Blood Magic - Repercussions?

[ralexs1991]

Painkillers. Lots of them. Or an evocation spell that applies an aspect of "no pain". Besides, blood loss is not painful; if you bleed someone in the safe and clean way, they'll barely feel a sting - just lots of dizziness from the blood loss.
1st Law is about killing. Hurting is in no way part of the Laws.
Besides, the solution is easy. Say the following three times;

"Upon my Power, and my hope for salvation and rebirth, I, [insert true name] will never violate the Laws of Magic"



No wizard, especially a dark wizard, will violate that oath because it will do horrible things to their own Power. The more they violate it, the more it will eat at their power and that is the one thing a power-hungry wizard will never do. A good wizard might violate it, sacrificing their Power to do good, but once they fall to the Dark Side, they will no longer want to do dark things, lest they lose their power. Nice standoff, don't you think?

you could always whip up something like that braclet McCoy gave Dresden in BR I would treat it as a potion personally

and as for the oath I guess that would be an accpect where whenever you stood to break a law the GM could compel for a consequence against your conviction??

something like "Oath bound to follow the laws of magic"

[Belial666]

A grudgingly given oath from Dresden forced his own powers to attempt to fulfill it. He had serious trouble. Now consider the heaviest, most binding oath a wizard can give, given three times. What do you think will happen to their power if they break it?

[Richard_Chilton]

Totally wrong. Wizards do just that; know the rules for magic and use them - that's what the Lore skill does. Harry even comments on it. In addition, Harry has Bob, a spirit of intellect specifically bound by Kemmler to track the rules of magic and serve as an advisor for exactly that kind of thing.

The Lore skill does not tell you the rules.  

Nope. That character does not have Thaumaturgy. They got the much more limited Ritual: Voodoo Magic. Someone with Thaumaturgy is like a wizard; they can do Voodoo, summon demons, curse people, pull meteors from the sky, raise the dead, try to become gods, tear holes in the fabric of the universe and whatever else they could possibly imagine. That's another reason why wizards with enough experience to know how to use Thaumaturgy best are terrifyingly powerful.

As others have pointed out, having a motif means you follow it.  The results might be the same but the style is different.  Can you see Harry ever slitting the throat of a goat? Of course not - his motif is European wizard, not voodoo practitioner.  He'd do something else, which mechanically would give him the same bonus, but with a completely different look to his magic.
 

Again, almost certainly wrong. If you have Recovery, you have probably used it to heal from wounds already. So you already know that you can recover from those wounds or similar and lesser wounds. I mean, if a Lycanthrope recovers from several broken bones or being bitten by a ghoul (i.e. can recover from moderate consequences), a bleeding wound from a knife, being much smaller (a mild consequence) is not going to faze them much.

The character would have to be into pain for it happen.  Besides, you are assuming that the PCs KNOW THE RULES!!!!!!!!!

From a PC's point of view, one guy is stabbing another.  Knife wounds aren't always the same, especially the ones that require consequences.  Sure, we all know that you can take a severe consequence to cancel a single point of stress, but from an in character point of view you are stabbing someone and leaving "Walk it off", "Man, you really should go take care of that/get some rest.”, and “Man, you really need to go to the ER/get serious help.” type damage.  You are coming that close to killing someone.

Just for power.  You have mentally entered a state you feel that it's okay to almost kill someone because they will get better.

If they find you having bound some people with chains over an altar and are cutting them to fuel your ritual? Sure. If they see you standing with your werewolf buddy and using his blood, willingly given, to fuel said ritual whith the two of you joking about the red robe reccomendation in your book of spells, not really. It is all about context.

You did read that bit where I said that Wardens confused correlation and causation, right?

Okay, let me use one of the most famous examples of that.  A while ago they did a study of heroin addicts in prison and discovered that 95% of them had tried weed before going on to heroin.  They published the rest that 95% of weed smokers went on to become heroin addicts - which really offended a group of statisticians who did another survey.  They found that another substance was much worse because a number approaching 100% of inmates had used it - statistically it was 100%! They then published that study and said since almost 100% of inmates were given milk as children than 100% of those given milk as children would go to prison.

Then they explained the different between correlation and causation.  Correlation means that when you look at thing A you usually see thing B.  Causation means thing B causes thing A.  To get a good percentage of weed smokers who were also on heroin you would need to look at all weed smoker and see how many of them went on to heroin, not ask the heroin addicts if they had ever used weed.

So when the Wardens look at those who break the first law they almost always see someone who had to work up to it so in their minds they see blood magic as the escalation process to murder.  They don't see the people who dabble in blood magic and never go further than slicing someone a bit so they assume (falsely) practically everyone who starts with blood magic will end up killing.


In Storm Front, when Morgan has his sword out over Toot-Toot being summoned, Harry doesn't say:
"Check my aura - I don't have Lawbreaking for that law so FU!".  No, he has to explain his actions and argue that he hadn't broken the law so shouldn't have his head cut off.  If Harry hadn't been able to explain himself then the series would have been much shorter.  That's how Wardens work.  They see something that they think is wrong and they assume the worse.

It's like if a cop spots someone running in some neighbourhoods they will chase him even though they haven't seen him do anything.  They assume that since he's running he must have done something and that's enough for them.  A lawyer might argue that running is not suspicious behavour so they had no reason to chase him, but that doesn't stop them from chasing him.

Richard

[UmbraLux]

Now, both the Channeler and the full on Thaumaturge can be Voodoo priests. Both of them can use the trappings of Voodoo, and both of them can come from that background. But one has gone WAY beyond the other.

Agreed.  One has far more learning / power than the other.  My point was simply that, to an external observer, there's very little to tell the two apart.  Both will look to voodoo rituals as the solution - one because that's all he can do and the other because he just that good at it.

Back to the point of the thread though - I still think the wizard chances Lawbreaker status (even if only in the eyes of the local Warden) simply because those consequences could contribute to the donor's cause of death. 

Premise:

• A willing sacrifice of temporary consequences is 'white' or allowable magic.
  
• A sacrifice causing death, willing or not, is 'black' or lawbreaking.
• A sacrifice resulting in death, even when unintentional is still 'black'.

Conclusion:  A sacrifice, contributing to death, is dark gray at best.  It would almost certainly be seen as Lawbreaking by wardens and would probably have the same mental affect as #3 above.  Given the tone of the books, I'd play it that way.

[MyNinjaH8sU]

Agreed.  One has far more learning / power than the other.  My point was simply that, to an external observer, there's very little to tell the two apart.  Both will look to voodoo rituals as the solution - one because that's all he can do and the other because he just that good at it.

Back to the point of the thread though - I still think the wizard chances Lawbreaker status (even if only in the eyes of the local Warden) simply because those consequences could contribute to the donor's cause of death. 

Premise:

• A willing sacrifice of temporary consequences is 'white' or allowable magic.
  
• A sacrifice causing death, willing or not, is 'black' or lawbreaking.
• A sacrifice resulting in death, even when unintentional is still 'black'.

Conclusion:  A sacrifice, contributing to death, is dark gray at best.  It would almost certainly be seen as Lawbreaking by wardens and would probably have the same mental affect as #3 above.  Given the tone of the books, I'd play it that way.

I agree with everything you say here 100%. I would like to point out that were I to have players who wanted to sacrifice themselves on a regular basis for the Wizard's rituals, I absolutely would begin changing and compelling aspects for this. That's serious mind-screwery.

Alternatively, if they wanted to play the Recovery game with me, I would probably simply say that blood that doesn't carry significant amounts of a subject's life force within isn't very magically potent, and that instead, they could easily sacrifice something more valuable, like their minds, and get there.

Let's see the Recovery powers get you out of Mental Consequences, Werewolf...

[Morfedel]

I still think that harming someone else for power, even from a regenerating create, is evil.

Example: you could get me to agree to good me.down and torture me in such a way that I will have no.lasting, long-term harm... say, waterboarding. I will not even have heal from that,.and.if its short term, I may not suffer even any long term psychological issues.

That doesn't make it ok to do it, even if the intentions are good. So what.if torturing me gives you the power to defeat the skinwalker, its still pretty vile, even if I'm willing.

Of course, if it was a one-time thing, in the most desperate of times, I might understand, that once. Desperate times calling for desperate actions and all that.

But if it became a whole "hey, duracell, get over here" thing, that's the cheapening of life, The developing callousness towards suffering.

I had a friend once who was into BDSM. He showed me a picture of a woman who had been tied up and had these long needles shoved all the way through her breasts. He called her a "pain slit," and thought it we just fine. Did she have the right to live like that? Sure. Is it healthy, and normal? In my opinion, absolutely not.

And thats.the point. If harry performs blood magic on a willing billy, who will recover from.it, and quickly, he isn't breaking one of the Laws. That doesn't mean it isn't that dark, treacherous slope allowing you to find it easier to justify more and more extreme behavior.

Sure, he isn't a lawbreaker. But he's taking those moral justification steps  that will make it easier to justly doing it in the future.

[Richard_Chilton]

Sure, he isn't a lawbreaker. But he's taking those moral justification steps  that will make it easier to justly doing it in the future.

Exactly!

Richard

[MyNinjaH8sU]

But if it became a whole "hey, duracell, get over here" thing, that's the cheapening of life, The developing callousness towards suffering.

Oooh, this made me think of one more thing I can add here.

So, in the Dresdenverse, the trappings (see: Aspects) of thaumaturgy and magic on a whole are significant because they represent emotional and mental triggers in the mage casting. He uses these to focus, and, though he doesn't technically need them, things are much harder without.

(click to show/hide)

(Harry's mental circle for summoning Uriel in Changes is a good example)

I posit that blood isn't a power source. Rather, it is the representation of that blood to the sorcerer in question. It is lifeblood. It is sacrifice. It is given or taken, and both acts hold significance.

However: if the taking of the blood is none of those things, if no life is in danger, and no worry is to be had, perhaps it is no longer so significant to the mage, because it holds none of the emotional content it would in a moment of sacrifice.

Agree with me or not, but that is the difference between:

"The wizard crouched low over his friend who lay broken and half dead, his blood running freely. His regenerative abilities might allow him to recover from that wound in time. Hell, he'd as much seen him come back from worse. But that wouldn't be worth a bit if they couldn't make it out of this giant snafu their informant lead them into with their lives. He looked into his friend's eyes, and they shared a mutual, horrible thought. 'Do it,' his wounded ally said, 'just be sure you get the smug bastard.' The Wizard nodded, took a deep breath, and, wincing, laid his palm on his friend's wound, calling upon the power of the blood within, and adding his own copious strength atop it, even as he burned a circle of ash into the ground around them with a flick of his will. The spell was going to be big, and they might not survive the backlash, but damnit, the Warlock was going to see what a real Wizard could do. More than anything though, he was going to pay."

and...

"The Wizard looked over at his buddy. 'Hey, dude, come here, I need some juice to get the ritual working!' Rolling his eyes, the werewolf shambled over to his annoying roommate, picking up a kitchen knife as he went. 'Ok,' he said, bored, 'but make it snappy! Teen Wolf is coming on AMC tonight!'

I just know which one sounds cool, and since the world and the books pretty much runs on the Rule of Cool, I know which one I'd be happy seeing in a game.

[devonapple]

'Do it,' his wounded ally said, 'just be sure you get the smug bastard.' The Wizard nodded, took a deep breath, and, wincing, laid his palm on his friend's wound, calling upon the power of the blood within...

Goosebumps. Yes, thank you - it is clear which is more thematically appropriate.

[MyNinjaH8sU]

Goosebumps. Yes, thank you - it is clear which is more thematically appropriate.

I'm happy to help! I'm totally one of those people who can get bogged down all day feeling like a rules lawyer, and have to remind myself to take a step back and look at what I'm talking about, so I figured I'd share while I did.

[babel2uk]

1st Law is about killing. Hurting is in no way part of the Laws.

I didn't say it was, but I couldn't remember whether the line I'd read was in the section under the First Law where it talks about grey areas, or whether it was just in the powering a ritual using consequences section. I did point out that I couldn't remember which of the two it was in - it turns out that it's in the inflicting consequences to power a spell section. No, hurting someone to power a ritual isn't a first law violation. But it's the first step on a slippery slope towards that end if it's something that is repeated often.

From YS Page 269:

Of course, truly desperate or sociopathic wizards go beyond just self-sacrifice, harnessing the power that comes from the physical and emotional sacrifice of others. The torture or murder of another sentient being is perhaps one of the most heinous acts that a wizard can commit in the pursuit of magic, even (or especially) if the victim surrenders to it willingly.

And from a paragraph later:

This sacrifice essentially represents that the wizard is willing to go to greater extremes. He enters that territory where, in order to get what he wants, he’s willing to enter a conflict with someone, put his own emotions and health on the line, or complicate his life and the lives of others.

The section then goes on to discuss killing and the First Law - which is why my memory had linked it with the First Law section of the rule book.

[Morfedel]

Oooh, this made me think of one more thing I can add here.

So, in the Dresdenverse, the trappings (see: Aspects) of thaumaturgy and magic on a whole are significant because they represent emotional and mental triggers in the mage casting. He uses these to focus, and, though he doesn't technically need them, things are much harder without.

(click to show/hide)

(Harry's mental circle for summoning Uriel in Changes is a good example)

I posit that blood isn't a power source. Rather, it is the representation of that blood to the sorcerer in question. It is lifeblood. It is sacrifice. It is given or taken, and both acts hold significance.

However: if the taking of the blood is none of those things, if no life is in danger, and no worry is to be had, perhaps it is no longer so significant to the mage, because it holds none of the emotional content it would in a moment of sacrifice.

Agree with me or not, but that is the difference between:

"The wizard crouched low over his friend who lay broken and half dead, his blood running freely. His regenerative abilities might allow him to recover from that wound in time. Hell, he'd as much seen him come back from worse. But that wouldn't be worth a bit if they couldn't make it out of this giant snafu their informant lead them into with their lives. He looked into his friend's eyes, and they shared a mutual, horrible thought. 'Do it,' his wounded ally said, 'just be sure you get the smug bastard.' The Wizard nodded, took a deep breath, and, wincing, laid his palm on his friend's wound, calling upon the power of the blood within, and adding his own copious strength atop it, even as he burned a circle of ash into the ground around them with a flick of his will. The spell was going to be big, and they might not survive the backlash, but damnit, the Warlock was going to see what a real Wizard could do. More than anything though, he was going to pay."

and...

"The Wizard looked over at his buddy. 'Hey, dude, come here, I need some juice to get the ritual working!' Rolling his eyes, the werewolf shambled over to his annoying roommate, picking up a kitchen knife as he went. 'Ok,' he said, bored, 'but make it snappy! Teen Wolf is coming on AMC tonight!'

I just know which one sounds cool, and since the world and the books pretty much runs on the Rule of Cool, I know which one I'd be happy seeing in a game.

Exactly! And, way cool btw.

[Morfedel]

I didn't say it was, but I couldn't remember whether the line I'd read was in the section under the First Law where it talks about grey areas, or whether it was just in the powering a ritual using consequences section. I did point out that I couldn't remember which of the two it was in - it turns out that it's in the inflicting consequences to power a spell section. No, hurting someone to power a ritual isn't a first law violation. But it's the first step on a slippery slope towards that end if it's something that is repeated often.

From YS Page 269:

And from a paragraph later:

The section then goes on to discuss killing and the First Law - which is why my memory had linked it with the First Law section of the rule book.

Thanks for locating that, Babel!

Which means, as we were positing, that while the rules don't say "If the character does this, give him an aspect to reflect it," but it does say that these actions are a serious problem.

Thus, I think using aspects to reflect these activities would be very appropriate... if the Wizard does so more than once, or does so even once if it wasn't for any but the most desperate times.

[ralexs1991]

Oooh, this made me think of one more thing I can add here.

So, in the Dresdenverse, the trappings (see: Aspects) of thaumaturgy and magic on a whole are significant because they represent emotional and mental triggers in the mage casting. He uses these to focus, and, though he doesn't technically need them, things are much harder without.

(click to show/hide)

(Harry's mental circle for summoning Uriel in Changes is a good example)

I posit that blood isn't a power source. Rather, it is the representation of that blood to the sorcerer in question. It is lifeblood. It is sacrifice. It is given or taken, and both acts hold significance.

However: if the taking of the blood is none of those things, if no life is in danger, and no worry is to be had, perhaps it is no longer so significant to the mage, because it holds none of the emotional content it would in a moment of sacrifice.

Agree with me or not, but that is the difference between:

"The wizard crouched low over his friend who lay broken and half dead, his blood running freely. His regenerative abilities might allow him to recover from that wound in time. Hell, he'd as much seen him come back from worse. But that wouldn't be worth a bit if they couldn't make it out of this giant snafu their informant lead them into with their lives. He looked into his friend's eyes, and they shared a mutual, horrible thought. 'Do it,' his wounded ally said, 'just be sure you get the smug bastard.' The Wizard nodded, took a deep breath, and, wincing, laid his palm on his friend's wound, calling upon the power of the blood within, and adding his own copious strength atop it, even as he burned a circle of ash into the ground around them with a flick of his will. The spell was going to be big, and they might not survive the backlash, but damnit, the Warlock was going to see what a real Wizard could do. More than anything though, he was going to pay."

and...

"The Wizard looked over at his buddy. 'Hey, dude, come here, I need some juice to get the ritual working!' Rolling his eyes, the werewolf shambled over to his annoying roommate, picking up a kitchen knife as he went. 'Ok,' he said, bored, 'but make it snappy! Teen Wolf is coming on AMC tonight!'

I just know which one sounds cool, and since the world and the books pretty much runs on the Rule of Cool, I know which one I'd be happy seeing in a game.

majorly BA 

Thanks for locating that, Babel!

Which means, as we were positing, that while the rules don't say "If the character does this, give him an aspect to reflect it," but it does say that these actions are a serious problem.

Thus, I think using aspects to reflect these activities would be very appropriate... if the Wizard does so more than once, or does so even once if it wasn't for any but the most desperate times.

After reading that part from the book I'm tempted to make a house rulling giving Blood magic users warped, perverted or even new aspects

[Kaldra]

dare i even ask some one to stat out a power?