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Blood is sound, sound is words, and words are power!
~ Grimoire Weiss, NieR (about the power of Blood Magic).

Blood Magic (also sometimes called "Blood Magick"), also known as "Blood Sorcery", is a notorious type of magic that involves the use of blood. This forbidden art (which is often referred to as "Hemomancy"/"Haemomancy"/"Hematomancy") is a supernatural variation of blood manipulation, the kinetic power to control bodily fluid as well as blood.

Overview

An ancient and dangerous form of magic, this mystical but forbidden theurgy is used to cast spells, enchantments and even curses through blood itself, the very bodily fluid which is the potent force as well as the essence of life itself in the working of magic. It may be a token sacrifice, but it may also be the loss of life that fuels the spell. Blood magic is also often used in Blood Rituals.

The potency of spells and rituals of Blood Magic is relative to the source of blood involved. While human blood is the most common fuel of this magic, blood taken from either caster's own, virgin's, child's, royalty's, or members of special lineage/bloodline, as well as menstrual blood usually provide more satisfactory results since they provide most power as the rest being either useless or lack sufficient power even for basic application of this craft. It does not have to be procured through killing the donor through either fight or Human Sacrifice however; some cases showed that a single drop is more than suffice and that the caster may only need to steal at least a vial of blood from its unknowing/unwilling recipient to be used against them or other purposes.

Every user has the inherent power within their blood to fuel spell-casting. This is an ancient version that predates word-based magic and was considered by some to be more powerful.

Blood Magic was a kind of sorcery based on the employment of blood which is an important component in many rituals, spells and other aspects of the supernatural world.

Examples

Comic Books

Literature

  • A Song of Ice and Fire: Blood magic is, in general, one of the more effective, powerful, and, according to many, dangerous magics known in the Song of Ice and Fire universe. Maegi have been known to predict accurate prophecy by consuming blood, and the burning of blood, body parts, and people (often in sacrifice to gods) is effective at accomplishing various magical tasks. There are also some basic rules; most prominently, only death can pay for life.
    • Melisandre uses blood magic to cause the death of Renly Baratheon. She also claims credit for the deaths of Robb Stark, Joffrey Baratheon, and Balon Greyjoy, but whether that's truth or fiction is very unclear at this stage. King's blood is her preferred type, and she uses a very broad definition of "king"; the blood of illegitimate children seems to work just as well as legitimate, Baratheon blood works just fine even though they are arguably usurpers to a throne that, by strict law of succession, should go to the lone surviving Targaryen, and the blood of the self-appointed King Beyond the Wall of the wildlings works as well as that of hereditary southern kings. Taking enough blood to kill the donor works better than extracting a non-lethal amount via leech.
  • Harry Potter:
    • Lord Voldemort: A Regeneration Potion that Lord Voldemort himself used to reconstitute a new, monstrous body in place of the original one has the element of blood magic in it, as one of its ingredients was the blood of the enemy. He opted to use Harry Potter's blood so as to bypass, if not break Sacrificial Protection Lily placed on her son and giving him an advantage over his chosen nemesis. Unfortunately, this proved to be a bad idea not only this allowed the boy to survive the one of the Unforgivable Curses in conjunction of the Elder Wand's refusal to kill him for being its true official master, but also allows Harry to provide similar Sacrificial Protection to his allies without necessarily become a martyr in the process and defeated the Dark Lord in the end.
  • The Heroes of Olympus:
    • Gaea: Gaea plans to use Percy’s blood in some kind of sacrifice to bring down the Olympian gods.

Live-Action TV

  • Sleepy Hollow features many hex spells and dark magic concerned with blood:
    • The very first supernatural phenomenon in the series influenced by blood is the blood tie, formed when a badly injured Ichabod beheaded the headless Horseman of Death. The two's blood merged. When Ichabod rose from his grave more than 200 years later, the Horseman awakened as well due to this blood tie.
    • As the son of a Witness and a witch, Jeremy Crane (later known as Henry Parrish) have magical blood. His blood can bring his golem to life and can also ends its life. Henry's magical blood also helped him from killing by a witch coven's hex spell.
    • James Colby, a murderous painter in 18th century, painted his painting using human blood. After he was imprisoned in his painting by Abigail Adams and Rev. Alfred Knapp, the spirit of Colby endures inside the painting. After Grant Hollister removed the painting from its hexed frame, unknowingly about the hex, Colby's spirit managed to escape the painting. He killed people in order to take their blood and finished his painting. Once the painting was completed, Colby shall revive and start his massacre again.
    • Besides Henry, the series' most notable example of the Blood Magician is nobody but Solomon Kent, a fearsome warlock who is skilled at Blood Magic. He can do hex spells with his blood, boiling his foe's blood to kill them and can also create demon troops made by blood.
    • In "Awakening", a spiritual corrupted Katrina Crane (after affected by Kent) began to practice Blood Magic to summon her son to her. She also used Blood Magic to kill Sutton and made his nose bleeded, similiar to the murder method by Kent when he killed the two auction room staffs.
    • Also in "Awakening", after Henry tolled the Fake Revolutionary Bell, a few descendants of witches had "awakened" briefly, showing magical powers in order to harm the people they hate (without even noticing it). One of them strangled her gambler husband to death, making him bleeded and had a blood hand mark on his neck. Knowing about this case, Ichabod and Abbie quickly recalled Kent, hinting the awakened woman had used Blood Magic to kill her gambler husband.
  • Supernatural:
    • Azazel's minions used a squicky blood fueled ritual to communicate with him. Brady does the same to communicate with his master, Pestilence.
    • In the 4th and 5th seasons, blood can be used to construct a sigil that will temporarily dispel an angel from the area.
    • And in the 4th season finale, it turns out the blood of the first demon, Lilith, must be spilled to complete a ritual to release Lucifer from Hell.
    • And the Special Children got their powers from Azazel bleeding into their mouths.
    • A Season 5 episode had Sam, Dean and Gabriel bound to a location via blood.
    • The 6th season finale had the gate to Purgatory open using a cocktail of virgin blood and blood from a Purgatory resident. They are really fond of this trope.
    • In season 9, Abaddon's followers do some kind of cutting ritual to revive her.
    • The Blood Sigil is a powerful symbol used in blood magic that allows a user to be sent to their kin, regardless of differences in both time and space.
    • The Blood Spell is magical enchantment used by the Hindu goddess Kali to bind other beings to her will via their blood.
    • The Goblet of Blood is a chalice filled with blood used as a common form of communication between supernatural beings and their allies.
    • For more information, see Demon Blood (Supernatural).

Videogames

  • Blood Magic

    Blood Magic as seen in the Dragon Age universe including the Dragon Age comic book series by IDW Publishing.

    Dragon Age:
    • There exists Blood Magic in the Dragon Age videogame franchise and the Dragon Age comic book series by IDW Publishing. It is a school (or style as one can called it) of magic that uses the power inherent in blood to fuel spellcasting and also to twist the blood in others for violent or corrupting purposes. Unlike practitioners of conventional magic, those who utilized blood magic do not touch the Fade when casting spells and find it harder to enter the Fade.
  • In Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion , specifically the Shivering Isles expansion, the character Relmyna Varenim is introduced, and along with her, her improvised magical school “Flesh Magic”. The magic involves using organic tissue as a conduit for spells - with Relmyna testing and retesting what spells flow through a person’s body most effectively, right down to casually torturing subjects, asking them to describe the sensations of pain traveling through their bodies and resurrecting them, body and mind if they die from the pain. Flesh Magic is only barely defined but it seems to be a permutation if necromancy. Relmyna has used it to create homunculi from various separate body parts, restart bodies, including brains, if someone dies, combust cells, ranging from one-by-one to all at once, and created flesh-hounds - a gruesome inside-out type of hound who are a cross between zombies and possessed by infusing them with the blood of the demonic Daedra.
  • Clive Barker's Jericho:
    • Sergeant Wilhelmina "Billie" Church of the D.O.W. Special Forces team Jericho is a powerful expert on blood magic. Her use of this sorcery and her other superhuman abilities play a very important part in the Jericho squad's fight against the Firstborn and it's undead forces including Arnold Leach and the Brotherhood of the Dark Rapture in the videogame's story, and her spells can bind enemies and set them on fire
      • The Sumerian demons Inanna and Ninlil also rely on blood magic (referred to as "sanguimancy" in the game). While Inanna uses the blood of innocent people bound to torture wheels, Ninlil has herself locked within an iron maiden to spill as much of her own blood as possible.
  • Mortal Kombat X:
    • Blood Magik is a powerful, ancient art of dark magic in both the videogame Mortal Kombat X and it's comic book adaption Mortal Kombat X: Comic Series.
  • In the MMO The Secret World Blood Magic is a form of magic the player characters can use. It reassigns the life-force of a creature by using them as a connection between the physical and the spiritual. Though often used as a form of healing it can do things such as taint blood - making one’s own blood poisonous, manifest conceptual pain through the blood stream, cause blood clots, and even pull out a heart from across a room. Often used as just a macabre form of support magic, common uses are to repair damaged cells, form force-fields from the user’s blood to absorb hits around themselves and allies, deflect fatal hits, and accelerate the metabolism of a subject so they have a few minutes of constant healing. It is witnessed as one of the go-to-mystical arts of the Atenist doomsday cult, going as far as to turn themselves into living bombs, ritually sacrifice their bodies to keep their souls bound as tormented spirits and use Blood Magic to summon and bind demons.

Gallery

NOTE: The limit is for 20 pictures only

Trivia

  • Blood Magic is also sometimes referred to as "Sanguimancy" which is a combination of 2 words, "sanguine" and "mancy".
    • The English word "Sanguine" which is both the reddish-brown color and a blood orange fruit.
    • The word "mancy" which has been associated with magic, originated from the Middle English word "-manci (e)", also "-mancy (e)", and it is pronounced as "-mancie" in Old French, "-mantīa" in Latin, and " Greek manteía in Greek, all meaning divination.

Extrernal Links

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