Blood Magic

A form of life magic, though much more derived and specialized around altering, manipulating, and controlling aspects of one's own blood or that of a target.

Origins of Blood Magic

It is unknown when or where blood magic originated from exactly, as its usage is extremely old, records from the human era in both the Blood Dragonflight and Vampires describing it as an already well established practice. One of the most prevalent theories on its origins is that blood magic may have been developed twice, once by the Blood Flight and once by vampires, independently of one another and through cultural exchange between the two groups, their techniques merged and became the blood magic known in the world today.

Effect

Due to being a relatively basal magic with a wide array of applications, blood magic can have a wide variety of effects. Nearly every blood magic spell is designed with the intentions of altering a target's blood in some capacity.

Medical use and effects

The medical field makes great use of blood magic for treatment of a wide variety of conditions and injuries across the world.
For injuries, blood magic can be used in a variety of ways in order to stabilize a patient such as bypassing large wounds to prevent blood loss, making barriers to prevent hemorrhaging, continue oxygenation of wounded areas, and force the heart to pump when unable to on its own as a result of trauma. It can also be used for treating blood borne diseases and filtering toxins, hormones, or other compounds from a patient's blood, replacing some hormone therapies, medications, and dialysis in some areas almost completely.
A near global practice as a result of blood magic is the use of cloned blood made from samples taken from patients during regular check ups to provide their own blood to them in case of severe injury or illness that requires blood transfusion and has been extended to bone marrow transfusions as well. Samples prior to affliction of disease are extremely valuable as they can be continuously reproduced and used in treatment for that patient they were taken from, completely eliminating risks of rejection from the body in nearly all cases. This practice also allows for blood banks to have steady supplies of blood in the cases in which a patient's blood is not available.
Experimentation in recent years has been delving into seeing just how far the practice can be taken. Theories presented often discuss whether or not other tissues can be cloned and reproduced via magic as blood can, such as for organ or tissue transplants and speeding up the healing process.

Combat Use

Although much of the world has come to agree that blood magic cannot and should not be used for combat, there are exceptions. Ludovic, the God of Bloodshed, is known and permitted to use blood magic freely and often does so by using blood spilled in battle as a weapon, freezing it into large icicles to throw at opponents. Even in areas where blood magic is restricted only to medical personnel, there exists exceptions for battlefield medics, EMTs, and field doctors to use it for self defense if attacked as a last resort, despite much controversy.

Food Usage

In vampiric communities, blood magic is heavily used for the reproduction and manufacturing process of food grade blood for vampires. Although many areas have switched to using technology to clone food grade blood, the practice still remains in more traditional circles and older communities to use blood magic to clone blood for consumption. The practice is highly regulated and requires blood production facilities to be subject to testing for safety, contamination, freshness, and disease.

Illicit use

Despite massive penalties, such as fines, loss of medical license, and often jail time for misusing blood magic, there are cases in which it is used to deliberately cause harm. Most prominent are cases in which blood magic users have manipulated target's blood to cause heart attacks and strokes for assassination, because blood clots caused by blood magic are near indistinguishable from those that form naturally. Blood magic can also be used to drain the blood entirely from a target's body through mucous membranes or small injuries.

Related Deity/Higher Power

Mora, The God of Life

Related School

Life Magic

Related Element

Life

Applied Restriction

Blood magic is extremely restricted in its use, legally allowed for medical procedures and treatments by licensed professionals. Outside of this use, it is often classified as torture or medical malpractice.