BloodSorcery V5

Blood Sorcery

Known to Clans

Banu Haqim and Tremere

Nicknames

A Kind of Magic, Thaumaturgy, Quietus

Type

Sorcery

Blood Resonance

Sanguine

XP Cost of Rituals

3x Level of Power

Blood Sorcery

Masquerade Threat

Low-High. The individual appearance of the powers and Rituals in Blood Sorcery varies as widely as their effects.

About Blood Sorcery

The Tremere maintain that Blood Sorcery, or “Thaumaturgy” as they call it, was their invention. To hear the Banu Haqim give their version, “Quietus” was their blood right long before the Tremere became vampires. Other clans make the same statements. While its origins are murky, the dreaded nature of Blood Sorcery is not. Few Kindred trust the wielders of a power that can manipulate the vitae in their veins and turn Blood into poison.

Unlike other Disciplines, which could be described as advancing organically through the victims chosen by the vampire, practi¬tioners of Blood Sorcery require teachers. The Tremere once relied on their pyramidic clan hierarchy to arrange tutelage for neonate apprentices, while the Banu Haqim stress the sire-childe relationship as being the best form of mentor¬ship. These nights, many a Child of Haqim washes up in Europe or America far from their sire, and with the Pyramid broken Tremere neonates frantically search through moldy tomes and palimpsests for scraps of true lore. Genuine masters of this Discipline develop their own Rituals, though many guard them from others, revelling in the mystery surrounding their unknown cache of abilities. To practice Blood Sorcery is to twist one’s own Blood into submission. Any form of this power reminds a vampire that they’re far from human, as no mortal could wield magic in this way.

Uniqueness of Blood Sorcery

Blood Sorcery is a special Discipline in that it both confers powers, like other Disciplines, and also unlocks the ability to perform Rituals up to and including the level the user holds in the Discipline. Ghouls of Blood Sorcerers or thin-bloods drinking from Sanguine temperaments gain temporary access to the Discipline powers, but not to Rituals. Its regular powers seem comparatively weak, but the versatility of the Rituals more than compensates, assuming the user can learn them. At character creation, a player can choose one Level 1 ritual if they have at least one dot in Blood Sorcery. Characters can buy new rituals at the cost of the ritual’s level x 3 experience points. Learning new Rituals during play requires both experience and time. Expect a Ritual to take at least the square of its rating in weeks to learn.

Powers

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  • Corrosive Vitae: Altering the properties of some of their own Blood, the user can make it highly corrosive to dead substances, able to corrode most items down to steaming sludge, given enough time and Blood shed
  • A Taste for Blood: By tasting a drop of blood, the user can discern certain basic traits of the one to whom it belongs

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  • Extinguish Vitae: The user can intentionally remove the unlife-giving properties of some of the Blood in another vampire, stoking their Hunger as the victim’s inner reserves curdle into impotence

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  • Blood of Potency: The vampire can concentrate their Blood, increasing its potency temporarily
  • Scorpion’s Touch: The vampire can transmute some of their Blood into a paralyzing poison, capable of affecting mortals and vampires alike

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  • Theft of Vitae: Through mystical means, the vampire opens a wound in a major artery of a mortal victim, blood shooting out through the air in a stream toward the open mouth of the user.

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  • Baal’s Caress: The vampire can transmute their Blood into an extremely aggressive poison, lethal to mortal and Kindred alike
  • Cauldron of Blood: This gruesome power lets the user boil the blood of a victim in their own veins, causing massive damage and excruciating pain

Blood Sorcery Rituals

Disclaimer

Unless otherwise noted, performing a ritual requires a Rouse Check, five minutes per level to cast, and a winning Intelligence + Blood Sorcery test (Difficulty = Ritual level + 1). Rituals usually require additional ingredients, though some need only the uninterrupted concentration of the user, and often involve the mingling of Blood with ingredients chosen according to the principles of sympathetic magic or alchemy. Unless otherwise stated the caster can only perform beneficial rituals on themselves.

Powers

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  • Blood Walk: An advanced version of A Taste for Blood, the caster is able to learn even more information about another Kindred from their vitae.
  • Clinging of the Insect: Gives the caster the ability to cling to walls like a spider. 
  • Craft Bloodstone: Creates a Bloodstone, a magical tracking device. 
  • Unseen Underground: Turns the caster invisible for a time, when they are underground.
  • Wake with Evening's Freshness: Allows the caster to freshly awaken from torpor during the day as if it were already evening.
  • Ward Against Ghouls

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  • Calling the Aura's Remnants: Speak with the residual psychic aura of someone who has died.
  • Communicate with Kindred Sire: Creates a telepathic link between a childe and their sire.
  • Eyes of Babel: The caster gains the ability to read and speak any language known by their target.
  • Illuminate the Trail of Prey: Allows the caster to perceive the past whereabouts of an individual through a glowing trail. 
  • Ishtar's Touch: The caster turns a dose of their own vitae into a narcotic, 'truth-serum' like substance that leaves a victim more suggestible and vulnerable to mind-affecting Disciplines like Presence and Dominate.
  • Truth of Blood: Creates a potion capable of discerning lies from truth in a statement.
  • Ward against Spirits
  • Warding Circle against Ghouls

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  • Bladed Hands: Physically sharpens the caster's hands.
  • Dagon's Call: A Banu Haqim ritual that ruptures the blood vessels of a victim from afar who has previously came into contact with the caster's vitae. 
  • Deflection of Wooden Doom: Causes a stake about to pierce the heart to shatter. 
  • Essence of Air: Creates a potion that grants the user limited flight abilities. 
  • Eyes of the Past: Recalls events in the caster's mind about past events that took place in their location up to five years prior.
  • Firewalker: The caster increases the target's resistance to fire. 
  • Gentle Mind: Increases the frenzy resistance of the target's mind. 
  • Haunted House: Causes a vampire haven to appear haunted. 
  • Illusion of Peaceful Death: Restores wounds on a corpse (at most half-unexsanguinated) to conceal evidence of an unnatural death. 
  • Illusion of Perfection: Conceals the caster's appearance into that of a nondescript individual, similar to the Obfuscate ability Mask of a Thousand Faces.
  • One with the Blade: The caster enchants a dedicated weapon with immunity to rust and dulling almost as if it were a ghoul, as long as it remains within their possession. If stolen, it ages and becomes able to perform Aggravated damage on its original enchanter. 
  • Sanguine Watcher: Summons a rat familiar out of Kindred vitae. 
  • The Unseen Change: Forces a Lupine into their Wolf form.
  • Ward Against Lupines
  • Warding Circle against Spirits

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  • Defense of the Sacred Haven: Wards a haven against the sun itself.
  • Eyes of the Nighthawk: Allows the caster to possess a carnivorous bird.
  • Incorporeal Passage: Allows the caster to pass freely through solid objects and become immune to physical damage. 
  • Innocence of the Child's Heart: Conceals the caster's Kindred aura from Auspex. 
  • Protean Curse: Transforms the target into a bat. 
  • Rending the Sweet Earth: Reveals the presence of a Protean Earth Meld user.
  • Ward Against Cainites
  • Warding Circle against Lupines

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  • Escape to True Sanctuary: The caster creates two circles that act as a one-way portal from one point to another.
  • Heart of Stone: Turns the caster's heart into stone, making them immune to stakes but completely numbs their sense of emotional and social awareness.
  • Shaft of Belated Dissolution: Enchants a stake with enough power to kill a vampire upon contact with their heart.
  • Warding Circle against Cainites