot out a Scorner with all of these visual elements. Since this is a medieval fantasy world and the medical treatment isn’t all that good many die bleeding out trying to get what they want. Only the most committed and lucky ones get what they want and by far the most absurd only few have ever gotten all 51 vials barely even being human anymore life hanging by threads of magic. Scoring is abhorrent in my world and there is a reason it’s forbidden. I’m not that great of a writer and my version of blood magic can 100% be evolved. This is just the base idea, I want to add more to it. The most important part of a story for me is emphasis if there’s no emphasis no one will care. So maybe you can see that by how horrible I made Scoring sound. Great video too 😊

[@Silver_Girl178]

Have you done a video on divination in fantasy, yet?

[@JustInTimeWorldbuilding]

I have mentioned it in some of my videos but I haven’t done a video dedicated to divination. I’ll add it to the potential magic list :)

[@Silver_Girl178]

​@@JustInTimeWorldbuilding Seems to work well in low/lost fantasy worlds. Where the people look for any sense of control

[@nicolashansen2546]

What if the world the place is based on is made of blood and rock? Would blood magic be considered a common magic?

[@JustInTimeWorldbuilding]

Oooh that’s an interesting thought. You could maybe treat blood magic as an elemental magic in that case? Since it’s an element of that world?

[@comentedonakeyboard]

Blood Magic is more powerfull if the, erm "donor" had some Coffee ☕