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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Cooper" data-source="post: 2010800" data-attributes="member: 24255">Encyclopaedia Arcane: Blood Magic - Oaths and SacrificeMongoose Publishing prduct number MGP 1018By Ian Sturrock64 pages, $14.95The 18th in the Encyclopaedia Arcane/Divine line, Blood Magic is a good example of what the series can offer.  It provides all different types of blood-based magic rituals, spells, feats, creatures, monsters, and magic items, each capable of being dropped into a campaign without difficulty.  Best of all, each is pretty much standalone, so you can pick and choose which new items you want to add without having to drag along a whole lot of other things you may not wish to deal with.The cover is by Anne Stokes, who I notice has been doing a great deal of cover-work for Mongoose of late.  She certainly deserves the work: this is another in a long string of excellent covers from her.  The cover manages to cover the topic of "blood-based magic" without dipping too heavily into goriness.  You would expect the cover of a book called Blood Magic to use a lot of red and Anne does so, but uses different red hues in the color of the floor and the smoke rising up from the the braziers at the points of the pentagram the wizard has carved in the floor.  The only blood present on the cover is that the wizard is spilling from his forearm and collecting in a bowl (which also holds a skull) as part of the ritual he's performing.  Given the subject matter, this is tastefully done; under another's care, this could easily have been a blood-spattered gore-fest book cover.  Here, the wizard's posture and expression is that of a competent surgeon rather than a crazed serial killer.  The interior artwork is somewhat sparse for a book of this size: only 13 black and white pictures, by Danilo Moretti, Sarwat Chadda, and Eric Bergeron.  Some of these lean more heavily toward the "dripping gore" end of things: on page 6, we have an old-style (hairy-footed, hobbitesque) halfling gleefully cutting the tongue out of a decapitated goblin head, and on page 29 we have a female drow straddling a prone human male as she cuts the living heart out of him.  (Apparently he's had his revenge, though, by casting some spell that removed the bones out of her left forearm, which is now bent at a rubbery angle and really looks rather ridiculous.)  The blood-dripping figure on page 46 wins the "gore prize," though - this is either a naked human female blood mage, or possibly Marilyn Manson, take your pick.  (Unfortunately, the bare nipple poking up out of the blood doesn't necessarily prove either possibility.)  One final art note: I'd swear the elves on page 33 are Romulans!Oddly enough, there is no "art" as such on the inside front cover this time around.  Instead, there is an example of a "sell your soul to the devil" contract (written in blood, naturally).  I was initially displeased, as the inside front cover has in the past been the location of some truly outstanding full-color art.  Then I read through the contract and was amused by its overly-legalized, "loophole-avoidance" phraseology.  Then, as I read through the book's text, I was back to being displeased, as the exact same contract shows up, in typeface, on pages 19-20.  There's no real reason for the repetition, as the hand-written sample on the inside front cover is perfectly legible.  Either the inside front cover or the sample contract pages could have been put to much better use.That, however, is the full extent of my main problems with this book, besides the obligatory minor spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors that seem to so often show up in these Mongoose books.  (To the credit of listed proofreader Andrew Wilson and editor Matthew Sprange, the typo-type error quotient is much lower in Blood Magic than I've seen in awhile.)The book is set up as follows: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Introduction: explaining the concept behind the Encyclopaedia Arcane line</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Blood Magic - An Overview: types and pitfalls of blood magic</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Basics of Blood Magic: how one learns about blood magic and finds a teacher</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Bonds of Blood: bloodrites (including the blood contract) and potential abuses</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Blood Sacrifice: more bloodrites (those involving sacrifice or self-sacrifice), plus 5 feats, festivals of sacrifice, and the dangers of sacrifice addiction</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Creatures of Blood: more bloodrites (those involving the summoning or creation of blood-related creatures), plus 4 creatures and the Blood Animal template</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Blood Transfusions: gaining temporary powers through transfusing the blood of outsiders, fey, or dragons into your veins, plus a prestige class for vampire arcane spellcasters</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">6 new Blood Magic Items, plus two new artifacts</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Help For Games Masters: integrating blood magic into your campaign as seamlessly as possible</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Designer's Notes: Ian's inspirations while writing this book</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Rules Summary: useful charts from previous chapters</li> </ul>I don't have a problem with the fact that the various bloodrites are sprinkled throughout the various chapters rather than all placed together, as they make perfect sense where they are and are not difficult to find.  The Blood Brother and Blood Tribe are well done, although the penalties can be rather steep if your blood brother or a member of your blood tribe is slain by an enemy.  (Of course, this only reinforces that engaging in such a bloodrite is not something that should be done lightly.)  The rules on the blood contract are also very well done (Ian excels at rules mechanics as much as he does in clear prose), although - a minor nitpick - the breakdown of the XP cost of the sample blood contract comes before the explanations of how to determine the XP cost.  This is a little premature; it would have made more sense to tell us how to break down the XP cost and then walk us through the example.I was glad to see the mechanics of sacrificing the lives of others taken to both extremes: not only do we see how much (and what types of) power can be derived by ritually slaying others (or sacrificing our own blood), but we also see just how far the process can be taken (in the often days-long festivals of sacrifice, where literally hundreds of victims can be sacrificed in a somewhat Aztec fashion) and - perhaps more importantly - just how dangerous the act of sacrificing others can be, in the form of the sacrifice addiction check.  I was glad to see a balancing mechanism in place to ensure that sacrificing others is not solely a postive act (in that the sacrificer gains power), but that it also has negative consequences.  In that respect, it's rather like the Ravenloft "Dark Gifts" check (or whatever it's called - my Ravenloft knowledge is getting kind of rusty).The blood-related animals are well done (although it might be worth pointing out that this is a 3.0 book rather than a 3.5 one, not that converting to 3.5 rules would be difficult by any means).  My only question was why Ian chose to make the "bloodless" a creature as opposed to a template.  Again, it works well as a creature (perhaps, looking back on it, even better than as a template, since you have to keep track of how many HD of bloodless you can control), but I would have been interested in seeing a "bloodless" template.  Perhaps we could see it as a free download some day on the Mongoose website, or possibly in a Signs & Portents article?  One final quibble: as an undead creature, the bloodless should not have a Constitution score.  Fortunately, it's been given a Constitution of 10, so it's incredibly easy to ignore as it should have no influence of any of the creature's derived statistics.The blood transfusion rules (Ian admits these were based on a story line from Vertigo's Hellblazer comic book, which I fondly recall as well) add a unique new twist on gaining new powers from a different source.  Best of all, it also comes with a new spell that perfectly counters all of these new abilities, so the PCs have a weapon if they need to take down a transfusion-powered baddie, or the DM has a way to strip the PCs of their transfusion-based power if they get too reckless with it.  The powers themselves are not too outlandish or unbalanced, and the transfusions are only temporary anyway (although they can last for months), so it's a nice way to try something new without having long-lasting consequences in the game world if you don't like how it turns out.All in all, Blood Magic is a very welcome addition to my D&D library.  I'll be using several of the concepts in this book in my own campaign very soon.</blockquote>

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